Bringing Characters to Life: 4 Personality Building Tips (Sisters File & 5h Video)

Hey Everyone!

Creating and balancing more than one character in a composition is tough. Today, I wanted to share with you some tips I tried while creating "Sisters" (my latest illustration).

About Sisters

"Sisters" composition is an interesting mix between character design and illustration. The reason behind this conclusion is because you can read the full body of the character's design and also have a sense of storytelling driven by their attitude, commonly found in illustrations as well. That being said, you can create a similar composition by addressing key points of their personality.

Personality

1. Contrast

The first point we need to address in their personality is "contrast". Before you even touch the pen, focus on designing characters with unique personalities. This is not only essential as the first step of each character design process but also, this contrast between personalities sets the mood for a scene to happen in the composition.

People like to compare; it's like a feast for the eye. If the characters or shapes in your composition are all the same, you better do that on purpose with a goal in mind. If making them all the same isn't part of your goal, it could end up looking boring (not interesting to read, not enough contrast). You need at least one point of interest different from the rest. In this case, we will have three.

2. Reference help!

Personality can be found in your references through different aspects like gesture/pose, costume, colors, and details. Generally, the animal reference helps to find a sense of personality because of the gesture or color palette.

As an interesting exercise, notice how we attach personalities to things (not even living things), just because they remind us of something, something familiar by association. This process is generally a subjective experience that involves the comparison of shapes, gestures, colors, light, etc. Write down what these characteristics you spot on references make you feel and why? This will help you understand your process and find other forms of sources for inspiration.

3. Gesture and Proportions

The proportions of the three sisters are slightly similar, the main difference is towards costume, colors, and attitude, very simplified from each other in order to take some weight out of the "shape contrast", something I mentioned in yesterday's post, is clearly important for character design exploration.

Nevertheless, these slight changes in the current illustration are strongly influenced by the original references of the animal's pose, the gesture of these animals influences the pose of the character, and a posture change can also influence the shape of the body. Although they are "sisters" and share some anatomical resemblances, each pose changed the shape.

4. Interaction (knives and eyes)

The last touch is the little stories details tell. After making clear each personality, you can imagine a situation in which three or more characters interact. Think of a moment they might share, like games, eating, walking, or just even posing. Each character during this activity should be highlighting the specific aspect that defines its personality.

As a nice touch, I decided to make them look at each other, each with a knife in their hands. You can see how they kind of touch each other in a friendly way, but they secretly are looking at their target. The eyes of each point to a different sister, creating a slight reading guidance. If you look at any of their faces, the eyes will lead you to the other sister and so on, like a loop. Not everybody notices these stories but I think they are fun and also useful to unlock new sets of ideas you can integrate visually.

Conclusion

I usually try to address different personalities during these explorations in different frames, split from each other, so for them to interact with each other in a single one is like adding a new layer on top, it's a different way to also highlight their uniqueness and make the contrast more clear.

These kinds of compositions help people to imagine stories beyond the picture, granting value you already built with your character design. It's like putting theory into practice, theory being the design and practice being the situation in which these characters come to life, all thanks to their personality.

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