(Secondly, this will be illustrated with a lot of random character design sketches for one of my graphic novel characters, a short and very baby-faced twelve-year old boy named Orwell. Stuff to know about him: he's a pompous little grouch and I am really, really bad at drawing him.)
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| (he's the shortest one. he's also the baby of the family.) |
You definitely already have some idea of what character design is, because you aren't dumb. I trust you guys. I like to think I, too, am similarly not dumb, but literally every single time I begin drawing a character my brain goes: "WHOA WHAT IS THIS??? CHARACTERS? PEoPLE? DESIGHNSHAAAAAAA!"
I mean, that's... pretty ordinary... for my brain... but anyways.
Probably one of the weirdest things about creating this comic (and FYI everything about creating the comic is one of the weirdest things) has been the difference in how things are important.
Like, here's a (subjective) list of what isn't of supreme importance when you're explaining what your character looks like in a novel:
- clothing
- hair color, eye color, and colors in general
- exact height and weight, and how that compares to every other character
- most fact-y stuff in general
- clothing
- hair color, eye color, and colors in general
- exact height and weight, and how that compares to every other character
- most fact-y stuff in general
I'm not saying that I think knowing all that facts-y information-y stuff is useless for you to know when you write your novel. Far from it. But when you write a novel it isn't important for your readers to know that your character is 6'5" tall, 235 pounds, brown hair dip-dyed with black tips, green eyes, always wears jeans, and is about seven inches taller than his sister. I mean, sure, some of that information is pretty important or interesting but nobody is actually going to remember the exact numbers. (I dare you to minimize your browzer right now and try to remember that whole description. I dare you.)
Seriously. 6'5"? Who cares? Even I don't really care, I couldn't remember the number and had to look it up in my handy-dandy character file. A hulking giant of a teenager with hands the size of dinner plates and hair that looks like it was cut with a weedwhacker is, in my laughably non-professional opinion, way more interesting.
(And yeah, I just used one of my own characters as an example. I'm so sorry. I try not to do that.)
I think probably my favorite rule when describing characters in writing is this: first describe their most interesting features, and later add factual information in a way that makes it important.
(Am I good at this? HaHAHAAHAHAHAaa no)
Not so with graphic novels. With art, you aren't going to be seeing any numbers and descriptions at all, so for the artist to know what they're doing in the whole height/weight/hair color thing is exceedingly important.
Also, yeah, my pet peeve when it comes to describing characters: detailed descriptions of clothing. I don't mind if somebody mentions in passing what their character is wearing, but I see so many people who describe their characters' clothing in minute detail. That kills me a little bit inside. Clothing is very rarely actually important to plot or characterization, and paragraphs devoted to the colors and patterns of a character's shirt just... it just sort of hurts me.
But that's just me.
And actually, clothing is very important from a visual standpoint, and is thus very very important in the character design of a graphic novel character (which, by the way, is why there are like a billion drawings of clothing design in this blog post. Sheesh, so many clothes).
(Colors are also very, very important in graphic novels, because colors are one of the central aspects of artistic composition. You don't use the same sort of artistic composition in novel writing, so they're pretty much completely unnecessary. I mean, I think it might be nice for you to describe your character's hair color (because we are visual creatures and colors are important to us), but if you don't mind me going back to this angry rant, I'd be much more interested in a big muscular girl with a smooshed nose that in a girl with a blond wedge-cut and green eyes.
Let me attempt to further clarify what I am thinking. (Ugh the amount of times I use that sentence is alarming.)
When you read any story, you are most likely planning to develop a relationship with the characters. It's really hard to stick with a group of characters you don't care about, and I find that if I am reading something and I don't know anything about the characters when they are introduced, I don't keep reading.
Novels are all made out of words. Appearance isn't going to capture our interest immediately, (unless there are special circumstances), so I'd say my best bet while writing is to give each character a distinct personality the second they are introduced and leave their appearance until later.
Graphic novels are opposite: they're mostly constructed with pictures, so the very first glimpse you're going to get of every character is one of their physical appearance. In the typical format of a graphic novel, it is very very hard to actually let every character demonstrate their actual personalities right away. You have to make sure your readers are interested in your characters based on their appearance alone.
Notice: All character designs really are completely about personality. The design you show in a novel must absolutely develop the character further. The design in a graphic novel must absolutely develop the character further.
I don't know, I probably have way more to say, but I'm so disorganized that it totally doesn't matter.
Basically: Everything you share about your character needs to develop him in the medium you are using. You're only going to have a few thousand words to share entire lives and words: make them count.
Maybe I'll post some design forms or something? Nah, I have no idea. I'll just end the post here while I still have a tiny bit of dignity left. (My posts are completely made up of word salad, have you noticed?)
(Also, I may be terrible at drawing Orwell, but he is really fun to draw.)
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