Character designer

What is a character designer?

Character designers design and develop characters for animated content, and generally animation and video game production companies will have artists that specialise in character design. That said, employment could be challenging the more specialised you become, so it’s advisable to keep your options open and consider animator and games designer roles too.

What will I be doing?

It’s impossible to quantify exactly, but the activities listed below will form part of what you could be doing:

• working to a brief to design and develop concept art that will be taken forward to become 3D characters
• researching source materials to develop your designs from
• reviewing scripts, and following artistic direction to ensure that characters meet story or client requirements
• working to agreed project timescales with a producer, or project manager, to ensure final designs are submitted on time
• creating a broad range of options for individual characters
• developing a range of key poses to define personality and emotion of your character
• developing colour palettes to support your character design
• designing appropriate props and accessories
• working with animators to ensure that your designs are viable for animation
• liaise with clients to ensure that your design meet their requirements.

What skills do I need?

• excellent drawing ability, and you’ll need to be able to do it quickly
• good research ability to support your design work
• working knowledge of colour theory
• good knowledge of fashion and costume design
• be able to come up with a diverse range of solutions for any brief you are given
• confident and capable with a wide and diverse range of media
• confident use of specialist applications: Photoshop; Illustrator; 3D Max; and Maya
• be able to digitise your drawn designs via a scanner or digitising tablet.