Class Character Design I

FIELD OF ACTION
CD is an artistic activity that uses drawing and coloring to produce graphic characters for stories.

ACTION AREA
Art is mostly applied to animated films, computer games, comics, illustration, motion graphics, etc.

INTERVENTION AREAS
An artistic activity with some subjectivity but which aims, through certain objective parameters, to visually define the physical and aesthetic appearance of graphic characters, indicating through these aspects, their personality, values, and behavior. An essential tool to graphically materialize any type of character in an efficient way.

RELEVANCE IN THE STUDY CYCLE
A fundamental subject in the curriculum of students of the Digital Animation Course, as it is an indispensable complement for the creation, understanding, and manipulation of the characteristics of graphic characters created for the universe of animation films.

Shapes as a base
Geometric shapes serves as base for graphic structure. Triangles, squares, and circles convey certain ideas and sensations.

Tridimensionality and bidimensionality
Understanding that the three-dimensional has an internal conflict and the two-dimensional does not.

Motifs
Complement of the physical appearance, intimate relationship with what the character thinks and projects to the world.

Tangents
A tangent makes reading front/back difficult. Creation of noise.

Silhouette
Iconic level reading and perception guide.

Discover errors
180º turn to detect imbalances.

Contrast of shapes
Proportions and contrast VS expressiveness

Poses
Tool for storytelling, what motivates and depresses the character

Proportions between characters
'Line up' as a relational space between characters

Adequate skills
Adapt personal drawing skills to the given objective.

References
Importance of research.

Colors
Color as a fundamental tool to define moods and refer the characters to specific universes.

Punctuality, simplification and summary of the technique, individualized teaching, tolerance for the student's difficulties, avoid pressuring the student, always be available, respond as soon as possible, see the work of all students once per class, always have constructive criticism, remembering processes, correcting problems, redefining strategies, discussing artistic approaches, valuing all effort and merit, encouraging students to like open discussion, intolerance for students who do not make an effort, negotiating with students: focus on classes chair 'in exchange from the absence of homework, little use of the projector and preference for students' individual computers, not seeing a student's failure as the student's responsibility but rather because the Professor was unable to stimulate him to become interested in the subject, understanding that the final semester grade serves as a guide to understand added value, problems and appreciation of all quality work for portfolio.

Ayumi Bopp-Exploring Emotional Attachment to Game Characters, Aalto University and University of Basel, 2019
Ballon, Rachel- Breathing Life into Your Characters Paperback, Writers Digest Books, 2009
Fogelström, Elise- Investigation of Shapes and Colours as Elements of Character Design, Uppsala University, 2013
Grundy, Cathy- Using character designs to represent emotional needs, University of Brighton, 2012
Irisawa, Yusuke- Creating Customer Experience by Emotional Design, Waseda University, 2010
Jakobsson, Mikael- Visualizing Diversity, Harvard University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2019
Kline, Christopher- The Art and Science of Synthetic Character Design, Synthetic Characters Group, MIT Media Laboratory, 2003
Kuntjara S.W.- Visual Communication Design School of Design, Bina Nusantara University, 2017
Lin Yu, Kai-Chin- A study of character design method, Tatung University, 2022