Character Design 1- How Clothes inform Character!

hey peeps welcome to another video so today I have a I have a series for you the first installment of the series on character design so it's character design and today's topics may be how clothing tells a story so this is how I design my characters and how I like to inform the audience on how what kind of character they are before you really like it to know them so this is just how I do it feel free to implement it and Clint anything that I put here it's all really like kind of basic but my word isn't law so you don't have to do what I do just you know if you're interested go ahead and watch the video I'm going to use da MCOs as an example he is the main character of my current comic pushers guy so first we're going to nail down the background of your character so that includes their personality their profession their interests their likes their dislikes their fears their goals things like that like you want to write that all down before you actually go ahead and draw the base of your character which is next so for our example down the coast his a lot of his characterization lies in his profession and his image like his very outward image of life being a professional merchants and Alchemist you know things like that so yeah let that let let your ideas like roam free on the panes write it down and all we remember like your character doesn't have to have just one outfit they can have multiple outfits so next is the base so the base is basically the basic bare-bones bare minimum design of your character so for Domino's he I'm gonna tell you a bit about him he is actually a pretty standard looking tiefling there's like nothing special about him as you could see there's like no there's not like any like detail or clothing on him like unless the there's like extra limbs or like a star or wings or something like you know anything that like like forms your character at the most basic level that is your character don't have to go ham on the design right this second because you can let the clothing inform the person that's seeing the character of this characters like personality at the very least I wasn't intending Domino's to be a main character of a anything so it kind of came as a surprise to me that he developed the way that he did so what's next is I think you know what's next it's freakin research so here what you see me doing is research like you go straight to Google and look for things that your character might wear and whatever era that they're in whatever whatever setting up the man's sci-fi fantasy you know surreal things like that I personally for da MCOs I looked up fashion from the eight nine hundred the nineteen hundreds it within that like very large time frame be honest and it's really interesting to see that the more pon time progresses the more Square the men's fashion silhouette gets and that's a little unfortunate but I think I found a sweet spot because I think he would like to wear a lot of light not too fancy things but like nice-looking things you know what I mean so grab all the reference that you can take your time with this okay it's not boring like don't don't think like oh I gotta research like I know like the word research is linked with like things from like school or you know all that but no this is fun alright keep it fun think of the things your character would wear based on what they like their profession their personalities and you know interests you know what I mean just try it like give it a try and if you think if you get into the mindset of your character it becomes a lot more easy so after I gathered some research and like gathered some references and designs that I liked or that Domino's my like I put it all together like I like to do like a collage in Manga Studio - kind of like reference what I'm looking at so that I can put together some kind of design for him and I think that leads into the next section of this video which is the fun part which is designed so since he is a businessman Domino's he's like a merchant of sorts he likes to give up a professional heir he likes to look good and his he really values his apparent that would inform his character so much I think and that's why I often put him in this particular outfit it's kind of a mix of different eras like I think the the most like recent era I've given him like it would be like the coat and the spats cuz like I don't really know if spats were a thing too far back but whatever he's gonna wear it because he likes it you know what I mean so he's very fashion-forward he likes to wear things that make him look appealing and make him look like a professional make him look kind of like not like terribly rich but like well-off you know what I mean because that's what he is so being an alchemist he isn't dressed like this all the time you know what I mean so like if you're making potions I highly doubt you want to like wear your best coats and dirty up your best shirts you know right no absolutely not know that he's not having that so like I said before you can make more than one outfit for your character and you know you don't have you can spend as much time or as little time on this as you want you can just like write it down if that's your thing you don't want to like spend too much time one illustrating like different outfits for different occasions but it can be a lot of fun and something to be said for doing more research and getting into like your character design war and seeing how that can really speak to a viewer who is looking at the character for maybe the first time so since he values his appearance and he valued like things like clothing that he likes to wear he's going to like Twinkies making potions he's actually going to wear like maybe a simpler shirt that he doesn't mind dirtying up like that's that's the case we got all right you're a chef you're not gonna go out and wear a tux and then cook right so he's gonna wear like a simple shirt and he's going to wear like maybe a work apron over it like kind of like one of those really um tough tough fabrics you know what I mean he might wear depending on like the potion that evening he might work gloves for more you know hazardous elements that he might wear like he might be handling things like that so yeah so when he's working in like his workshop he most likely wear something way simpler and when he's out there like on the front desk or he's out like he's already made the potions that he wants to make he's out there selling them he's got his professional wear on you know you know that's just how you know like that's just the different types of clothing for different types of situations and maybe you can think about for your character so here's a bonus like outfit for fun because I was just having so much fun like designing different outfits for Domino's that I decided to give him an adventure outfit now bear in mind like this particular character is a not a fighter and if he was on an adventure he'd be more of a support character because he is an alchemist like I said he's not really up there in the frontlines hacking and slashing because like secondly he's really a coward he does not like to get his hands too dirty if it has anything to do with like like you know fighting so he's got a he'll wear something that he can be mobile in in case he needs to like book it but also he has for weaponry he has a lot of like long distance or finesse weapons on him like a bike nice like or or like like his mane his main weapon I would imagine would be like a whip like not so much hurt somebody but to like back them up off him so or you might have like potions on him let me okay let me talk about the freaking potions belt alright he hates the potions belt you know what I'm talking about guys like I don't know if you seem like a steampunk style that's been out nowadays like like if you're like an alchemist and steampunk fashion you might wear the freaking potions belt with like the it's like a scrap of leather look like potion holders all along the strap that you would like clasp into the belt or whatever like okay hear me out here dama Coates would hate that alright so he's really like I said he's really mobile if he gets hit or something he's going to in like a potion like shatters on him and it happens to be like an alchemist fire or something then he's on fire which like isn't such a bad thing for your to thing but if it's else like acid like he's got a burn you know like he doesn't want to wear the potions build don't wear the potions bill he has potion vials on him and potion things on him but he's going to wear maybe like a tougher bag around his like center or something a little bit more discreet that he has pointy bushings to hold in that has like maybe some kind of shock absorbent material but he's not going to like shout to the world hey guys I'm a freaking Alchemist look at my written potions belt like you know what I mean like he'll have them on hand you might have like one or two small vials but nothing that would put in that risk of like having glass shattered and into his eyes or whatever so that's like another thing like it like a lot of design choices that you make will inform the way the character thinks and the way they feel about certain things so here are some takeaways your character design can be basic don't be afraid of being basic here let the clothing inform inform the story of the character do your research it'll go a long way to help describe character's appearance and try different outfits for different occasions that'll really help you out I hope that helps you out so if you guys like what this video has to offer I'll be making two more videos based on more character design examples that some of my other characters but let me know what you think and what you want to see if there's any questions who I have I need more than happy to like answer them like I said I'm not like an expert at this this is not like word is law or anything like that just take it with a grain of salt if you find it helpful then maybe you can implement some of the exercises that I mentioned in the video be sure to follow me around on social media and like and subscribe if you want to see more videos like this I know a lot of people are like oh and should do tutorials but I'm really kind of like easing into that like this is kind of like a progenitor to that I kind of wanted to be like a discussion of methods that I've done and things that I've tried instead of doing like a step by step for a tutorial thing I wanted to be a little bit more organic and opened a discussion if you guys have any suggestions on how you design your characters feel free to drop it in the comments I'd love to hear from you guys I read like every single comment and I heart it too so yeah that's it for today take care guys bye [Music]

Channel: Voltergeist

Views: 2,919

Rating: 4.951807 out of 5

Keywords: character design, clothing design, art, art youtuber, tutorial, how to design clothing

Id: 056RtEKKG10

Length: 11min 16sec (676 seconds)

Published: Mon Jun 25 2018