How to Design Villain Characters: Part One

hey this is Brooks with character design Forge this is the first of a two-part video series talking about how to design villain characters now there's really a lot to unpack when it comes to building bad guys and even the term villain is kind of broad now you could be talking about an evil character but usually when we're talking about a villain it's the antagonist of a story someone who is in opposition to the protagonist or someone who's looking to cause harm now this could be someone as small as a schoolyard bully all the way up to a nuclear bomb wielding maniac like we tend to do with all characters we want to establish who this character is their personality their motivations before we move on to visual designs so this first video is going to be covering everything up to the visual design of your villain so what makes a villain well like we said it could mean a lot of things it could just be that they're an antagonist to your protagonist all the way up to a mustache twirling snidely whiplash type well I have two criteria for making a character a villain and it may help you in building your own the first is that this villain character has opposing views to your protagonist character in some way now this means that they could have some that align but at some point they diverge now this presents a problem though because how do you show that your protagonist character the good guy is right or justified in his actions this is where the second criteria comes in handy in his book the golden theme Brian McDonald talks about how the central theme to a good story tends to relate back to humanity the fact that we as humans are all the same this humanity means that good people or good characters all treat each other as equals or selflessly you'll see this woven into the best stories even if it isn't necessarily the main point really it's not just a message of goodwill it's one of survival that we all need each other in order to survive that's at least the way that Brian McDonald views storytelling so if you would like your audience to easily understand that a character is bad or your villain then you simply need to show that they value themselves or their own life over other people's lives or well being this character is now running exactly counter to this golden themed idea if they're showing cruelty or a brazen disregard for life we instantly understand that this is not the character that we need to be rooting for by the way sometimes a poorly written protagonist is accidentally or unintentionally written this way which makes us hate them this makes sense when we think about a hero versus a villain a hero may give of themselves in some way forgoing happiness or sacrificing themselves on the behalf of others while a villain will destroy steal manipulate or kill just to get what they want or to preserve themselves even in cases less drastic than life or death a villain can show that they feel that they're greater or more important than others by taking from someone or drastically affecting their quality of life negatively all of this works really well when your protagonist and antagonist characters are otherwise very closely matched in views and goals and personality this can be the thing that sort of tips the scales to show who the good guy and who the bad guy are a classic example of this are Professor X and Magneto now what's interesting about these two characters is that they can share the same room as each other without going at each other's throats they're actually longtime friends and they're both fighting for the rights of mutants but it becomes obvious that Professor X has the moral high ground when you realize that he's looking at humans and mutants and saying that they can co-exist that we are all the same whereas Magneto is actually looking to replace humanity with mutants that they're the future of mankind he's also felt so oppressed for so long that he's seeking revenge on normal humans here are some things to keep in mind when creating villains or antagonists of your own we've become really fatigued when it comes to world ending characters that are bent on world domination or destruction these characters have been done so often and they are usually so OneNote in their motivation that they act more like a device within the story than an actual character instead use the villain character to improve your story as a whole you could have them mirror your protagonist character and show where some things are different between them and other things are exactly the same you could show that your villain is only a few steps off from where your protagonist could be you can even have your villain challenge or highlight the differences between these two characters and make sort of an attack on their morals or integrity instead of raising the environmental stakes like the fate of the world or the destruction of a city it raises the mental moral and emotional stakes for your characters will they make the right decisions and hold up under pressure or will they compromise and end up like the villain another very important thing to keep in mind is that some of the best stories don't have clear-cut villain and hero roles instead these are just flawed characters with different personalities and motivations then you can let these characters loose and allow their conflicting goals to create a lot of tension also remember that stories have viewpoints the hero in one story could be the villain in another as an exercise try to think of a few real people maybe including yourself try to construct narratives around real-life situations or events now you're going to craft the same person as both a hero and a villain in the same situation or different ones I think that this can really help you think of your villains as real three-dimensional people and it will help you in your stories and character designs so much more plus it might reveal to you something about yourself and help you grow as a person and realize that that lunch lady who wronged you was just doing the best that she could in part two of the series we'll talk about how to visually design your villain character and I appreciate you bearing with me through this first video that's a lot of talking and thinking about stories and stuff because it does form a basis for the visual design of your character that's it for me today I'm making new videos every week at character design forge subscribing on YouTube like over 2,000 of you have done now like twenty three hundred I think at the posting of this video which is just incredible thank you for that that will let you know when new videos are made available if this or any of my videos have been entertaining or educational for you please consider backing me on patreon and if you're interested in a comprehensive character design curriculum please check out my course learn character design at learn character design calm thank you for watching and have fun creating

Channel: Brookes Eggleston - Character Design Forge

Views: 136,160

Keywords: character design, drawing, storytelling, villains, evil, bad guy, hero, protagonist, antagonist, how to, art, learn art

Id: EnMaMsiRfIE

Length: 6min 47sec (407 seconds)

Published: Thu Nov 03 2016