Designing a great cartoon character requires the artist to balance creativity, familiarity and practicality within the context of a well-defined goal. Factors such as target audience and format will play important roles in the design of a successful cartoon character. Pure artistry may have to be sacrificed or compromised for the sake of creating a workable design. Designing a cartoon character that is both memorable for the audience and practical for the artist is an art form in itself.
Instructions
1. Outline your goals on paper. Do you want to make a funny cartoon suitable for children's TV? An edgy Flash cartoon for a Web audience? An old-fashioned comic strip? Do you already have a basic idea for your character? An overview of the cartoon's plot? A setting? The more specific you are in outlining your intentions, the better.
2. Calculate your work volume. This is going to be the result of three factors: length per episode, frequency of episodes and medium. A weekly half-hour cartoon done in traditional pen-and-paper style is going to have an exponentially higher work volume than a monthly Flash animation delivered in 2-minute webisodes. (Flash and other computer-based animation mediums will allow you to recycle frames and modify existing frames more easily than a pen-and-paper format.) Work volume is important in cartoon character design because a high work volume should warn you that elaborate artwork is likely to be impractical, but a low work volume will free you up to use more complex character designs. (There is an obvious fourth factor that goes hand-in-hand with this calculation: the amount of time you intend to spend on your cartoon. A professional animator can devote significantly more time to a project than a college student creating a Web cartoon for fun.)
3. Write. Add detail to your cartoon outline, specific to the character that you are designing. Begin to visualize the character in your head. Brainstorm storylines and learn about the character. If you are working with a writing/creative team, now is the time to engage them and fold in their ideas about the character.
4. Start sketching. When you have an idea of the style you will use and your character, begin putting it down on paper. Draw your character from various angles, with various emotions and different costumes. If you are doing something in an absurdist style (e.g., a sponge that lives in a pineapple) draw your character in various idiosyncratic options and see what works and what does not.
5. Create a pilot episode of your cartoon or a high-quality, full-color concept portfolio. Share this work with peers or mentors who understand your goals and ask them for specific feedback. Adapt and refine your design as needed.
