Back on the Design Wagon

The purpose of the "Character Design" process is to create drawings of characters to which I can refer as I am working on pages. Primarily, this is so I can keep everyone looking consistent as I go, and if everyone looks consistent, the book is easier to read. Ideally, readers are not distracted by having to stop and ask, "wait, which character am I looking at right now?" So I try to make each character look unique among the other characters in the book.

At the same time, I do not pursue this process as rigorously as design is pursued in an animation studio. That's because I'm not collaborating with anyone, so I don't need to be very explicit communicating my intentions (to myself). Also, if a scene calls for an angle, expression, or costume that I haven't designed yet, that's fine, I can whip it up on the spot. Again: I'm not collaborating. And since I don't know precisely what the story does right now, it doesn't make sense to invest too much time into design. Just enough to build a reasonable foundation.

Another goal here is to tell the reader something about each character without having to say it out loud. For example, the captain's stubbed nose perhaps communicates that he is obstinate. The Midshipman's vest is too small, indicating that perhaps he is growing, and has been too busy at sea to get a new one, or that he is not cared-for by anyone who would do that for him. Similarly, the oversized vest on Brother suggests it is perhaps a hand-me-down, hinting at a large family. Girlfriend's soft features, feminine eyes, and decorated dress suggest she is not especially rugged, contrasting with DD.

Switching gears is hard for me. In this case, it's moving from a writing gear to a character design gear. Plus, I don't consider myself an especially strong designer. That said, as I was looking through my existing designs (work I made a few years back when I started prepping this story—above, "Provedditore Vignelli" is one of those), I liked what I saw, and felt like, "ahh crap, I can't design better than that." But I gotta know what these ding-dongs look like, so after "spending" some time looking for reference, I'm back at it.

The Captain will be the captain of the ship the Nichols family is aboard, sailing back to England. The Midshipman is a boy DD will meet on that ship. Initially he was only going to appear there, but I like the idea of working him throughout the story. I feel like his facial design might be too generic, but those big bushy Christopher Robin hair tufts are just great, as is the stupid high collar. Technically, that type of fashion might not be appropriate for the time setting, but I like how it looks, so ~~~shrug~~~.

I'm not exactly sure what I'll do with Girlfriend and Brother in the story yet. They feel like prime candidates to be cut. But I like the idea of DD meeting someone local who's her own age, and I feel like they have potential, so I'll need to find a good purpose for them.

Character design is so cool. I woke up too early this morning and couldn't stop thinking about different aspects of the process, so I made some notes that I will eventually turn into a write-up.