Greetings Artisan!

I’m not sure about you, but one of my dream jobs when I started drawing… was to be a Character Designer.

Characters are often where we start. Sketching people. Sketching creatures. Sketching personality!

But when it comes to designing with purpose, the blank page can be intimidating.

Especially when you’re thinking of characters for a larger world—either for a personal project or a professional job.

I spent many years designing characters for my own graphic novels, and over a decade as a freelance character designer for games, animation, and film.

There are many differences between what I thought character design was… compared to what the job actually is.

One of the biggest things I found was just how important the actual design process is.

It’s often way less about drawing than I first imagined.

I’ve been wanting to make more videos on Character Design for The Drawing Codex YouTube channel.

So…

In my latest video, I hit record with no script, no prep… just real-time scribbling characters. I thought this would be a good way to share the actual process. In this video, I started ideating designs for a secret society in one of my fantasy comics, tentatively called the Cult of the Blue Flame.

I walk through:

• Starting with Quick, Rough Sketches: How to get your ideas flowing without getting bogged down in details.
• Adding Color and Refinement: Once you have your sketches, I show you how to add layers of color and detail—even if you only have a few minutes! Often the little tricks of the trade make all the difference.
• Embracing the Ugly Middle: I talk about the challenges that come up during the design process—when things don’t look right or you feel stuck. Spoiler alert: that’s totally normal! I often feel like the first few passes on a project are going in the wrong direction. It’s critical to keep going and see what happens.

Check out the full video here:

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Here are some images of the designs I created, so you can see them in more detail:

This level of polish is what I call the First Pass.

At this stage what you want to do is create ideas quickly. But you also need to make sure you are designing the critical aspects of a character.

Color, personality, posing, and the internal silhouettes are key, and they are hard to find with simple pencil sketches or grayscale designs.

I find it important to spend enough time on each idea to make sure I give it a chance to shine. But not so much that I get attached to it.

This level of finish takes a while to dial in. But it's an important aspect of the design process for me. Sometimes I will do different designs at this level for days or a week, just to get the feel of a project or brief.

Is there anything you are struggling with about character design that I can go deeper with on the next video?

Cheers

-Tim