Character Design - Lecture Notes

25.04.2024 - DD.MM.YYYY / Week 01 - Week ??
Ilhan Rayan bin Khairul Anwar / 0361205
Character Design / Bachelor of Design (Honours) in Creative Media
Lecture Notes

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Week 1: Module Introduction

• No Notes

Week 2: Conceptual World Building

World Building

• World building is a fictional place where the characters will live, work, and play. 
• All pieces of fictional media starts off with world building.
• Draws heavy inspiration from our own world.
• There are two main approaches to world building:
• Approach 1: You have a story but no world
• There should be one or two key functions that the character must fulfill.
• Work out these functions then craft the remaining elements of our wolrd by paying special attention to how the key functions affetc one another,
• Approach 2: You have a world but no characters
• Create increasingly specifric details for the world. Boundaries become territories, become countries, become governments and cultures and so on.
• Authors who use this technique make their world in-depth before creating their characters and stories.

Key Elements

• 1) Where is the story located? Past or future Earth? Alternate universe?
• Geography covers a lot of ground, when writing speculative fiction you must be able to visualize these details:
• Locations. The general layout of the world, begin by creating continents / countries / planets / solar systems
• Water. Without water, there wouldn't be life, identify sources of water in the world: oceans, rivers, springs, lakes, bogs, and so on.
• Landscapes. The different kinds of areas and terrains in the world.
• Climate. The different kinds of weather around the world and how it affects the characters.
• 2) Who are the main inhabitants of the world? Are they human? Mythical? Mix?
• Think about how the characters will interact with the main character.
• 3) What is the world's governing system?
• Every world has a form of politics to look after and rule the people. This helps to decide how the characters behave and push the story forward.
• Government. 
• Religions.
• 4) What social difference exists between people? are some groups more feared than others?
• Differing social classes naturally arise within cultures and may also be enforced by governments.
• Professions. Available to each social class within a speific culture in the world and depeneds on the type of world we're creating. What fields of work must be fulfilled in order for the story to work smoothly.
• Appearances. Powerful tools to define social power. Consider what materials are available to each of the cultureas in the world. What can each social class afford?
• 5) How have historical events (Wars, dynasties) shaped the world?
• Fictional history can heavily affect the story's plot and characters,
• 6) How does the fictional world compare technologically to our own?
• 7) What are people's standards of living?
• Art and entertainment
• 8) Does magic exist? How is it regarded and practiced?

Week 3: Character Development

Identify Key Visual Ideas

• Research and Discovery
• Identify prominent, unique and interesting visuals that best resemble the theme
• Character's Key Traits
• List down your character's traits. Basic personification ideas give you an idea of how your character will look like. Key traits like gender, age, species, class profession and physical build.

Thumbnail Sketches

• Never start with a full sized character design, start off smaller rough sketches to establish the ideas in different ways.