How to create a character. Where to start drawing your character

How to create a character.
Do you want to create your own character, but don't know how?
Prepare a piece of paper and write it down.
It doesn't matter whether you can draw or not. This will be your personal hero. But if you have the ability, then the flag is in your hands. Invent heroes. Their story. And it is quite possible that you will become famous for this.
Here I will help you refine it in detail. Even including his blood type. I will supplement all this with my own examples.
1.This is your character's gender.
2.Name.
3.Age.
I consider this the most basic thing in creation.
1.Gender Can be either female or male. Unless of course you have a mutant.
2.Name. It depends on your imagination. It can be short, long, English, Japanese or Russian.
3. Actually, the same as the hand grabs. From 0 to infinity.

My examples.
1.Male.
2. Stas Evans.
3.15 years.
A more detailed description will follow.

Appearance.
1. Hair color.
2. Eye color.
3.Approximate height, weight.
4.Physique.
Fine. If you already have a rough idea of ​​the character’s image, or are guided by the picture. It will be easier for you.
1. The standard hair color is most often used: blonde, brunette, red. But don’t forget about colors like light brown or black. You can also use non-standard colors of the rainbow. It will look interesting.
2. But it’s better not to rush with eye color. It is important that it matches the hair, but also if your hero has bright green hair. You shouldn't make your eyes look the same. It's better to leave them natural.
3.For height and weight if your Persian ideal figure, just take the height. Medium-170cm. and subtract 110. This gives you the weight. That is. Height – 110=weight.
170 – 110=60 kg.
4.If you follow this formula. Then you can safely write average. (There is also fat, thin, non-standard.)

My examples.
1.Brunette.
2.Blue eyes.
3.Height – 175, Weight – 65kg.
4. Average.
Character.
1. I think first you should choose the character’s temperament.
Choleric
Characterized by increased excitability, actions are intermittent. He is characterized by sharpness and swiftness of movements, strength, impulsiveness, and vivid expression of emotional experiences. Due to imbalance, carried away by a task, he tends to act with all his might and become more exhausted than he should. Having public interest, temperament shows initiative, energy, and integrity. In the absence of spiritual life, choleric temperament often manifests itself in irritability, affectivity, incontinence, hot temper, and inability to self-control under emotional circumstances.
Sanguine
Quickly adapts to new conditions, quickly gets along with people, and is sociable. Feelings arise and change easily, emotional experiences, as a rule, shallow. Facial expressions are rich, mobile, expressive. He is somewhat restless, needs new impressions, does not regulate his impulses sufficiently, and does not know how to strictly adhere to the established routine of life or work system. In this regard, he cannot successfully carry out work that requires an equal expenditure of effort, prolonged and methodical tension, perseverance, stability of attention, and patience. In the absence of serious goals, deep thoughts, creative activity superficiality and inconstancy are developed.
Phlegmatic person
It is characterized by a relatively low level of behavioral activity, new forms of which are developed slowly, but are persistent. Possesses slowness and calmness in actions, facial expressions and speech, evenness, constancy, depth of feelings and moods. Persistent and stubborn, he rarely loses his temper, is not prone to emotions, having calculated his strengths, brings things to the end, is even in relationships, moderately sociable, and does not like to chat in vain. Saves energy and doesn’t waste it. Depending on the conditions, in some cases a phlegmatic person may be characterized by “positive” traits - endurance, depth of thoughts, constancy, thoroughness, in others - lethargy, indifference to the environment, laziness and lack of will, poverty and weakness of emotions, a tendency to perform only habitual actions.
Melancholic
His reaction often does not correspond to the strength of the stimulus; there is depth and stability of feelings with weak expression. It is difficult for him to concentrate on anything for a long time. Strong influences often cause a prolonged inhibitory reaction in melancholic people (“give up”). He is characterized by restraint and muted speech and movements, shyness, timidity, and indecisiveness. IN normal conditions melancholic - a deep, meaningful person, can be a good worker, successfully cope with life tasks. Under unfavorable conditions, it can turn into a withdrawn, fearful, anxious, vulnerable person prone to severe internal experiences such life circumstances who don't deserve it.

2.His good features character.
3.And bad ones.

Example.
1. Choleric.
2.Good-natured and caring.
3. Too active in some situations when this is not at all necessary.

Other details.
1. Blood type.
2.Habits.
3. Style of clothing.
4. Favorite things (food, drinks, colors, etc.)
5. Close relatives.
6.Hobbies.
7.Date of Birth.

1. In Japan, it is believed that character is determined by blood type.
The first is activity, leadership, courage. Strong personalities, hardy and authoritative.
The second is patience, perseverance, practicality. They think through their actions carefully.
The third is curiosity, creative mind, unpredictability and independence.
The fourth is emotionality, sensitivity, imagination.
2.You also have habits. For example: biting your nails, adjusting your clothes, biting your lip. Pin up your hair.
3. Clothing styles: sports, street, formal, romantic. In addition, you can find a bunch of pictures with clothes. Or come up with and draw your own.
4. Here as you wish.
5.Parents, brothers, sisters. Uncles, aunts. Etc.
6. Fishing, drawing, football, or maybe no hobbies at all.
7.Well...everything is clear here.

My example.
1.Third.
2. When nervous, he bites his nails. During lessons, she often pins up her bangs so that they don’t get into her eyes.
3. Prefers street style of clothing. A regular T-shirt, jeans, sneakers and a shirt over it.
4. Favorite color is blue.
Food – hot dogs.
Drinks – cocoa.
5.Parents. There are no sisters, no brothers.
6.Drawing.
7.16. 03. 97.
I hope I helped in some way, I look forward to your feedback. Maybe it's worth adding something.

Categories:

Let's start with the fact that I love logic. In everything. And also that the article does not pretend to be step by step guide to action, I am writing it only to show how you can create a logical world/character, its character and come up with a name.

There are many books and guides for this. Our aspiring screenwriters are too lazy to even read the basics. As a result, we don’t even get second-rate sketches and scripts. Yes, everyone has an imagination and wants to come up with something of their own, but you have to come up with it based on rules and logic.

No one is interested in reading about yet another Lenya Vasilyev, who runs around a dead city and saves the world. Who is Lenya Vasiliev? Why does he run and save? Why is he kind?
These and a thousand other questions arise when reading stories.

Problems arise not only when forming images of the main and minor characters, but also integrity big picture. Now we are reading about the aforementioned Leonid, and then he is friends with Zyrbydykh from the planet Orkhergan. And when Zyrbydykh laughs, he moves his tentacles funny. This is very important point.
Okay, what. Your world - your rules.

Proper names.
So, let's return to the topic of my article - logic and rules for character formation.
Each of you has a name. Think about why your name is that, and not the same Zyrbydykh? Whether you are Alexander or Mikhail, your name has a story. It means something. Onomastics. This word has a huge meaning. This is a branch of science that studies proper names and includes a large number of different areas.
To find out what the name “Alexander” means, we can turn to anthroponymy. Alexander - courageous defender (Greek). Now let's look further. We are writing a script, our main character Alexander and having at least basic knowledge, we can write the character of Alexander, how he behaves in situations.
There is no such thing as names being invented “at random”. It happens more precisely, but this is at the discretion of the writer. As I already said, your world is your rules.

How do I come up with names?
For example, I need to come up with positive character who has certain character traits. I write down these traits and choose the most dominant one. Maybe he has a weakness - he is afraid of heights. Next, we go to translators and translate the phrase “afraid of heights” into any language you like. Or better yet, the one that fits most beautifully into your narrative. For example, I chose the Basque language (the people living in the northern regions of Spain and the southern regions of France). We get: alturas de beldur. Now this is food for thought. The character can be called: Alturas or Beldur. Let's add drunkenness to our hero. Drunkard - mozkor. Excellent, Alturas Mozkor: Drunk heights.
Our main character is Alturas Mozkor. A drunkard who is afraid of heights and will always come to the aid of those in need. If he is sober or he was not driven by wolves onto a 10-meter spruce
The foundation for character has been laid.

Animal names.
Hedgehog.
- Look, it's a hedgehog!
- Why a hedgehog?
- Why not? He looks a lot like a hedgehog.
- How do you know what hedgehogs look like?
- Well, I know that’s all. This is a hedgehog, period!
(c) Excerpt from the Greek book “How my friend and I came up with a hedgehog.”

No, that’s not how the hedgehog’s name was invented. There is also a branch of science - Etymology, which studies the origin of words. Why was the hedgehog called a hedgehog? Why is a bear a bear and not something else? This science gives us answers to these questions.

Who will our Alturas fight with? Of course, with some Dyrgerey. Which looks like a jelly mass. Although no, wait, we have a logical world and logical people?
Let there be Brokebacks.

Feature one: You can form the names of monsters by appearance or abilities.
Thornshot was named that way not because he likes to scratch his ears with his right paw. It shoots spikes.
This is the most common method of inventing monsters.

Feature two: The poisonous hornet is named so precisely because it is poisonous. We take an ordinary animal and add an adjective to it. Wolf. It seems like an ordinary wolf, but you need something more original? From here it came: Fierce, black, red-eyed (Linuxoid), bow-footed, short-tailed, and so on.
It will look very epic in your game log: Alturas dealt a crushing blow to the Red-Eyed Wolf.

Feature three: Our good old translator. Short legs? Ok, let it be Labourrac. Immediately when you hear the word “Laburrak”, an image of something very large, with short legs, pops into your head, but the massive body and huge blunt head do not allow you to relax and warn that he is not really looking for friendship with you, is it?

Let's return to the Brokebacks.
It will turn out to be a funny animal. A flock of humpbacked birds that bawl (quarrel, scold). Maybe they are not particularly scary and dangerous, but they can even get the dead. Terrible opponent :).

Names of places.
Here is our Alturas standing on the Plateau of the Winds, and opposite it is an army of thousands of Hunchbacks.

- Alturas, are you sure that the Plateau of the Winds the best place to fight them? And why do you need them at all?
“Such creatures have no place on my land.” What if the children hear?
- Look around, what kind of children are they? We are at an altitude of 1000 meters and it is midnight.
- 1000 meters? Midnight? Perhaps you're right. There are no children here, so it’s time to go to the pub.
(c) From the memories of Alturas, who defeated Laburrak.

Coming up with place names is quite easy. Cave of Horror? Hill of a Thousand Lightnings? Lake of blood? So be it. This perfectly characterizes the place.
And if you think this is too banal - translators. Wind - Haizea. Sounds good? Otherwise! Heize Plateau.

No, I in no way force you to turn to translators every time and create thousands of universal names. I encourage you to be logical in your works and maintain a general style.

A little about the general style of the work.
When I wrote the script for Illatiera (I think many people know about this project of mine), it was naturally written in my own style, with my own names, characters, and so on. There was (and still is) one “Screenwriter” who undertook to edit the script.
I won’t talk about the results, but I was surprised by 1 case. When he tried to insert something of his own into the already formed style of the world, people, which came out like the sound of a fork on glass.
When I asked him if he was embarrassed by the fact that this was completely out of style, he replied, “No, this is cool name" I had no choice but to shrug my shoulders.

Imagine that there are only Lesha, Petra, Vasily around and then suddenly Zimbumba. This will at least cause a stupor. This is roughly what it looks like in the works. You can, of course, say that Zimbumba is from Africa, but this should be said in advance in order to prepare the reader/player.

I told you a little about the formation of heroes and the world. A sufficient number of books have been written about this. Don't be lazy, read, create the right ones and interesting worlds, and not illogical tracings.

Well, I’ll probably end up the same way I started. I love logic. In everything.
And if I need a Russian and generous character, he will most likely be named Robert, not Innocent.
I hope the article will give you at least a bit of useful information.

This article describes the process of creating a character for a game engine. The article is primarily addressed to those who are interested in the process of developing next gen models, as well as to everyone who wants to look behind the scenes of modern game making. I made the character for my portfolio, I switched to characters quite recently, we can say that this is the first character brought to mind. Because the this work- my personal project, I set the triangle limit to 20,000, textures to 2048*2048, the work was planned under PBR.

Pipeline

First of all, I’ll tell you the plan I followed, an approximate pipeline. The pipeline or production sequence for creating graphic content may differ from firm to firm, and from artist to artist. Here is the pipeline that I followed, excluding the first 2 points, because... I took the finished concept and the last 2 as a basis.

1. Verbal description
2. Concept
3. Modeling/sculpting general forms high-poly model (HiPoly)
4. Retopology of the HiPoly model (creation of final HiPoly geometry for detailing)
5. HiPoly model detailing
6. Retopology of the HiPoly model (creation of a game lowpoly, which goes directly into the engine)
7. LowPoly Unwrapping (creating texture coordinates)
8. Baking maps: normals, ambient occlusion, color map (transfer information from HiPoly to LowPoly)
9. Creating textures: Diffuse, Specular, Gloss, Normal
10. Render in engine
11. Character rig and skin (skeleton rigging and binding to mesh bones)
12. Animation

Concept

But enough of the boring lists. Now about the creation process in more detail.
I found the concept on the Internet, and I wanted to make it in 3D. Later I discovered that this character had already been realized in 3D more than once.

Scultping

But all the same, I did not abandon the idea of ​​​​implementation, I just decided that I would rework some details a little, and would not completely repeat the concept. First of all, I decided to sculpt the entire model in one piece in ZBrush. ZBrush - (brush, zebra, zibrush) is a wonderful program that allows you to “sculpt a model,” which is qualitatively different from other three-dimensional graphics programs, where we influence the model through vertices, edges and polygons. Here we have a brush with various properties and with the help of a tablet you can perform quite delicate operations, like a sculptor or clay artist. Using the brush allowed me to initial stage cut off errors with basic masses and proportions; with a simple model in a brush, I could very freely change the proportions and look for detailing options. It turned out that sculpting hardsurfaces (as inorganic objects are called in modeling) was not easy.

Even though the model turned out to be clumsy, the idea was implemented, and the matter moved on.

Several iterations of the search, and a form was achieved that satisfied me.

Retopology of HiPoly model

When it seemed to me that the model was ready for retopology, I switched to another program to create final geometry for sculpting - Topogun and 3ds Max. The essence of retopology is that a mesh of another is built on top of one model. Retopology can be done by many 3D graphics programs, such as ZBrush and 3dsMax. However, retopology there is very inconvenient (although some retopology is done in a brush) and has little functionality. Topogun is a program created for retopology and has many advantages over combine editors. There are also disadvantages, after ten hours of working in it I came up with a number of improvements, but who cares about them :) An important disadvantage: the lack of a normal auto-backup and frequent crashes of Topogun. The peculiarity of the new topology was that it was prepared for anti-aliasing (Turbosmooth), so there are almost no triangles, I tried to use quads (square polygons).

An example of the new grid next to the old one.

In Max I fixed all the bugs and made the geometry clean. Retopology was long and tedious, because... I exported each detail from brush, then rebuilt it separately in Topogun, then transferred it to 3dsmax, edited it there and imported it back into Zbrush. Part of the model was made directly in max (for example, knee pads).

In the end, the model was almost completely meshed into a new, clean mesh and loaded back into Zbrush.

This is what a remelted mesh looks like inside Zbrush.

Final detail

Tired of the lengthy mechanical process of retopology, I was glad to switch to detailing the model. Then everything is simple - I increased the number of polygons of the model and added details with brushes. I was not happy for long, when the polygon of the object exceeded 12 million, the computer began to feel a little dull and this brought discomfort.

In the end the model looked like this.

Retopology, LowPoly creation

It's time to make a mesh for use in real-time renderers (game engines). Again Topogan, now the work was carried out entirely in it, in Max I corrected only some of the geometry jambs. The work was for a portfolio, so I didn’t skimp on the triangles, although I know that I could have saved a lot of money. At this stage I already tried baking the Normal map to see if the details were transferred adequately. It was at this stage that I realized that we were no longer on the same path with Topogun and already in the next project I abandoned it in favor of 3dCoat. But that’s another story...

This is what the new grid looks like.

LowPoly model assembled in max. Now it's time to UV Unwrap.

Creating Texture Coordinates

Until now there was no need for texture coordinates. However, after preparing the LowPoly model, you need to create the correct UV coordinates in order to bake the maps and to be able to texture the model. I did the UVs in 3dsMax, I find the built-in editor quite convenient. I used to use third-party programs before, but when I properly mastered the UV editor in 3dsMax, it turned out to be quite powerful...

Proper unwrapping ensures simple and correct texturing, map removal and can affect the quality of textures.

This is what the layout of the UV pieces looks like.

Baking cards

The essence of baking maps (in this case) is to transfer information from the HiPoly model to the LowPoly texture. I baked using the xNormal program - an excellent program, it handles baking much better than combine programs. I baked a tangent space normal map (information about the surface topography that adds fake detail to the model), ambient occlusion (self-occlusion map), got a cavity map from ambient occlusion, and also got an object space normal map using the xNormal utility from tangent space normal map.

This is what the model looks like in the engine with normal map and ambient occlusion. Engine Marmoset Toolbag. There are still baking errors that were corrected in Photoshop.

Creating textures

Now that the maps that could be obtained using information transfer have been prepared, we need to prepare maps of diffusion, specular and glossness. Previously, diffuse, normal and spec maps were usually enough, now PBR allows you to create glossiness effects, and not just information about the strength of reflection. There is a great Photoshop plugin that makes creating and editing all these maps easy - dDo. This is an amazing program that essentially allows you to control several card parameters at once through masks. It took preparatory work, so that I could work with this plugin; by the way, I used it for the first time in my pipeline. The plugin allows you to parametrically add various surface effects such as scuffs, stains and dirt, so it turned out to be very suitable for the job. Having generated the main texture details, I finalized it manually in Photoshop.

The resolution of the textures I worked with was 4096*4096, the Photoshop file quickly grew to 6 gigabytes. I was glad again that I have a pretty fast computer :)
In the end, despite the fact that I redid the texture several times (because Photoshop killed the file several times), the textures were created.

And finally, the final render! Although essentially this is a preview of textures, I did not load the model into a real, adult (UDK, Unity3d, CryEngine) engine. For each engine (as well as setting, location and individual color scheme games) most likely required some texture tuning.

Actually, that's all. Thank you for watching, ask questions in the comments, maybe something will be interesting.

P.S. This is my first article on Habré, so if I did something wrong, please let me know.

I also want to immediately note: regarding the realism of the armor, questions to the concept artist, also do not forget that the art component is often more important than functionality and realism, although ideally, of course, this should be combined.

Question:

« Please tell me, do you have a very rough sketch somewhere that would show where you are starting? In a sense that would show how you create your character based on circles and triangles?

I really want to develop my own own style, but I can’t do without a couple of tips from a person who knows how to draw such cuties».

Question: « My question is: When I draw the same character several times, it just infuriates me that they look different every time.
For the love of God, tell me, how do you manage to have all the characters look the same in every section of the comic?»

Answer: These questions are somewhat interrelated, so I will try to give a general answer to them.

1. Structure of the drawing.

Very short description where I start (and end) to draw.

The essence of the whole process is to start with simple shapes and finish with a detailed drawing. In the first drawing, a sketch is made in the form of the main figures and reference lines.
Let me clarify. The picture shows a couple of idiots running through a corn field.
I start with a rough, simple sketch of shapes and reference lines. At this stage I'm only concerned external resemblance characters and successful transmission of dynamics in their poses.

First, I get rid of incomprehensible gestures, unnatural poses, absurd proportions and little by little “clutter” the composition, filling out the drawing.

Once I'm happy with the rough drawing, I start drawing on top of it, using some of the early lines as a guide.
By this point, your drawing will probably turn into something terrible. And all because you are a dirty, sloppy artist.
But don't worry. That's how it should be.

When the main rough drawing is ready, I begin the detailed drawing. I'm not erasing the original sketch yet, because the reference strokes depicting the outlines of the characters and their movements will help with the detailed drawing. They will help you figure out where to draw seams on clothes, where to add folds, how hair and fur should lie on this or that part of the character, etc.

In this drawing, I have already gotten rid of all the reference lines, blurred them out in some places, and made them clearer in some places. At this stage I prefer to work in pencil, but it is also a common practice to first ink the drawing and then erase all the pencil work.

2. The monotony of the character.

How I draw the same character from different angles.

Regardless of the position of the head, the established rules remain unchanged.

Those blue lines in the top picture, which suggest the shape of the head and indicate the middle lines, are enough for me to know where other shapes are located, like those circled in red in the picture below.

And in the end we get a character that looks the same from different angles. And all because it was created on the basis of figures according to the same principle.

Lastly, always remember that although such basic techniques can contribute to rapid progress, nothing can replace practice. Don't give up if a technique doesn't work the first time...or the next 98 times. Keep drawing.

3. How to draw “Cute Guys.”

The very essence of a character's attractiveness (which usually includes the concept of “cute”) is a whole separate topic - vast and, moreover, barely amenable to fragmentation. I don't think I'll be able to talk about it enough here, if at all, but I'll at least give you a couple of tips to consider if you want to create a compelling character:

- Attractiveness. It's no secret that certain proportions naturally have visual appeal. Don't forget about them when creating your character. Often, characters turn out to be cute if they are depicted in accordance with the proportions baby face: high forehead, chubby cheeks, big eyes and other facial features located close to each other.

(Disney has adopted this practice as a rule. Thus, drawing classic famous characters will help you understand how to do own characters attractive, and will generally introduce you to the structure of the drawing. Try drawing the hunter from the Looney Tunes and Tex Avory cartoons to learn how to create characters that are cute and funny rather than cute and sappy).

- Cleaning. Be careful not to make your character's face look dark or ugly due to too many unnecessary lines. Understand the importance of saving lines. Simplify the sketch so much that the emphasis falls on its most important, attractive features; those that reflect the essence of the character and allow you to convey his mood. This not only makes it easier to draw the character from different angles over and over again, but also makes it easier to understand.

- Expressiveness. The key to making a character look attractive or simply likable is to achieve simplicity in the drawing by clearing out unnecessary lines, as well as a frank and clear facial expression that fully conveys the character's thoughts or feelings. Ambiguous, empty or indistinguishable facial expressions do not have the same appeal. Give your character the ability to act, react, and be truly alive.

Copy of this translation allowed only with a link to this page.

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Finding a character's image is an interesting and responsible activity, especially for those who are just starting out on the path of an artist. This is an instruction for those who only have an image in their head that they want to draw. Your character is created in several stages. It’s better if you write each of them down on paper.

So, how to step by step?

Stage 1. General features

Here you need to determine the gender, age, date of birth and occupation of the hero.

First of all, we need to decide who we want to draw. “Your character” can be either a five-year-old girl or a seventy-year-old man. When deciding on gender, remember the concept of social education, as well as gender reaction to the hero. In addition, there are purely feminine character traits that are not characteristic of the male population.

Stage 2. Character appearance

At this stage, you need to decide on the character’s external image: eye and hair color, hairstyle, height, weight, build, outfit.

Eye and hair color is a very sensitive issue. But most artists advise choosing hair color depending on the type of activity and intended character, and making the eyes contrasting or, conversely, similar in color to the hair.

If height and weight are within normal limits, then they do not play a special role.

Stage 3. Character character

It’s better to start with the character’s temperament: what will the hero we want to draw be like? “Your character” can be a bright and energetic choleric person, a melancholic person constantly with his head in the clouds, a calm phlegmatic person or a balanced sanguine person. After this, it is necessary to work out the positive and negative traits character of the hero.

As a result, we get a complete image that is easy to draw. Your character will be more alive and original if you take care of every detail of his image.