Saturday Short Tips: Shape Language

Allllllrighty! So a lot of folks asked for a variety of things for me to give tips on, but character design was the one that I saw the most. So, that's gonna be our first venture into this whole short tips thing! I'm tentatively calling it Saturday Short Tips. <:

While I’ve posted this one up here, the rest will most likely remain on my Patreon only. But don’t worry! The patreon is entirely open to the public so you don’t need to subscribe to view the content there, but of course the option is there (with benefits of course) should you decide you’d like to feed this hungry artist. uwu

But enough about that! Here’s some extra tips regarding this page:

-One of the biggest foundations in anything art/design related comes in the form of simplistic shapes. Simple shapes are used so universally because they're clear and easy to understand.

-When designing a character, shape language is important. Shape language is using shapes to give the viewer information without words. The most familiar of shapes have meanings to them that's generally universal and understood by the audience on an instinctual level, and in character design this can be used to your advantage.

-Learn what each shape can represent and choose the shapes that best fits the character you're designing.

 Exercise: 

-Choose an animal to use for this exercise: choose only 1 animal for simplicity's sake!

-Draw a whole bunch of simple shapes in varying degrees. Don't try to make them perfect!

-Give them features that mimics the main shape of their body (square eyes and noses for square bodies, triangles for triangles, circles for circles)

-Experiment! A big part of designing a character is experimenting; don't settle on the first design you make. So play around! Turn a shape on its side or upside down, squish it or stretch it out!

-Keep the exercise rough, simple, and quick. The name of the game is exploration, not perfection! For these exercises I recommend doing 6-12 quick sketches.

If you are so inclined, you're free to show me the exercise if you do it! If you do, you can comment below with the exercise. uwu

Hope this helps at least a little! The next tip will move on to the next thing, which for me is Silhouette. <:

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