CHARACTER

ARTIST MASTERY

JAYSEN BATCHELOR

courses.jaysenbatchelor.com
 Copyright © 2023 Jaysen Batchelor
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or used in
any manner without writen permission of the copyright owner.
C 1 CHARACTER ARTIST MASTERY
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N INTRODUCTION
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5 BELIEF
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17 DRAWING

28 ANATOMY

32 GESTURE, POSE, & EMOTION

39 STORY & COSTUME

46 STYLE

49 DESIGNING A CHARACTER

56 CONCLUSION
CHARACTER
ARTIST MASTERY
INTRODUCTION

“KEEP IT SIMPLE, STUPID.”

- Kelly Johnson

DO YOU KNOW WHERE THIS QUOTE COMES FROM? I didn’t until recently – it’s almost
so well known it feels like it can’t be attributed to one person. But after doing some research, I
discovered it can be traced back to an aircraft engineer called Kelly Johnson. Though Johnson might
have been the first person to coin the phrase, KISS is a principle many people come to on their
own: the idea that systems tend to function better if they are kept simple rather than made more
complicated.
These four words have been my guiding mantra throughout my career as an artist and have helped
me on my journey as an entrepreneur. I have found that the principle of simplification applies to every
industry, every problem, and every character design. Keeping it simple is a principle that scales all the
way down to our daily decisions in life and then all the way up to building a skyscraper in Manhattan.
How do you think humans have been capable of building impressive and elaborate architectural
structures (consider something like an Incan temple, or the pyramids – built without any of the
technology we have today) or designing something as successful and complex as the iPhone? It’s
because of the KISS principle. Humans have worked out that taking a seemingly complex task and
breaking it down into small, easy to understand problems is the only way to avoid the intimidating
nature of the whole. Basically, all of civilization and progress adheres to this idea – humanity slowly
mastering small achievements, allowing us to slowly arrive at the incredibly high-tech world we all I
live in today. It all comes back to simplicity. And this is the way I want you to start thinking about N
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character design: on every level, character design is just simplifying a very hard task into small easy to R
manage pieces. O
Starting out as a character artist can be daunting. Back when I began this journey, I was just as D
confused as the next person. I watched YouTube videos on different important-sounding topics, like U
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“anatomy” and “composition,” but it was difficult to know what was the most important thing to T
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research or in what order I was supposed to be learning these skills. If you’ve been researching how
to become a character artist, you may have discovered a huge amount of information on the topic,
but this surplus of information can be confusing. If you’re anything like me, that research has left you
feeling overwhelmed and like you still hadn’t found the information you were looking for.
Essentially, I wanted to find an overview of the process: a birds-eye view of what it takes to become
a good character artist. I was looking for a framework to help me work towards that goal—and it just
wasn’t out there. So that’s what this book attempts to do.
In the following pages, I’ll break down the process into seven simple steps. We’ll begin with what I
consider to be the most important step of all—belief—something that’s integral to success in any great
endeavor. This might sound cliche, but it’s very hard to accomplish anything if you don’t believe in
yourself. After belief, we’ll cover the process of building a visual library (essentially a visual reference
library that you store in your own head—more on how to do this later). Once the visual library is in
place, we move on to the basic technical drawing skills you need to produce character designs, and
then we briefly explore the subject of anatomy. Next, we move on to those aspects of design that bring
a character to life and make them unique and iconic: gesture, pose, emotion, costume, storytelling
and silhouette. Finally, we’ll unpack the idea of “style” and how to incorporate this elusive quality into
your work. The book’s last chapter is a brief five-step summary of how I practically go about designing
a character—from the research phase, through sketching and feedback, to completion.
Many of these topics are complex—and I encourage you to look into all of these subjects in far
greater depth than how they’re presented here. Whole books and courses are dedicated to subjects
that, for the purpose of this book, we’ll be covering in a paragraph or a few sentences.
One thing I want to stress is that this book is not going to turn anyone into a master artist. That’s
not the point—or even a useful goal if you’re just starting out. Over the years, I’ve heard over and over
again that it takes many years to learn a craft. People like to claim it takes 10,000 hours to master a
discipline—but the key word there is master. It takes much less time to become “pretty good” or even
“really good” at something. And “pretty good” is enough to find work as a freelance artist online or
to get a job at a studio. Over time, you can build up to the level of a master, but to get started and find
work as a character artist, you really don’t need to have
spent years and years honing your craft.
Before we dive in, I want to share a little about my own
path toward being a character artist. For me, the journey
started when I was young. My parents noticed my ability
to draw pretty early on—I was only four when I first
impressed them with a drawing of a dinosaur. And after
that, they encouraged me to keep drawing. In school, I
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 This is something else that I want to really stress, especially if you’re just starting out. Sometimes it
might seem that successful artists are all virtuosos or geniuses, recognized as gifted from the moment
they touched pen to paper, but you have to remember that you’re often encountering these artists or
their work at the apex of their careers. Most artists have spent a long time honing their skills, and very
few people out there are prodigies.
Of course, most people who want to become character artists are usually starting out with some
interest or ability in the field of drawing or visual art. Self-belief, hard work, and this little seed of
ability are all you need to become proficient in the skills we’re about to discuss.

Pro Tip:
You will learn more effectively by listening while reading along. Like many artists
I’m dyslexic. A reading hack I’ve discovered is listening to the audiobook while
simultaneously reading along with the written text. This combination has helped me
overcome some of the limitations of my dyslexia, allowing for both faster reading and
a deeper understanding of the text. If, like me, you find that you have a hard time
focusing while reading text alone, or if you get distracted when listening to audiobooks,
this might really help. I thought I would throw this tip in at the beginning of my
book. And if you’ve gotten this far – this might be a great moment to experiment with
combining both the audio and text versions of the book!

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“BELIEFS HAVE THE
POWER TO CREATE AND
THE POWER TO DESTROY.
HUMAN BEINGS HAVE THE
AWESOME ABILITY TO
TAKE ANY EXPERIENCE
OF THEIR LIVES AND
CREATE A MEANING THAT
DISEMPOWERS THEM OR
ONE THAT CAN LITERALLY
SAVE THEIR LIVES.”
- Tony Robbins
BELIEF

“SO, WHAT’D YOU GET, JAYSEN?” MY FRIEND ASKED.

“Huh, what?”
I was staring dumbly at the piece of paper that held my SAT scores. Around me, my friends were
confidently sharing their own scores, celebrating. But I knew I wasn’t like them. I was buying time. I
didn’t want to share.
“So, what’s your score?” he pushed.
I said nothing, tried to think of a way out of the situation
He persisted, “Come on man, what is it? Just tell us!”
“I got … Um, I got a 450.” I finally managed.
I don’t actually remember the exact score I got but I vividly remember how every word reluctantly
slipped out my mouth. Because my score was less than half the number that my friends had received.
I knew what this meant and so did my friends: I wasn’t getting into any colleges.
After hearing my score, my friends fell into an awkward silence until someone moved the
conversation along.
“I think I’m going to get in at the University of Utah,” another friend remarked. And the chatter
gradually picked up again: my friends excitedly discussing their bright futures and the opportunities
that now awaited them – futures and opportunities revealed by this number printed on a piece of
paper.
I could feel a rush of tears surging behind my eyes. I strained every nerve to hold them back, to
maintain my composure in front of my friends. I was so embarrassed, so ashamed. I was sure all of
my friends were looking at me like I was the dumbest person on the planet. While they chatted, I B
stood there, silent, struggling to hold back my tears. Just when I was sure the dam was about to burst, E
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the bell rang and my friends dispersed for the next class. I couldn’t bear to cry in front of my friends, I
to let them see how stupid and disappointed I felt. E
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6 MONTHS EARLIER…
I stared at the corny poster on the wall of the guidance counselors office. The poster displayed a photo
of happy students and was emblazoned with the quote “You can graduate!” The chair I sat in was old
and tattered, hundreds – maybe even thousands – of students had sat in that chair before me, listening
to similar advice.
I stared at the poster while my highschool counselor lectured me about my poor grades, about
how I’m not going anywhere meaningful with my life. The words stung – it felt like he saw me as a
degenerate, like someone who was wilfully flushing their life down the toilet. The truth was, I actually
liked my counselor, I knew he meant well. And in some ways he was right: my grades were bad; I did
miss all of my college prep classes; and, no, I didn’t plan on going to college. All of that was true. But
I’d been working very hard all year long at something that couldn’t be measured by his metrics. I’d
been working at honing my drawing skills.
“Jaysen, are you even listening?” my counselor asked. “You won’t be able to get into a good college
and get a good job if you don’t get your grades up and keep them up for the rest of the year.”
“I’m going to be a concept artist” I blurted out. He looked at me puzzled almost as though he wasn’t
even quite sure what that was.
“An artist?” he asked, sounding perplexed. “Even if you want to be an artist you have to go to art
school. Also how many people are even successful at making a living as an artist?”
This was the moment that I learned two very important lessons in my life.
The first lesson was that people would try to give me advice on things they had zero knowledge
about. You see, I had spent months talking to professional artists and researching how to build a
career as an artist. Yet here I was being told that going to school was the one and only path to success.
The second lesson I learned is that people will project their own capabilities onto you. People often
mean well and their discouragement may come from a place of love. But because they don’t think they
could do something they may automatically assume that you can’t do it either.
My school counselor did not understand the process of becoming a concept artist, he didn’t know
what skills I needed to get a job at a studio, or that you can work successfully as a freelance artist from
anywhere in the world. He had a very limited understanding of the industry and where I would fit
within the art world. He also could not see the potential that I saw in myself. I had immersed myself
in drawing since the beginning of the year. Not a day had gone by that I didn’t practice and I knew
that with more practice and training I could eventually acquire the skills I needed to get hired as an
artist.
My counselor was understandably immersed in his world of grades and university entrance
requirements – and because my ambitions didn’t fit with that model, he was not well-equipped to
offer advice or support. This experience made me understand how important it is to assess how well-
informed your advisors are and to determine whether they are really qualified to help you. Of course,
this can be difficult when you’re young because people tend to assume you don’t understand the “how
the world works” but my experience taught me that often, if you do the research and talk to people in
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your chosen field, you end up more informed than many of the outside advisors you encounter.
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 Only a month or so after this conversation with my school counselor, I got an internship with
an animation studio. And before my senior year was up, I was hired by the studio for my first
professional project.
Over and over again, I was told by my parents, my friends’ parents, my friends themselves, and
highschool faculty that I needed to focus my attention on improving my grades and getting into a
good school. Throughout this onslaught, I held strong to my belief that I could be successful as an
artist. It’s important, however, to recognize that this belief wasn’t just based on a vague hope — I
had talked to artists who I aspired to emulate, and with their advice I had determined that I could
be successful as an artist despite what the people around me were telling me. My senior year in high
school was one of the darkest times in my life and I felt very alone. But I never let go of the belief in
myself or the belief in my mentors.
Before we discuss any technical aspects of drawing, I want to focus on this concept of belief. You
might feel tempted to skip over this chapter and move on to the concrete aspects of drawing—and I
understand completely; I used to feel the same way. But the more I’ve reflected on my own journey
and my pathway to becoming a professional artist—and beyond that, an entrepreneur—the more I’ve
understood that it all begins with belief. So I encourage you to stick with me while I briefly unpack
the importance of self-belief.
The hurdles and delays in my career have nearly always been due to a lack of belief in myself. To
succeed in any field, you need self-belief. This is what motivates you, what propels you forward, and
what gets you back up after being knocked down. Now, I know this sounds pretty cheesy. It probably
sounds like something you’ve heard a hundred times before, seen on a poster, or read in a self-help
book. Believing in yourself is not a new concept—again, hundreds of books have been written on the
topic—but it’s a subject that I have found extremely valuable to revisit and really think about beyond
just the cliche. It took me a long time to truly understand how belief fuels every single one of our
actions, both positively and negatively, but I’m going to try and break it down for you now.

WHY EVEN TRY?

If you don’t believe you can do something, you won’t do it. It’s as simple as that. That’s the first
roadblock many of us encounter. We’ve all experienced that internal voice that says “why even try?”
Usually, this response concerns something we want to do but are scared of doing. We come up with a
whole host of reasons to back up this attitude: I’m not talented enough or smart enough, I don’t have
the right connections or education, people like me fail—whatever the reason is, and we’re very good
at coming up with reasons not to do something! This kind of negative belief will prevent you from
acting. Or, if you do begin a project, this is often the voice that makes you give up at the first sign of
difficulty because the voice has been “proved right” in its initial reluctance even to try.

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THE FOUR-MINUTE MILE
Roger Bannister and the four-minute mile is one story I like to use to
demonstrate the importance of belief. Before Roger Bannister ran a
mile in under four minutes, it was widely believed that this feat was
impossible and that humans simply couldn’t run that distance in
that little amount of time. However, once Bannister broke that
record in 1954, people worldwide began training to run a mile in under four minutes, and
quite a few managed to achieve this goal. It wasn’t that all of these people suddenlybecame
faster and betterathletes but that their belief and attitude toward the goal had changed.
Sub-four-minute miles were now widely understood to be achievable, and once Bannister
demonstrated the possibility of this achievement, numerous athletes followed suit. Changing our
mindset isn’t easy—there’s not always going to be a Roger Bannister to come along and pave the way
for us. The most important changes have to happen internally.

BELIEF > POTENTIAL > ACTION > RESULTS

Tony Robbins uses a tool that I like to invoke when talking about belief, which is the concept that
your beliefs shape your potential; your potential determines your actions; your actions determine
your results; your results shape your beliefs.
If you think you’re useless at something, or have been told by others that you aren’t good at
something, then you’re probably not going to have very high perceived potential in that area. This
will affect the actions you take, which will likely be no action or perhaps half-hearted action if you
don’t really believe you can succeed in the first place. Belief is a key part of the cycle, but it operates in
conjunction with the other four components of the cycle, and you need all four to succeed. However,
belief is arguably what’s crucial to the cycle as it forms a kind of bedrock upon which you can build.
To become a character artist, you need to believe you can be a character artist and then acquire the
necessary skills (take action). Of course, you can attain skills that can be refined and built upon, but
you’re unlikely to go out and work on these skills if you don’t have that initial foundational belief.
Remember, every time you take action and get a
better result than yesterday, you are feeding your self-
belief, which allows the overall cycle to strengthen. To
help nourish positive self-belief, it’s important to have
little wins every day. These shouldn’t be big goals, or
complex achievements. Instead, a great way to ensure
small improvements is to practice drawing things that
you didn’t believe you were capable of drawing the day
before.

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TEACHERS AND MENTORS
Belief also applies to how you approach your teachers or mentors. Over the course of becoming a
character artist, you’ll likely enroll in some courses or programs along the way. You might have a
mentor or a series of teachers. In the same way, as it’s important to believe in yourself, you must also
trust and believe in your teachers. If you aren’t convinced by their methods, or you doubt that you’ll
achieve the results they’re promising, then it’s unlikely you’ll do the course work to the best of your
ability, practice the skills they advocate, or even finish the course at all. So to get good results from a
program or course, you need to be convinced that you’ll really achieve what the course claims to offer.

OTHER PEOPLE’S EXPECTATIONS

In just the same way that beliefs about yourself and your potential can work in your favor, we’re all
aware of how negative self-belief can erode self-confidence and discourage you from attempting
anything. This is where it’s important to look at who you are surrounding yourself with and whether
they’re people who undermine your goals or uplift them. Early in this process, join a Facebook group
or a group with people who have similar goals and interests with whom you can share work & get
feedback.
Another thing to remember is that people often undermine your goals without malicious intent
but because they’re basing their opinions on their own life experiences or capabilities. People in your
life might say it’s impossible to make money as an artist but the truth is they probably have no idea.
It’s unlikely they understand the industry as a whole, let alone where you see yourself fitting in the
industry. They probably don’t have a clear sense of your goals or your work ethic. Perhaps their talents
or interests lie in completely different areas so the idea of being a successful artist seems untenable—
just as you might think becoming a chemical engineer or a gymnast seems impossible, based on your
own disposition and abilities. Understanding that people tend to project their own capabilities onto
others has helped me strengthen my own belief system and allowed me to push on with my goals
without absorbing the doubts and concerns of other people.
I want to leave you with a message that I think many of us need, especially when first beginning an
endeavor. I know that a lot of people don’t receive the encouragement and support that they deserve.
But I am here to tell you that I 100% believe that you can become a professional artist.
I have never seen a single person, no matter how bad they were at drawing, that I didn’t believe
was capable of honing their skills and achieving their dreams. Drawing and design is an acquired
skill. Anyone that is physically capable can learn to do it, and to do it well. If you want to become
a character artist I have no doubt in my mind that you can do it. I really mean what I’m saying. So
always remember that there is a huge group of artists out there rooting for you, wanting to see you
succeed, so they can pass the baton on to you.

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“I’VE ALWAYS DRAWN FROM
MEMORY; WHETHER IT WAS
SOMETHING I HEARD FROM
PEOPLE AROUND ME, OR
THE ANIMALS I’VE SEEN
FROM TV, OR THE SCENES
I SAW FROM A MOVIE. MY
DRAWINGS WERE ALWAYS
BASED ON THE THINGS
I SAW OR THE THINGS I
HEARD, AND IT WAS ONLY
LATER THAT I FOUND OUT
THAT MY METHOD WAS
DIFFERENT FROM OTHER
ARTISTS.”
-Kim Jung Gi
V I S UA L L I B R A RY

I PAUSED IN FRONT OF THE GLASS DOORS, A KNOT IN MY STOMACH. My brother

and I were outside an unfamiliar office suite in Salt Lake City. I was clutching a stack of drawings in
one hand and my sketchbook in the other. My brother had his sketchbook in hand too. We looked at
each other, took a deep breath, reached forward and pulled the doors open.
A few days earlier, I had taken part in a live art competition for highschoolers in my school district.
The premise was that we had four hours to complete a work of art from start to finish. One of the
judges had paused at my table, and took a closer look at my drawing: a blue haired character with a
toad on her head.
“This looks pretty good,” he said. “ Are you making this character up out of your own head or is
this an already existing character?”
“I’m making her up out of my own head.” I replied, a little awkwardly. I didn’t have much
confidence in myself at this time.
“How did you learn how to draw like this?”
“I’ve been copying hundreds of other artist character designs for the past few months.” I told him.
“I’ve also been drawing a lot of poses and anatomy.” V
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At the time my understanding of anatomy was pretty limited but I had enough of a visual library to
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“Can I look through this?” He asked, indicating the sketchbook sitting next to me. A
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“Of course.”
So he flipped through the pages looking at some of my character designs, animal studies, and poses. L
I want to be clear that none of these drawings were particularly good but the sketch book was full of I
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 “Have you ever heard of TML Studios?” he asked.
I shook my head.
“I know a guy in Salt lake City that has been running an animation studio for a while now and they
might be able to give you a job.”
My eyes lit up. I couldn’t believe it. This was the moment I had been waiting for.
“I’ll shoot him an email and let him know I’m sending you his way.”
So, a few days later we showed up at the studio. As my brother and I passed through the glass doors
of TML Studios, a man in the far corner glanced up from a drawing desk, where he had been busily
sketching. It was the weekend and he was the only one in the office.
“Can I help you?”
My brother and I nervously shuffled forward, clutching our papers and sketchbooks. “A friend of
yours named Nathan sent us here to get jobs,” I said, trying to sound confident.
“I don’t think I know a Nathan?” He looked puzzled, rubbed at his chin thoughtfully.
“He said he was going to send you an email about us.”
“I didn’t get any email,” he said.
The man definitely looked confused but he didn’t seem annoyed. Still, I was absolutely mortified. I
wanted to turn around and run back out those doors.
“What do you have there? Are those your sketchbooks?”
We nodded, still not sure if he wanted to see them or not.
“Well bring them over. Let’s look at them.”
Surprised, relieved, we handed over the sketch books and watched apprehensively as he flipped
through the pages. He took his time, and mumbled away as he looked through the pages muttering
“Mhm,” or “Yes…,” or “Hmm, I don’t know about that!”
We waited, on tenterhooks. Finally, he looked up and smiled.
“Well boys, I can’t give you jobs but I can give you internships!”
I couldn’t believe it. This guy didn’t even know who we were, we had no real connection, no
established technical drawing skills, yet he was still willing to give us a shot.
Looking back, I now know the reason. An art director looks through your sketchbook and after
seeing its contents he will either offer you an internship or a job or send you on your way. But what
determines the outcome? What do they want to see in your sketchbooks? In my experience, art
directors are looking to see if you have a strong visual library.
Visual libraries are built by drawing and studying life. If an art director sees that you have a strong
visual library then they see a person they can train and mold into the artist they need them to be. I’ve V
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heard so many stories similar to mine about aspiring artists getting jobs and internships based on S
their sketch book, it’s spooky. The main takeaway is that if you can work really hard on your visual U
library, it’s very likely you will be prepared to enter the workforce as an artist in one capacity or A
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another. This is the first step to becoming a professional artist. After a few months of interning, I was
offered my first paid job with them: working on an animation project for the Utah Natural History L
Museum. I
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WHAT IS THE VISUAL LIBRARY?
Essentially, a visual library is an internal library of images that you keep in your memory. It can
consist of almost anything that’s useful to you as an artist. A visual library can contain patterns, styles,
anatomy, particular figures, motifs, characters, etc. Most of us have a basic visual library already. If
you try, you can likely conjure up particular figures, characters, or shapes in your mind and may even
be able to draw some of these quite easily from memory. But if your goal is to become a professional
artist, you must be much more intentional about forming your visual library. Having a visual library is
incredibly important—it’s like carrying around a reference library in your head. Once you have seared
certain images in your mind, you can call on them at any time. You can combine different elements
and create unique and original designs using your visual library. I believe a visual library is your most
important asset as an artist, and the stronger a visual library you have, the stronger you will be as an
artist.
You have so many places you can go to stock your visual library. You can visit museums and use
online image-sharing platforms. Basically, every source of imagery in the world can be fodder for
your visual library. When I began this process, I didn’t really have a plan. I just started looking up as
many pictures as possible on Pinterest, Google, or wherever I could find them. Any character design
that I thought was beautiful or wanted to be able to emulate, I just started copying it.

HOW TO BUILD A VISUAL LIBRARY

I began building my visual library in high school. I’ve since named this process the Rapid Visual
Library, but at the time, I didn’t have a name for what I was doing; it was just the most efficient way
for me to establish what something looked like and imprint it in my mind’s eye. But since then, I’ve
refined the process a little. Below, I’ll describe the steps I take to imprint something in my visual
library.
I begin the process by using a reference picture. Say I want to draw a character of a certain style. I
first take the reference picture, study it, and then copy the reference picture with the image in front
of me. After that, I take the reference away, get a new sheet of paper, and attempt to draw the picture
again based only on my memory. Often, this first attempt isn’t very good, but that doesn’t matter; it’s
just part of the process. The next step is bringing the reference picture back in and copying it again,
and after that attempting a second drawing of the image with no reference.

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 This method is excellent because it allows you to familiarize yourself both with the image and your
own weaknesses in copying it. When you come to redraw the image, with the reference in front of
you, you can see exactly where you went wrong when you drew the picture from memory and all the
fuzzy parts of your memory can now be filled in. Often, when a drawing doesn’t look right, it’s hard to
pinpoint exactly what’s wrong. But by drawing alternatively from memory and the reference picture,
you can quickly establish which parts of the picture you struggle to remember and hone in on these.
Usually, the second attempt at drawing without the reference picture looks pretty good, and if you
repeat the steps, it will get better and better. The image starts to really sear itself into your brain and
becomes a reference point in your visual library. Of course, if you stop drawing that specific thing for
a long time, you might forget it. But if it is a visual aid you call on regularly, it should remain easily
accessible.

Pro Tip:
You can use the Rapid Visual Library method to to quickly build up your visual library
of poses immediately before starting a new character. Right before you are about to dive
into a full on character design, I recommend using the Rapid Visual Library method
to to quickly build up your visual library of poses, the character design styles you want
to mimic, and costume/hair styles that inspire you. Doing this can also double as your
warm up period for drawing. You’ll be amazed at what a difference this makes!

HOW THE BRAIN RETAINS MEMORIES

I’m a big believer in understanding how the brain works and incorporating neuroscience into my
thinking about art. On the whole, I don’t feel like neuroscience gets enough attention in the art
community – as there can often be a huge divide between the arts world and the sciences. However,
the brain is where all of our thought processes, ideas, memories and creativity emerge from, so it is in
every artist’s best interest to understand this process.
There are neurological reasons why the Rapid Visual Library process is effective. The part of the
brain that’s responsible for creating memories is the hippocampus. In terms of storage, memories
are located in fragments in many parts of the brain and are assembled from these fragments when
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recalled. Repetition is key to ensuring something is embedded in the long-term memory rather than
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being retained only for a brief period. Essentially, when assembling your visual library, you aim to S
embed a certain image in your brain. The act of repetition cues your brain to the importance of the U
A
task and allows certain images to be retained more accurately.
L
As you pay attention and draw something over and over again, your brain comes to understand
that retaining that particular image is important; the repetition indicates that retaining the image is L
I
imperative, perhaps even connected with survival. This prompts the brain to strengthen the neural
B
pathways that are creating that memory, allowing you to recall it more easily than an image you R
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 I have coined my technique the Rapid Visual Library because you’re using two parts of your brain
in rapid succession. Basically, you’re switching from studying the image to trying to recall the image
and rapidly repeating this transition, a process that indicates to the brain the importance of retaining
the memory.

OBSERVING LIKE AN ARTIST

As well as repetition, another essential part of building a visual library is observing like an artist. This
means observing an image in all of its detail, not just a general overview. This is why the Rapid Visual
Library method involves going back and forth between the source and your memory of the source.
Returning to the image and confirming what it actually looks like helps to train your eye when you
return to the image, you look for all of the curves, shapes, and details that you might have missed and
couldn’t remember when drawing from memory.
Observing like an artist is a skill in and of itself, and it has many benefits for your work and for
appreciating art in general. However, it’s also essential to building a strong visual library. One way to
make sure you’re practicing appropriate observation is to make sure when drawing from reference
that you’re looking at your source material at least 75% of the time, but preferably closer to 90%.
When you’re copying an image, you ideally want to look at it closely, then copy it briefly, then study
it some more, and then copy a little more. In this process, you’ll constantly compare your version to
the source image, which contains all the information you need to create your drawing. It’s important
to ensure you don’t spend too much time looking at your own drawing, which can be tempting when
starting out. You should always ensure your reference photo absorbs much more of your attention
than your own drawing. Think of the reference photo as your road map. The act of minutely and
carefully studying this reference photo ensures your accuracy and success later when copying it from
memory.

SLEEP
Sleep is the final component you need when building your visual library; however, it’s often
overlooked. Some may roll their eyes at this section but I really mean it! Research has confirmed that
most of your learning and retention happens while you’re sleeping. If you’re sleeping poorly, then you
aren’t going to retain much of the information that you’re trying to absorb. If you want to build your
visual library in the most efficient manner, try getting quality sleep, especially on the days you’ve been
practicing drawing. If you practice all day and then only sleep for a few hours or don’t get any REM
sleep, then your brain simply has no chance to store all of the information. V
I
For a more in-depth look at sleep, I highly recommend the book Why We Sleep by Matthew S
Walker, which unpacks how and why we sleep as well as countering some common myths about sleep. U
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“DRAWING IS THE ROOT
OF EVERYTHING, AND THE
TIME SPENT ON THAT IS
ACTUALLY ALL PROFIT.”
-Vincent Van Gogh
D R AW I N G

IN THE FIRST WEEK OF MY INTERNSHIP, I SWIVELED BACK AND FORTH IN AN

OLD OFFICE CHAIR, waiting for Ian (the founder of the studio) to give me my assignment for
the day. He explained that the studio was working on an idea for a TV show, and had just started on
the character development process. “Why don’t you give it a crack and we’ll see what we can get from
you,” he said.
I began right away. Ian had given me a brief and I started sketching a slew of character designs. I
was thrilled that they were giving me such an important task. The next day I went to school and spent
half my day in art class painting fully rendered characters based off my sketches. At that stage, I didn’t
know how to paint digitally so I was actually painting my characters with acrylics. I couldn’t wait to
show the “finished” designs to Ian. After school, I headed straight over to the animation studio and
went to find Ian.
“I painted some finished character designs from yesterday!” I whipped out my stack of paintings
and placed them on his desk.
“Hmm.” he said. He didn’t look very impressed. I had fantasized about him seeing them and saying,
“Why the hell aren’t we paying you yet!?” I was so new to the job that I didn’t understand that the
studio was very unlikely to use any of my designs in their TV show. Instead, Ian was using the
assignment as a teaching moment — one that has stayed with me ever since.
Of course, he didn’t come close to exclaiming that I should be being paid. Instead, he told me
to take the paintings and sketches over to Cameron, and to ask for his critique. Ian pointed out a
man sitting behind a large drawing tablet. This was the first time I had seen Cameron in the studio. D
Cameron was tall, with wise eyes and an air of calm confidence. He looked up as I drew near. R
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 “Hey man, what’s up?” I told him who I was. And added, nervously,
“Ian wants me to ask you to critique my work.”
He introduced himself and took the drawings and painting out of my hands. I waited as he shuffled
through them, only spending a few seconds on each one.
“I can see you spent a lot of time on these paintings but it’s a shame because your drawings aren’t
very good.” These words caught me off guard but they immediately hit home.
“You see,” he continued, “when you fully render a painting based on a bad drawing you’re just putting
lipstick on a pig. You need to spend much more time refining your drawings before you start painting
them.”
After these words of wisdom, he pulled out a piece of paper and a pen and started sketching. Over
the next five minutes, he summarized everything that was not working in my drawings: I needed to
start thinking about line quality, the form and perspective of the figures, and their movement and
dynamism.
That was the day that I realized that drawing is by far the most important part of a character design.
The majority of your time should be spent refining your drawings and not on cosmetic things such
as painting. The phrase “lipstick on a pig” has stuck with me, and it’s an excellent lesson to remember
when it comes to drawing.

LINE
Line is the most important aspect to understand when learning drawing as any drawing is essentially
made from lines. As a character designer, the quality and confidence of your lines are essential to
composing a successful drawing. A huge variety exists in the kinds of lines you can create and the
effect they’ll have when applied in character design. Using different brush sizes or drawing tools can
determine the crispness or softness of a line, and lines can also differ dramatically in thickness and
opacity. Anyone who’s experimented with various drawing media and observed the effects, say, of
drawing with charcoal vs. ink has an instant understanding of how different kinds of lines can create
different impressions.
Crispness, softness, texture, sharpness, thickness, opacity—all of these are aspects of the line
quality. Line confidence is about drawing a line without hesitancy in one smooth and confident
movement rather than attempting it with a sketchy and uncommitted hand.
Line quality is also a very important part of drawing. Line quality refers to the confidence of your
lines. Many beginners will draw very short sketchy lines or they will redraw the same line on top
of itself to hide the fact that they don’t know where to put the line or how to draw the curve. This is
somewhat acceptable for your concept sketches and under drawings. But you must draw committed
confident lines when you draw the final character design.

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 Pro Tip:
Practice your line quality and confidence by mimicking another artist’s work. Select a
character drawing you like by an artist whose work you admire. Observe the image and
select individual lines in the drawing that you can practice drawing over and over again.
Fill an entire paper with the same line drawing until your muscles begin to memorize
the movement.

SHAPE
Most of us can easily draw a square or a triangle, but that isn’t what we’re talking about in character
design. In terms of human figures and shapes, it’s important to understand that everything is built out
of simple shapes. The human form can be broken down into a series of shapes: the head: a circle. The
chest: a rectangle. The hips: a trapezoid. Arms and legs can also be rectangles. Seeing figures in terms
of basic shapes is how many artists think, and learning this skill is essential to being able to draw well
and create characters. To succeed at anything, you must learn how to simplify it. Breaking a complex
figure or image down into a series of shapes requires learning how to do this.
Using shapes is an important part of creating successful character designs. Breaking things down to
their simple shapes makes it much easier to understand the relationship between an image’s different
components. And by “relationship,” I mean how the different parts of a figure connect and interact,
where the head might be in relation to the hand or the angle of an arm. Rather than getting bogged
down in the complexity of the image as a whole, breaking it into components allows you to see an
image on a different, simpler level, which makes it far easier to ensure that the composition and the
pose are correct.

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 Pro Tip:
Practice drawing human poses by using simple shapes. Be sure to notice the relationship
of each shape to the other shapes. How far away are they from each other? What are the D
size differences? You can also draw on top of reference photos breaking the form down into R
A
its simple shapes, which will help you begin to see the human body as an assemblage of
W
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FORM
Form is the evolution of shape. Instead of breaking down an image into simple shapes, you’re
breaking them down into their simple forms—the key difference being that forms are three-
dimensional. So, for example, a leg you previously drew as a long rectangle is now rounded out and
becomes much more cylindrical.
Most people can draw simple shapes without any practice, but to become proficient at drawing, you
need to be able to draw things that look three-dimensional, like cylinders, tapered cylinders, cones,
and spheres. The best way to learn these skills is to practice.
Trace or copy a human figure. First, break the torso, head, and limbs of the figure down into two
dimensional shapes, then figure out what the three dimensional version of each shape is. For example
the thigh may be represented with a rectangle in 2D but is then represented with a tapered cylinder in

Pro Tip:
Practice drawing human poses using simple forms. As discussed with simple shapes, you
can practice drawing different poses by using the simplified 3D forms. Again, you can draw
D
on top of reference photos, using an existing image to break the pose down into its most
R
rudimentary forms. This will help you begin to see the human body as simple forms that A
relate to each other in three-dimensions. W
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PERSPECTIVE
The mastering of form brings us to perspective. Perspective gives a two-dimensional image the
illusion of depth and fullness by considering the angle from which the object is seen. You might
hear perspective referred to as one-point, two-point, or even three-point perspective. These are all
techniques for representing space in which the scale of an object diminishes as the distance from the
viewer increases.

Essentially, objects farther from us appear smaller than those near us. And the position at which
they meet at a horizon line (the intersection of where the ground meets the sky) is called the
vanishing point. Just as when you hold an object away from you, the object appears smaller in relation
to your surroundings, even though it’s still the same size object in reality, elements of a drawing
represented as being more distant are drawn smaller. If your arm were long enough to hold the object
out to the horizon line, this is the point at which the object would disappear—and your arm would
seem to get skinnier and skinnier the further it stretched away from you.

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 Another thing to take note of is that depending on how far something is away from the viewer, the
more “compressed” it might appear. Imagine an image of a man standing upright, facing the viewer.
Now, in your mind, tilt him backwards so that he is lying down with the soles of his feet toward you.
To create the illusion of depth in an image, his feet would now appear larger, his head smaller, and the
torso and limbs would be compressed compared to the upright version of the man – all to help create
this sense of depth.
This process is called foreshortening and is a very important part of drawing human forms in a
realistic manner. Employing perspective in drawing is what makes images look real, dynamic, and
life-like rather than flat and inert.

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 VALUE
Value refers to the lightness or darkness of an image or a part
of an image. For example, shadows have dark values. Black is
the darkest value, white is the lightest value, and everything in
between—what are called the mid-tones—have a value, too.
The easiest way to understand value is that white and lighter
colors are highlights, and blacks, darker grays, and darker
colors are shadows.
Value is used to create contrast in art. And the term “value
contrast” simply refers to the difference between two values.
For example black next to white is the highest level of contrast,
whereas a mid gray next to a slightly darker gray has low
contrast.

LIGHT AND SHADOW

Value naturally leads us to light and shadow because light and shadow are made up of values. Along
with perspective, light and shadow help create the illusion of depth. After all, a sphere is just a circle
until you add light and shadow. So, if we keep thinking about a sphere, determining where to put the
light and shadow depends on where the light in the image is coming from. Once we establish where
the source of light is, we know the shadow will be on the opposite side. In addition to one side of the
sphere being darker, you also need to consider the cast shadow, which falls on the opposite side of
the light source, and isn’t part of the sphere but the surface where the sphere has blocked light from
reaching.
When you’re drawing or painting
a character that you want to make
look more realistic, one way to
achieve this is through playing with
light and shadow, which is essential
to making characters appear three-
dimensional. Of course, adding light
and shadow isn’t always necessary;
it depends on your drawing style—
many character styles don’t employ
light and shadow, rather, they rely on
color and line work. But mastering D
light and shadow is still important. R
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It’s an essential skill to have in your
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toolbelt so that you can use it when I
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 Pro Tip:
You can learn more about light and shadow just by drawing spheres and cubes and
applying different lighting to them. Learning how to draw and paint light and shadows
on simple geometric forms is the best way to learn how light and shadow works. There
are many videos online that will teach you how to do this.

ESSENTIAL DRAWING SKILLS

As I stressed above, drawing is a complicated subject and whole books and university courses are
dedicated to these skills that I have covered in a few paragraphs. But, as I said earlier, this is intended
to be an overview, something to motivate you and help you establish achievable goals.

So, in order, the steps to becoming proficient at drawing characters are as follows:
• Breaking an image down into shapes
• Mastering three-dimensional forms
• Breaking an image down into forms
• Understanding perspective and how an object changes depending on the viewer’s position.
• Mastering values and how they interact.
• Adding three-dimensionality with values and light and shadow.

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“I DEFINITELY FEEL THAT
WE CANNOT DO THE
FANTASTIC THINGS
BASED ON THE REAL,
UNLESS WE FIRST KNOW
THE REAL.”
- Walt Disney
A N ATO M Y

I’D BEEN WORKING ON A BACKGROUND DRAWING FOR HOURS, yet for some reason
I still couldn’t figure out how to draw the clock tower. I had discarded a whole bunch of sketches and
was getting frustrated. The tower I was drawing was a tall cylinder with an inset circular clock face at
the top of it. No matter how many times I tried to draw the clock the perspective looked all wrong. It
finally dawned on me: I needed a real-life reference. So I grabbed a sheet of paper and drew a circle on
it. Then I rolled the paper up into a cylinder. I could now see the exact shape the circle needed to be in
order for it to look like it was following the curvature of the cylinder. And It turned out that the shape
it made was much more egg-shaped rather than circular. After seeing that, I drew the new egg-shaped
clock face onto the tower and it looked perfect.
This experience really underlined how important it is to study real life structures to learn what
things actually look like. Often the idea in our head of how something should look (i.e a clock face
being round rather than egg shaped) can override how something actually appears when perspective,
angles, and depth are taken into account. This is especially true of anatomy – we tend to think we
know how the human form looks because we are all pretty familiar with it, but often reality will
contradict some of our perceptions. The more familiar we become with what our subject matter
actually looks like, the more acutely we can reproduce it – and more importantly, stylize it.
After mastering drawing skills, the next area to explore as a character artist is anatomy.

ARTISTS’ ANATOMY VS. ACTUAL ANATOMY

There are two schools of thought when it comes to anatomy. First is the artists’ anatomy, and then A
actual anatomy. The latter is the kind of anatomy that people in medical fields are familiar with. As N
A
we’re trying to become character artists rather than surgeons, I recommend not worrying about T
anatomy in the medical sense as it’s unlikely you’ll need to identify or name specific muscles and O
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bones until you reach a master level understanding of anatomy. For our purposes, you just need to
think of anatomy in more simplified forms. As we discussed in the drawing chapter, the human body
can be broken down into simple forms. A thigh, forearm, and a calf are tapered cylinders. A torso can
be broken down into a rectangular cube. A head can be broken down into a sphere connected to a
cone, which makes up the chin.
Rather than learning anatomy in the medical sense, it is more important for an artist to learn to
see the human body first in simple shapes and then in simplified, three-dimensional forms, and
eventually complex forms. This is integral to replicating exactly how the body’s different parts connect
to each other and maintain proportion and relationship.

TRACING
Tracing is one very simple trick you can use to improve your knowledge of anatomy. The human form
obviously contains the human anatomy, so you learn a great deal from just tracing over photographs
of the human body and breaking down the body into simple forms as you go. As well as tracing, you
can copy the human form using the Rapid Visual Library approach, but I recommend beginning with
tracing as it allows you to replicate the human body without encountering any assumption of how a
body looks.
This process can easily be done digitally by lowering the opacity of an image and tracing over the
top of it with your drawing tool. But you can also do it the old fashioned way with paper and pencil,
using a printed-off picture and paper laid over the top or by drawing over the top of your image with
the image opacity lowered so you can see your own drawing. This is how I did it.

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 Instead of just tracing the outline of the image, it’s important to incorporate the simple forms we’ve
been discussing. So as you trace the human form, you must fill in the simple, three-dimensional
forms that comprise each part of the body—turning the head into a sphere combined with a cone, the
arms into cylinders, and so on.
In your journey towards becoming a character artist, you might encounter some people who look
down on tracing or are dismissive of it as a tool. But I guarantee that by tracing over images, you’ll
quickly become familiar with the human form and learn the basics of human and animal anatomy
much faster.

Pro Tip:
If you don’t have a good way to trace your reference photos, one way to mimic a light
box is to use a window. Take your reference photo and layer your blank drawing paper
on top. Hold or tape your papers to a window and the light will pass through your
paper revealing your reference photo beneath. Now you can trace your reference photo!

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“IF YOU PERFORM THE
ACTION, IT HELPS TO GIVE
YOU THE FEEL OF IT. GET
UP AND DO IT, EVEN IF
IT DOES SEEM A LITTLE
SILLY. IF YOU CAN STUDY
THE ACTION IN FRONT
OF A LARGE MIRROR,
SO MUCH THE BETTER.
THERE SHOULD BE A
MIRRO IN EVERY STUDIO.”
- Andrew Loomis
G E ST U R E , P O S E ,
& E M OT I O N

ON THE DAY I WALKED INTO TML STUDIOS AND GOT AN INTERNSHIP, I ALSO
ASKED IAN, THE STUDIO HEAD, FOR FEEDBACK ON MY CHARACTER DESIGNS.
After thinking for a moment, he said, “Well, Jaysen… you don’t really design characters.”
I was flabbergasted. What was he talking about? I had a whole sketchbook full of character
drawings – in fact, it was sitting right in front of him!
“You’re just designing character heads,” Ian continued. “Looking through your sketchbook, I see a
lot of shoulder up drawings of characters. I also see a bunch of anatomy studies. But what I don’t see
are any full body characters.”
His words hit like a tonne of bricks. I was dismayed – but I knew he was right. He had pointed
something out to me that I never even noticed about most of my character drawings. I had focused on
G
the heads, but below the neck the bodies of my characters looked inert and lifeless or had nobody at E
all. S
“We have a figure drawing group that meets every Thursday night. You should come to that every T
U
week and practice gesture drawing.” R
I agreed to Ian’s suggestion, though inside I was wondering what a “gesture” even was. E
On the following Thursday night, I dutifully arrived with my sketchbook and pencils, all ready to
P
sketch gestures. The session began and the other artists and I began sketching the models’ poses. I was O
just copying what I saw down onto my paper. The session was over before I knew it and I had a couple S
E
dozen drawings of the model.
The next day I presented my drawings to Ian and asked him what he thought. E
“Well, these look pretty anatomically correct but I’m afraid these still aren’t gesture drawings,” he M
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said.
T
At this point, I was feeling frustrated – and also embarrassed. I’d been to the gesture drawing I
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session, surely the drawings I had done were gesture drawings?
“So what is a gesture drawing then?” I blurted out, unable to contain my exasperation.
Ian asked if could draw on top of my sketches and I said he could. He took out colored pencils and
started drawing straight and slightly curved lines through the heads and all the way down the spines
of my figure drawings. I watched him work.
“These are your lines of action. As you can see, they’re not very dynamic. Most of them are pretty
straight, or close to straight. All of the lines in your drawings need more movement. You need to
exaggerate the curves in your drawings to create movement.”
He looked up at me to see if I was understanding and I nodded my head. It was more than
understanding I was feeling – he was blowing my mind!
The next week I showed up again for the figure drawing session. This time I implemented what
Ian had taught me. At the end of the session, I looked over all my drawings. I couldn’t believe it. My
drawings looked alive for the first time ever. Of course, there was so much more to learn. Ahead of me
were months and months of learning and practicing, discovering how to use pose, balance, dynamics,
and emotion in my drawings. But I can pinpoint this moment as the moment where I learned to
breathe life into my drawings. And that’s how I want you to think about gesture, pose, and emotion;
these are all tools to help you add life and depth to your drawings.
In the following chapter, I’ve combined gesture, pose, and emotion because they all have the same
end goal: giving your character’s movement and emotion—basically “bringing them to life.” Without
skill in this area, your characters may be anatomically correct but they’ll likely appear wooden and
static.

GESTURE
Gesture is essentially the movement of a character through space. Any given gesture usually has a
“line of action” where you can track the movement of the human form. If you study an image of
someone dancing, running, or spinning, you can usually identify curves or lines where their body is
shaped by the action they’re performing. So, to make things simple, I think of gestures as the line of
action. If a person is standing still and upright, that figure has no action or movement and the lines of
G
their body are arranged accordingly—up and down, with little variation. E
One way to determine the line of action in a character design is to assess the axes of movement in S
T
the image. To do this, I establish the different axes in an image by sketching an axis line through the
U
eyes, the shoulders, the chest, and the hips. If all of the lines are on a similar axis, then the image may R
seem static – but if the hips are angled differently to the head, which contrasts with the angle of the E
torso, this is likely to make the character more dynamic. Creating dynamic poses for your characters
P
is very important when it comes to creating an appealing character design. O
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 G
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P
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Pro Tip: S
You can start to understand line of action and gesture by drawing on top of other E
artist’s character designs. In each image, identify the main line of action in the
E
character’s pose by drawing a line, usually through the spine of the character and M
sometimes extended all the way through the arm and down through the leg. Then try O
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to identify other lines of action, for example the sweeping curves in the character’s
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POSE
A character’s pose tells a story about the character by revealing what they’re doing. Of course, the pose
is closely connected to gesture because a pose often contains action and movement, although a pose
can also be still. Whether a character is seated and drinking a coffee or running as fast as they can,
the way their body is arranged should clearly communicate what they’re doing (the action). If your
character is running, then the position of their whole body—their pose—is altered by this specific
action. For example, their hands might be balled in fists and one arm will be higher than the other.
Perhaps they’re running toward the viewer, which would mean one foot is closer to the viewer and the
other is much further back (which also employs another skill—perspective or foreshortening).

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Pro Tip:
You should be able to redraw your pose as a stick figure and still be able to understand E
what the pose and action of the character is. If you can’t then the pose has to be pushed M
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further, exaggerated to make it clear to the viewer what the action is. T
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EMOTION
Emotion is not just communicated in facial expressions, but also using the posture and stance of your
character. Obviously, facial expressions are the primary way to communicate what your character
is feeling or thinking and, on a bigger scale, what kind of person they are. But it’s important to also
use body language, which is essential for communicating more subtle effects. So, a big smile usually
communicates happiness, and that, combined with an open free posture, clearly indicates that the
character is cheerful, approachable, and so on. However, if a person’s body language is altered or it
contrasts with their facial expression, then this can add more nuance to a figure. So if a character is
smiling, but they’re hunched over or are looking at something with a side-long glance, or are rubbing
their hands together, then that looks much more creepy and could indicate that your character is not
just happy in a straightforward way, but
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perhaps they’re being devious or plotting
E
something. S
You basically have infinite variations T
U
to play with in terms of gesture, pose,
R
and emotion, so don’t be afraid to E
experiment. I encourage you to create
P
some characters with exaggerated
O
expressions and body language, or S
combine angry expressions with a happy- E
seeming pose to see what effect this E
might have on the overall demeanor of M
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Pro Tip: E
The eyebrows are the most expressive part of the human face. I highly recommend that you M
study the shape and angle of the eyebrows, as seen in different facial expressions. You can O
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look at yourself in a mirror to do this or look at reference photos. I
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“I SAID, LOOK, WE’VE BEEN GIVEN THE
JOB OF MAKING THE LORD OF THE
RINGS. FROM THIS POINT ON, I WANNA
THINK THAT LORD OF THE RINGS IS REAL.
THAT IT WAS ACTUALLY HISTORY, THAT
THESE EVENTS HAPPENED. AND MORE
THAN THAT, I WANT US TO IMAGINE
THAT WE’VE BEEN LUCKY ENOUGH TO BE
ABLE TO GO ON LOCATION AND SHOOT
OUR MOVIE WHERE THE REAL EVENTS
HAPPENED. THOSE CHARACTERS DID
EXIST AND THEY WORE COSTUMES AND
I WANT THE COSTUMES TO BE TOTALLY
ACCURATE TO WHAT THE REAL PEOPLE
WORE.”
- Peter Jackson
STO RY & C O ST U M E

“HE’S IN THE BUILDING!” SOMEONE SAID OVER MY HEADSET.

My excitement was growing. I swiveled back and forth in the Millennium Falcon cockpit type chair
I was sitting in. It was almost pitch black, aside from the glow of a few dim blue lights.
“How’s everyone doing tonight?” This was a different voice in my headset. “Let’s do our spot check.
Spot one?”
“Spot one is here,” someone else replied. This continued on until spot five was reached.
“Spot five?”
“Spot five is here,” I replied, using the microphone attached to my headset.
The voice doing the spot check was the light board operator at Hale Center Theater, one of the
best community theaters in the United States. I had been working as a spotlight operator since the
summer before my senior year. Now I was working at the theater at night and doing my internship at
the animation studio after school.
That night was the regional premier of “The Pirate Queen,” a show which hadn’t been performed
since its run on Broadway. That was exciting enough, but that wasn’t only what was creating the buzz S
in the building – there was something even more exciting happening. That night, the world famous T
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lyricist of the show, Alan Boublil, had come to see our performance and there would be a Q&A with R
him for the cast and crew after the show. Alain Boublil may not be a household name, but you most Y
likely know his work. Alain Boublil wrote the lyrics and developed the long running Broadway hit
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“Les Miserables.” I have long been passionate about the theater and Alain Boublil was like a theater
rockstar to me. C
A few hours later I took my seat in a theater patchily filled with cast and crew. The theater producer O
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introduced Alain Boublil and the Q&A began. Everyone was eager to seek advice from such a T
luminary and hands were flying up in the air. U
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 Each time he said “Next question,” in his dignified French I accent I threw my hand up in the air.
But each time my hand was passed over, and someone else was selected. As the evening drew on, I
became scared I might never get to ask my question.
We were nearing the end of the Q&A. Alain Boublil had answered so many questions from my
colleagues but mine remained unanswered. He scanned the audience, “I have time for one more
question,” he said. Again, my hand flew into the air. “You,” he said pointing in my direction. I looked
to my left and my right, then behind me, and then back at him. I was unable to believe I had really
been selected. “Yes, you!” he said.
Everyone chuckled and it took me a moment to regain my composure.
“Well, I was wanting to know what you think is the most important part of writing a show and
telling a good story?”
The answer he gave changed my life and has stuck with me ever since.
“The most important part of telling a good story are the characters,” he began. “But more than
that, it’s about writing characters that feel real. Every character in Les Miserables feels and acts like
someone you know. We all know someone like Inspector Javert. He is a stickler for the rules and
follows them no matter what. His world view is built on these rules. Because we know someone like
Inspector Javert we can relate to the story on a much deeper emotional level. When his world view is
broken, you feel it.”
What Alain Boublil said that night about creating good characters applies to every aspect of
storytelling, including the costumes, the history, and the characters themselves. You can see this
pattern of thinking over and over again, from Walt Disney to Hayao Miyazaki. Everything about
your character design should be based in reality, in the complex world you witness every day, in the
nuance you see in your friends, partners, co-workers, and so on. Often the characters we create are
exaggerated versions of reality. They can be fantastical, heroic, villainous, goofy – but these traits still
have their seeds in reality. We all know people who are brave, or mean, or kind, or funny and we often
have some understanding of why they are the way they are and what shapes their behavior. Apply this
complexity to your characters, and I guarantee you will see results.
The elements we have just covered (gesture, pose, and emotion) all play a vital role in storytelling
and are great tools for revealing your character’s personality. But, using costume (and I like to include
hair in costume) is where you really get to make your character unique and demonstrate who they are
and where they’ve come from.
When I think of the details of a costume, I like to think about each element being a specific S
choice the character has made, a conscious decision regarding how they dress and do their hair. If T
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you consider clothes and hair as evidence of decision-making that originates with the character (or R
perhaps from someone in the character’s life that dictates how they dress. Example; a soldier with a Y
prescribed haircut and uniform) you can start to see how costume and hair reveal so much about a
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person and their life. Instead of dressing the character as an artist, try to think about the outfit from
the character’s perspective—each element of the costume is something the character chose to wear. C
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CULTURE, HISTORY, AND AUTHENTICITY
The costume is not just limited to clothes, it also includes accessories, scars and tattoos, all of which
are useful for expressing something about the character’s history or culture (which can, of course,
also be expressed through clothing). Sometimes, these choices are completely up to you. But if you’re
working for a client, they may have a brief that dictates which culture or time period the character
comes from. This can involve very granular and specific details.
Imagine, for instance, if your client wants a character design for a pirate. The pirate has a tattoo.
This tattoo could be tribal or a European-style tattoo; it might need to be historically accurate for the
specific era in which the pirate is living. The same applies to the sword the pirate has or the waistcoat
they’re wearing. The client can give you a list of any number of items that make up the character’s
costume, and you need to research and implement your research in your designs.

RESEARCH
As we’ve discussed, building a visual library involves honing your research skills—and so does
storytelling, especially in terms of costume. Making sure something is historically accurate, culturally
accurate, or just generally authentic and believable can involve a lot of research. Books and the
internet (especially image-sharing platforms like Pinterest) are all excellent sources of information
about different historical eras, cultures, and roles people can have in society (priests, soldiers, chefs,
etc.). But, google is usually my best friend as I can get very detailed with my search keywords.
When it comes to costumes, I can assure you that just making stuff up is often not going to end
with a good result, especially if your character is connected with a real historical era. For example,
if you had to draw a Samurai, you might feel as if you could vaguely picture what kind of costume a
Samurai would wear and could possibly sketch something reasonably convincing. But I guarantee
you’ll get a better result if you learn about Samurai culture before you begin drawing. Often, learning
about a culture, an era, or a role supplies you with a huge amount of specific detail that you can
apply when designing your character. Often, you’ll come away with far more information than you
can fit into a character’s costume, but part of the research process is learning to be selective. And
understanding which elements communicate the necessary information to the viewer and which
items of clothing, weapons, or whatever will provide that sense of authenticity and realness to your
character.

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EMOTION
You might not necessarily think of a costume as being closely connected to feelings, but the way a
character dresses and the impression that this costume has on the viewer definitely influences how
we understand a character emotionally. If you’re drawing a female character who has a personality
that’s very innocent and sweet, it’s unlikely you’d dress her in an outfit that’s bristling with buckles,
weapons, and studs. You have plenty of ways to convey innocence, sweetness, and emotions through
costume—so these traits might be conveyed by softer colors and textures, more typically feminine
clothes, ribbons, and so on. Again, the flipside is true for a scary character. Their clothes, scars, and
tattoos, can all be used to create a sense of aggression or toughness. You can also mix things that seem
innocent with things that seem threatening for a contrasting effect.

STORYTELLING AND BACKSTORY

One of the best ways to guarantee you have a well-rounded and dynamic seeming character is to
know as much about them as possible—and this is achieved by making up stories about them and
knowing their backstory. Just as actors invent histories for their roles to better understand their
character’s personality in the present, you need to invent stories about your character, which will help
you hone their appearance.
Sometimes this backstory will be given to you by a director and this is called the character brief.
But it’s your job to embellish that story through the character’s costume and hairstyle, as well as
through research and development.

SIMPLIFICATION AND SILHOUETTE

Simplification can be difficult, especially after you’ve done the research and learned about different
clothing or accouterments your character would realistically have access to. However, simplification
is important for creating a character that’s appealing and recognizable. Art, in general, involves
simplification. Even if you can point to examples of very complex or elaborate seeming art, I
guarantee that it will still have been simplified when compared with real life.
This simplification process applies to costumes, too, which brings us back to what we explored in
the drawing chapter—the importance of breaking the human body down into simple forms. The same
principle applies to costume. Essentially, you want a character to be instantly recognizable, and often
the most recognizable forms are incredibly simple shapes. Think about symbols, road signs and other
kinds of imagery that need to be quickly and easily understood. Of course, our characters aren’t going S
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Ideally, your character, via their costume, should be identifiable through their silhouette. Consider a &
character like Totoro—you basically only need to see the egg plant silhouette with pointy ears, and
you instantly know who the character is. This level of recognition is obviously difficult to achieve. But C
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simplifying and condensing the character. Often, when you feel you’ve finished a character, you can T
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hairstyle, the weapon, the clothes, or a hat. Whatever it is, taking something away is nearly always
more effective than adding something. Just as writers talk about “killing their darlings”—that is,
pruning away flowery language they might be overly attached to, we visual artists have to kill our
darlings, too. The simpler and more refined a figure is, the more likely you’ll be able to recognize them
by their silhouette. And the more recognizable a figure is, the more iconic it is.

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ST Y L E

STYLE IS THE FINAL AND ARGUABLY THE MOST IMPORTANT STEP IN

CHARACTER DESIGN. It’s impossible to develop your own style or become proficient at
mimicking the styles of others until you’ve ticked off everything we covered up until this point. Belief,
a visual library, technical drawing skills, research, storytelling, and costuming. You need to have
proficiency in these areas before you start to worry about style (and often, an understanding of style
comes about after spending more time on these other factors).
The previous six steps can be considered the building blocks, but style is what distinguishes
amazing artists from good artists. Style is often the factor that individualizes your art, especially if
you’re competing with other artists who are all technically skilled. Style is the element where you can
truly demonstrate your mastery of drawing.
Concepts like style can be hard to define. It can be difficult to pinpoint exactly why you might look
at one artist’s work and see style there, and yet in another artist, you might see technical ability with
no style. But style is just as achievable as everything else we’ve discussed. That is, just like everything
else we’ve covered, style isn’t to do with having great talent or being a special genius. Style can be
learned—just as form, pose, and research skills can be learned.

NOTHING NEW UNDER THE SUN…

What I’ve come to realize over my years of working as a character artist is that style is really just
combining elements of other people’s existing ideas and styles. This isn’t the same as plagiarism or
copying other people. It’s more just accepting that everything is based on previously existing ideas
or a combination of ideas. I’m sure you’ve heard this before—and if you haven’t, I hate to break it to
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you—but there’s not really anything original out there. And though it might be tempting to think of
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are just combining and re-combining ideas in endless arrangements.

SIMPLIFICATION AND EXAGGERATION

Combining existing ideas is one aspect of style. Another aspect of style is something we covered in
the previous chapter: simplification. Drawing is inherently stylized because it transforms reality into
a series of lines. You take anatomy, you take expressions, and you render this in two dimensions using
line, color, and all of the other tools we’ve discussed. Simplification is inherently to do with style; style
is how we transform reality into an image. When you look at yourself, there’s no outline around your
body and your eyes are much more complex than eyes rendered in a character sketch. When you
draw, you take reality, refine it, condense it, and simplify it.
Another aspect of style that we use in conjunction with simplification is exaggeration. In some
cases, you may enlarge, emphasize, or add more detail to an aspect of a character—add more lines and
more emphasis to an aspect of a figure that might be fairly nondescript in real life. In the most basic
terms, style is evident in how you interpret real life on the page. When you draw, you take reality and
transform it by making it simpler or more exaggerated than in real life; that is, you stylize it.

CREATING YOUR OWN STYLE

Throughout my career, I’ve heard over and over again how important it is to “create your own style.”
This is something that artists often repeat. And while I think it is true to some extent, I also believe
this idea is overstated, especially regarding the day-to-day realities of being employed as an artist.
Because in reality, if you’re working for somebody else, a huge part of the work involves recreating
and mimicking a style consistently. For example, if a Disney animator is working on a Disney film
and they’re doing hand-drawn animation—or even 3D animation—they need to be able to repeatedly
and accurately mimic the existing style of the film. When you have to draw one character repeatedly,
the style must stay the same the entire time. Every element, from the way the character looks to
line quality, all of this needs to remain consistent. Obviously, a stylistic shift can occur if done with
intention (Think when the style of SpongeBob the show changes from its cartoon style to a realistic
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painting)—but this would usually be done with a specific effect or goal in mind and is very different T
from an artist unintentionally having their style jump all over the place. Y
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THE FINAL PIECE OF THE PUZZLE
Style really is the last building block of being a character designer. You know you’ve mastered your
craft when you can pick up and mimic a style easily. Of course, to be able to swiftly begin drawing
characters and replicating them in different poses all with the same aesthetic and line quality is
something most of us take a long time to build up to. One reason style is the last thing you need to
master is that it incorporates all of the things we’ve covered so far—style is present in the entirety of a
character design, from line quality to color, from pose to costume.

BUT DON’T OVERTHINK IT!

If you’ve stayed with me until this point, I encourage you not to stress too much about style. Style is
complex, and being able to understand, mimic, and create your own style is something you’ll develop
over time with practice. And as you become familiar with everything else we’ve been discussing, style
will probably arrive as a natural outgrowth of gaining these practical skills.

STUDY ORIGINAL ARTWORK

If you really want to understand style and where it came from, I recommend that you study some
original artwork worldwide. By “original,” I mean going all the way back to ancient times, but also
looking at early work within animation and character design.
Walt Disney was among the first artists to start doing character design, at least in the way we
conceive of character design today. His figures were based on reality but were very simplified. And
part of why Disney’s designs have that enduring appeal is because they’re simple yet clearly reference
reality.
Ancient Japanese art is also a great place to start learning about style. The origins of manga and
anime can be traced back to scrolls from the 12th and 13th centuries. And don’t limit your research
to Japanese art. I recommend exploring ancient art from all human cultures. In doing this, you’ll
immediately encounter myriad ways of breaking reality down into simple pictures, figures, or motifs.
And each culture turned reality into imagery differently and used all kinds of techniques to capture
reality, whether it was carvings, masks, weaving, religious idols, or any other representation of the
world. These art forms may seem very different from character design, but the point is to understand
style by observing different artists’ and artisans’ techniques for breaking down reality into symbols,
shapes, and lines.

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DESIGNING A
C H A R ACT E R

NOW THAT YOU’VE GRASPED THE SEVEN STEPS YOU NEED TO BECOME
A CHARACTER ARTIST, I want to briefly cover the process I personally go through when
designing a character.

1. RESEARCH
The first part of my process is always research. Often, when I set out to create a character, my research
approach can be quite broad. Basically, I start off by hunting for inspiration, which can be examples
of a specific style I want to mimic, a pose reference, some historical dress, or whatever imagery I find
that seems to chime with my intentions for the character. In this phase, I follow my nose and just pull
images from the internet and save them as reference points. D
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2. WARMING UP I
After I’ve done my research and sourced my inspiration pictures, I “warm-up.” Just like an athletic G
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warm-up, warming up for character design is about getting in the right headspace, limbering up, I
and relaxing into the task in a low-stakes way. When you hit the gym, you don’t immediately start N
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with your maximum weight or most difficult exercise—you build up to it so that by the time you’re
performing the most challenging movements, you’re mentally and physically prepared. A
I start drawing without overthinking—I just put pen to paper and sketch out rough ideas for a
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character and pose. The important thing to remember is that these drawings are allowed to be bad.
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You’re stretching, relaxing into the work, and throwing ideas out there to see what works. I know from A
experience that the scariest part about doing a character design is actually just putting that first mark R
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on the paper. Warming up is a great way to take the pressure off when you make those first marks.
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This can be done with digital software, where you can easily delete your sketches, or you can use copy T
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 For this example, we’re discussing creating a character without a specific brief from an art director.
Basically, you’re coming up with a character completely on your own. When I do this, I try lots of
poses and ideas, which becomes easier as your visual library strengthens.
So though I still consider this phase a warm-up and part of what gets those creative juices flowing,
I’m also trying to figure out more and more about the character as I draw. So in the back of my mind,
I’m considering the most suitable poses, gestures, and actions and assessing my own work as I go.
One thing that helps with this process is the Rapid Visual Library method. For instance, right before
you sit down to do a character design, you can absorb a series of different poses into your visual
library. If you do this right before attempting a new character design, I guarantee you’ll see an
immediate effect, and you’ll draw much better poses. You can also trace poses before you begin your
actual design. Making sure to break each component of the body down into its individual forms like
we talked about in Chapter 4.

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3. STARTING TO SKETCH
Ideally, the warm-up period will gradually ease you into a more intentional drawing process. After
your initial research and sketching, you’ll slowly get closer to a concrete idea for your character. In
this phase, I still try out lots of ideas, like different poses and different accessories—just trying out
what choices feel right and suit the character I’m trying to create. If you use this process, your internal
vision of the character will likely get stronger and stronger.
Often, I draw these initial sketches using a blue line as it’s lighter and more tentative than black.
I use blue to figure out the broader elements of the character and the overall structure, and later I
return with a darker color and add detail. By doing this, your sketches will still be rough at this point,
but you should be able to start zeroing in on a few designs you like and create a few variations of your
chosen design.

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4. FEEDBACK
Once you have several concept designs—and that’s what these sketches are, as opposed to finished
designs—it’s important to get some feedback from the outside world. It can be hard to be an accurate
judge of your own work, and one of the most important skills you need to develop as an artist is the
ability to take feedback and respond to feedback in a productive way.
Often, showing your designs to a friend, a colleague, or a partner will result in feedback that you
couldn’t have anticipated on your own, and often this feedback can push your work into new, exciting
places.

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5. MORE DRAWING AND REFINING
Hopefully, the feedback you get results in some useful alterations being made to your initial concepts,
or at least gives you a sense of what was working and what wasn’t. At this point, I usually start
thinking more about the concepts discussed in Chapter 5: Gestures, Pose, and Emotion. For me,
refining my concepts involves really digging into the movement of the character, trying to make them
more dynamic, three dimensional, and “alive”.
At this point, I start assessing my sketches in terms of the “line of action,” which we discussed in
Chapter 5. By drawing axis lines through my figure’s eyes, shoulders, chest, and hips, I can assess
whether I have dynamic lines of action in my image. When you do this, you want to make sure a
contrast exists between these axis lines. Perhaps the hips will be angled differently from the eyes or
torso. As you assess these lines, you’ll be able to see if your figure appears balanced or imbalanced,
dynamic or static, and adjust accordingly.

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Usually, I do all of this work using a separate layer in Photoshop. This means I can go over sketchy
lines with stronger lines. And then when the drawing is complete, I can turn off the sketched lines
underneath and be left with a clean drawing.
This part of the process is also when I incorporate aspects of storytelling and costume from Chapter
6. The emotion of the character, the details and authenticity of the costume, and the silhouette are
refined and improved during this process.

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6. DETAIL, COLOR, LINE WORK, SHADING
Once the framework of your character is in place, you can move on to adding color, texture, light and
shadow, detail, and refining your lines.

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C O N C LU S I O N

IDEALLY, THE PREVIOUS PAGES HAVE GIVEN YOU AN OVERVIEW OF WHAT

STEPS TO TAKE TO BECOME A CHARACTER ARTIST. By proceeding from belief
through the visual library, through drawing and anatomy to gesture, pose, emotion, costume,
storytelling, and style, you should have a much clearer view of how character artists work.
Again, this is intended to be a useful jumping off point, a framework, rather than an in-depth
analysis of drawing skills and design basics. If you’re interested in learning more about any of these
topics, do check out some videos and courses that I offer, where we break down character design in
much more detail. Visit courses.jaysenbatchelor.com to learn more.
Becoming a character artist is a lifelong process—there’s just so much to learn! I’m still learning—
and I hope I’ll always keep learning; that’s part of being an artist. Hopefully, for some of you out there,
this will be the first step on a long, satisfying creative journey.

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