Career Blog Post - Character Design Artist
- heidip2209
- Feb 23, 2025
- 2 min read
Throughout my years of drawing, I have always drawn characters more than anything else. I love playing with the designs of monsters, so if getting into a job involving monster design for a game or animation would be exciting. A character designing career might be a good option for me because of this.
A character designer can design, visualize, or develop concepts for game studios, animation studios, live action cinema studios, comics, and more. A character designers job is to create concepts of character models with mostly knowledge of anatomy, perspective (showing a character in different angles), color theory and design.
A character designer should be able to...
create different designs based off of concepts of environment, background history and context, or story.
make unique physical characteristics as well as personality to define a character design. Experience in making a character unique and easy to recognize to sit well with an audience is key!
research and incorporate the style, environment, and overall look and feeling of a genre of film, game, or a time in history.
take criticism and feedback from a director for ideas and design changes of a character.
understand the characters role in a script if given.
communicating with directors, scriptwriter, storyboard artists, and other designers (environment, character, etc.) to understand a consistent style and visual across all character.
adhere to production schedules.
Learning fine arts is necessary, and more specifically illustration, animation, graphic design, Game Design, 3D Modeling and Animation, Digital Media, and even sculpture. A degree in Bachelor of Fine Arts (BFA) in Animation, in Illustration, or in Character Design is what needs to be looked for. Some collages that are good for development of skills necessary for this career are...
Rhode Island School of Design
Ringling College of Art and Design
California College of the Arts
Maryland Institute College of Art
School of the Art Institute of Chicago
Pratt Institute
Harvard University (low acceptance rate)
1st by Bobby Rebholz ("Fred"), 2nd by Amber Aki Huang, and 3rd by Mikel Antero.
In order to be considered for a job in character design, you need to have a diverse and well developed portfolio. You need a wide range of designs depending on your own development of a characters story and purpose. Showing perfection is bad for a portfolio as you need to show skill in designing a concept, not a complete product. Displaying different poses, angles, expressions, color schemes, silhouettes, and outfits are some examples that show understanding of designing. Showing a personal style also gives your artwork and portfolio life that engages people!
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