@CharDesignClub Challenge & Super Resource Page

NOTE: What’s more important for you is to find your own inspirations, research and find designs that appeal to you! Your tastes are probably different to mine (:

I have so much I want to learn from them [so many tutorials/courses!]
But I have my whole life ahead of me…there’s always time to learn and grow! 😉

In no particular order; don’t be lazy – Google them! 😉

• Claire Keane
  • I love her work on Tangled and her versatility in every project she does! She does wonderful children’s books now <3
• Chris Oatley
  •  I don’t know him in person but he’s super genuine & generous
• Rad Sechrist
  • sweet artist & wonderful teacher – toony things can be wonderful!
• Stephen Silver
  • generous character designer and genuine teacher
  • got incredible Character Design courses and books! Especially his book on his process “The Silver Way”.
• Tom Bancroft
  • does a lot of character design books!
• Nico Marlet 
  • for his charming character Designs especially for Kung Fu Panda & How to Train your Dragon
• Justin Rodrigues
  • love his shapes and sense of design in his characters
• Nate Wragg
  • for his shape based colourful designs!
• Jeffrey “Chamba” Cruz
  • just amazed at what how he stylises things with so much volume, colour and anatomy is top notch :0
• Cory Loftis
  • He is incredible with his expressive character designs & artistry 😀
  • Wreck it Ralph, Frozen and Zootopia are animated films he’s worked for :0
• Brittney Lee
  • Wonderful use of colours, shapes and fun illustrations
  • gloriously beautiful paper cut art
• Pascal Campion 
  • Inspiring & Colourful illustrated Personal Story Moments
• Glen Keane
  • incredible & brilliant artist who designed/animated Ariel [The Little Mermaid], Paperman Characters, his work for Tarzan, Tangled and many more
• Loish/Lois van Baarle
  • I love her incredibly superb work, she keeps evolving into wonderful heights <3
• Ryan Lang 
  • super incredible concept artist for animated movies & film
• Jin Kim
  • his amazing character design work on The Princess and the Frog, Tangled, Frozen, Big Hero 6, Moana
• Victoria Ying
  • her concept art, illustrations, style, colours <3
• Tracy J. Butler
  • for her incredible & expressive work for Lackadaisy and generosity
• Chris Sasaki
  • for his Character Design Masterclass & expressive wonderful art
  • his tenacity despite rejections too!
• Ari Gibson
  • for his Art & Direction of Hollow Knight
• Shaun Bryant
  • love his character designs and work!!
• Paul Richards
  • for autodestruct.com
• Teddy Newton
  • his Character designs on The Incredibles & Ratatouille!
• Chris Sanders
  • notably for his storytelling & work for Mulan, Lilo and Stitch, The Croods
• Gigi D.G.
  • for her charming, wonderful, cute and colourful work on Cucumber Quest
• Anthony Holden
  • for showing how making comics about your life is cool & the wonderful toony style he has 😀
• Robert “Lunatique” Chang
  • for teaching me in general about digital painting; he helped me realise that I really don’t enjoy doing super realistic paintings but there is incredible value to be had from studying and painting from life to add believability to your artwork 😀
• Bobby Chiu
  • for making projects happen, that being an outcast is okay; for his streams and his advice to kick that small voice out of the way. Still I’m not great at talking to people I don’t know well D:
• Claire Hummel
  • For her historical Disney princess series, Bioshock: Infinite and writing & resources on historical costume design
  • For her Art Direction & Artistic Awesomeness at Campo Santo ^o^
• Ian McCaig
  • amazing concept art and work for Star Wars and how he has a genuine and wonderful generous soul
• Simon Stålenhag
  • movie quality & amazing illustrations of a retrofuturistic world of machines!!
• Mari Shimazaki
  • her beautiful & stylish Bayonetta & Bayonetta 2 concept art <3
• Jesse Aclin
  • wonderful character designs [shapes & sweet proportions] for Kubo and the Two Strings, The Book of Life!
• Wouter Tulp
  • Stylish & expressive character designs and amazing control of detail & rendering!
  • love his sense of volumetric, stylised and expressive forms and character design!!
• Isaac Orloff
  • for his environment and architectural designs are full of character, colours and superb shapes!
• Mike Yamada
  • how he stylises cats & vehicles and all the cute, colourful, well constructed, believable designs!! 😀 He teaches, designs, leads, illustrates for games, children’s books and animated features. Animated film work: Big Hero 6, The Croods, Kung Fu Panda 2, How to Train your Dragon
• Eric Guillon
  • for his stylish character design work on the Despicable Me series; notably Gru’s dog, Lucy Wilde and the Minions [whether you are annoyed by them or not, they are super well designed!]
• Robert Ryan Cory
  • for his character design work for SpongeBob SquarePants & Gravity Falls Season 2
• Armand Serrano
  • for his incredible, believable designs, art, storytelling, world building and versatility – super masterful work
• John Nevarez
  • terribly kind and lovely artist when I went to his workshop!!
  • work packed with a fierce foundation of artistry and storytelling ^o^
• Marc Davis
  • Designing and animating Snow White, Bambi, Thumper, Flower, etc,
  • almost all the main Cinderella characters
  • work for The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad, Alice & eyeglasses creature,
  • Tinkerbell and Mrs Darling of Peter Pan
  • Sleeping Beauty [Aurora, Maleficent, Diablo the Raven, Prince Phillip, King Stefan, and Queen Leah]
  • Cruella de Vil and Anita from 101 Dalmatians
  • and many characters of the Disney theme park rides too!
• Milt Kahl
  • one of the great legends of animation and design
  • Especially The Jungle Book’s Mowgli, Baloo, Bagheera, Shere Khan, King Louie, monkeys, Kaa, the Vultures
  • Many characters of Robin Hood, Tigger of Winnie the Pooh, The Sword in the Stone [Merlin & Madam Mim!!], One Hundred and One Dalmations, Sleeping Beauty, Lady and the Tramp, Peter Pan, Alice in Wonderland, Cinderella, Bambi, Pinocchio
• Shiyoon Kim
  • incredible design and animation of characters from Tangled, Wreck It Ralph, Frozen, Big Hero 6, Zootopia
• Borja Montoro
  • for Tui Montonui, Matai Wasa and Sina character poses & expressions on Moana based on an approved design – “Art Packeting” to prepare it for modelling, rigging and animating with believable & consistently designed poses and expression sheets with personality and acting
  • He did this for Zootopia and many other characters too;
• Kei Acedera
  • for her cute and wonderfully intricate designs and illustrations <3
• Kekai Kotaki
  • ultra incredible and detailed and magical art, armoured knights and dynamic illustrations
• Norman Rockwell
  • for his legendary tenacity, process, expressive illustrations and character
• Carlos Grangel
  • Character development for Road to El Dorado, Madagascar, Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron, Corpse Bride
• Nikolas Ilic
  • Glorious shape design and personality in his characters
• Meg Park
  • Just happiness in her appealing character designs!
• Arnold Tsang
  • Blizzard Concept Artist & Assistant Art Director – drew the Character designs for Overwatch
  • If you’re doing art you are excited and care about, who needs personal art on the side
  • Going without posting on social media is possible if you’re established in the industry
  • when everyone seems better than you, go with what you care about and good at to hone down on instead
• Anthony Jones
  • Great artist who kicks your butt to just do it and be healthy too
• more to come as I remember them

Appendix I: Prompts for ideas [sourced from internet lists]!
[see talks/slides/your own research & brainstorm further!]


NOTE: A lot of these prompts are sourced from the internet so there’s definitely repeated topics below. Excuse the bad formatting 😛

More WIP Extra Resource Links: all the learning!

• Forget Protagonists: Writing NPCs with Agency in 80 Days and Beyond
• Character Design Portfolio Tips by Ahmed Aldoori
• Emma Coats [Pixar Story Artist]: 22 rules of Storytelling
• Creating Briar Rose/Aurora from Disney’s Sleeping Beauty
  • Style and Compromise on Sleeping Beauty
• Drew Wolf [Was a Valve Game Developer & Entertainment Artist, now a Concept Artist & IP Developer]: Team Fortress 2 Alternate Female Characters & Unreleased 4 player coop Fantasy Game
• Character Design Blog
  • full of interviews of old too so it’s pretty outdated and the animation industry has changed so much now
  • there are plenty of useful things and experiences though!
  • it gives you perspective in that there’s so many ways to get into the industry, different art styles and backgrounds
  • at the same time how much mainstream media and artists seem to stick with the tried and true commercially driven art styles and how there’s so few people with unique art styles of their own
• Character Design Challenge
  • some monthly topics are questionable but there’s a huge community of artists doing this. Makes you feel really insignificant and humbled!
  • I only participated once and it was the Roller Derby Girl I made (:
  • it really does feel like a popularity contest
  • there are industry judges too
  • super competitive on a global scale
  • there are prizes too now and full of resources there too
  • One day I’ll actually participate again…whenever I feel like it
  • When you start googling, there are so many people out there better than you – don’t be too discouraged. I do get discouraged myself but I push on anyway – just trust that you are on your own path and you will grow your own creativity and style through dedicated practice and application. Sometimes you need a break away too and just do other cool or relaxing life things.
• Character Design for Frankenweenie
• Robert Ryan Cory, a veteran character designer on SpongeBob SquarePants and Secret Mountain Fort Awesome – Character Design Lecture Notes
  • Design is never boring or formulaic if you’re serving the scene/audience
• Concept Work, Animation Tests & Expression Sheets for Kubo and the Two Strings by  Sandro Cleuzo
• Victoria Smith’s Play by Play Festival’s Talk on “Burn the Bikini Armour” – Historical Western Costume Design and Armour and here’s the video
• The Long Game Part 1: Why Leonardo DaVinci was once a loser
  • I love this as it encouraged me to just keep learning (:
• Ethical Inclusivity in Games – and also through Character Creation & Design too by John Kane & Alayna Cole
• 2d Character illustration tutorial by Varun Nair
• One of many examples of how 3D modellers break down a character model – and what needs to be considered when you design
  • & detailed face texturing 
  • & this process too with a creature design
  • Stylish Killer 3D modeling process
• Recommended Books to read for Writers & Entrepreneurs 
• The Famous Character Design Reference Pinterest Collection
• Check out my Pinterest 
• NZGDC17 Beginner Talk on Doing Representation [with diverse characters, women, queer people, people of colour] Talk by Maddi Mackenzie
• GDC15 Talk on Sunset Overdrive’s Art Direction and Character Design Process
• More to come

Special Thanks: for people who helped & encouraged me along the way!

• NZGDA team
  • for inviting me to NZGDC17 with flights subsidy and…it’s the reason this whole thing even started!! I never considered giving a talk, let alone two!!
• GDAA team
  • for accepting me for some reason; HOW?! :’)
• my brother
  • my great soundboard since he plays more games than I do!
• Lauren Clinnick
  • for helping me sound more awesome than I am in my talk pitch, proofreading & signal boosting
  • for helping me with Passport Applications & her generous presence alone <3
• Kalonica Quigley
  • my wonderful travel buddy & fellow speaker for her own talks too!
• Liam Esler
  • for encouraging me that I can do it and just knowing that I’ll be supported for my talk <3 Thanks for the moral support!
• Kristy Prause
  • for the encouragement boost & listening to me ramble about my vague NZGDC “lesson plan” 😉
• Ben Britten
  • his encouragement & kind advice and that failing doing a talk is okay…! :’) Apparently I will live…?? Thank you!
• Charlie O. – for the kind sweet emails (:
• those who answered my Character Questionnaire/Questions
  • 9 kind peeps who were able to help expand my own perspective!
  • Thanks kindly Lauren, Scott & Gerald for responding ^o^
  • Not sharing other names [for the itself questionnaire was anonymous anyway] as I wanted honest answers more than making it a public thing
  • it’s a subjective thing after all so it’s not results I can share as a “credible piece of research” haha
  • the results, although not that many, definitely helped in making sure I was on track too! To stay focused on with what I wanted to talk about with character design
  • I realise how little influence I have since I struggled to get people to respond…until the deadline was over haha. Sure I was sad at having tumbleweeds for a while. But I am humbled though that I’m a nobody I guess – I’m just a normal person 😉
• Mighty Peeps!
  • for their best wishes & letting me use Mighty stuff my talks and letting me take some annual leave to prepare for my talks haha
  • some of them actually attended my talk to support me!! Wah!! <3
• Sally-anne Kellaway 
  • for being my GCAP talk mentor!! <3 Thank you for coming to my talk & the wonderful moral support!
• Timothy Best 
  • for his kind support, for attending my talk & for suggesting that I should do a pdf booklet! (:
• Scott Bartlett
  • for being a supportive & kind art buddy!! He attended! ^o^
• Scott Beca 
  • for being a great work buddy & listening to me ramble about my speaking worries! He was also speaking too for something else haha
• the Loveshack team
  • for coming to my NZGDC talk to support me [Claire!] & I think a few went to my GCAP one…? But I don’t know :0
• And a few more I mention in the pdf