Tutorial: How Does Pixar Create Great Characters (1)

In this article, the best CPU & GPU cloud render farm service provider, Fox Renderfarm, will share with you how Pixar creates great characters.

The characters in Pixar movies are always unforgettable. Woody and Buzz are forever ingrained in the mind of anyone who grew up with Toy Story. Audiences will never forget Sully and Mike from Monsters, Inc.

Even if you're not a Pixar fan, everyone can name an animated character that has impressed them.

Pixar designers put time and effort into creating characters that evoke emotions, a process known as character design. Good character design always succeeds in attracting the audience to put their emotions into these characters.

In fact, Pixar's character design begins when the designer receives the character idea. And finalizing a character design is destined to be a long process, with designers going through hundreds of drawings of what their characters might look like, then selecting and redesigning and tweaking a few of them until the character design is finalized.

Pixar follows certain standards when designing characters. For example, who is target audience? What characteristics should the vfx of a character exaggerate? What color should the character use?

On the one hand, it is necessary to convey the personality of the characters to the audience. In addition to distinctive and interesting physical features, consider the characters' expressions and features in any situation and how they react to those situations.

Using facial expressions and body movements will further develop the character, and even over exaggerating these features can really define the character's personality to the audience.

On the other hand, make the character settings hold up the story. For example, identifying a character's goals and dreams, whether they are good or bad, will make the character more interesting. Because the missing parts of a role's character are just as important as showing the audience what they have.

It can be said that character design is an important part of Pixar animation, which brings the film to life and drives the development of the story. Let's explore the mysteries of character design and how to design an animated character that will be watched and loved.

Purpose of Character Design

Character design is the key to connecting the audience with the main character on screen. In order to attract the audience, the characters must express a unique personality and bring visual stimulation to the audience. In other words, they must be able to express a wide variety of emotions.

Therefore, designing a character requires knowing what the character will look like in many different emotions, including happiness, sadness, anger, etc.

In addition to graphic art on a technical level, character designers also need to understand human nature. Designing a character is not just visual, the process involves understanding a character from the inside out so that its design deliveries a cohesive personality.

Therefore, understanding of human psychology can go a long way in character design.

Character Design Process

The character design process starts with research. Designers have to understand a character's personality.

Where do the roles come from? Where do they currently live? How old are they? What is their general character? Who is the target audience for this role? What are their hopes and dreams? What are their motives?

Once the character designers have locked in this information, they can start to put together some existing research. If the character is from a northern woodland environment, research might include finding such environments and seeing what types of creatures live there.

For example, what did those creatures look like? How do they move? Do they have fur, hair or feathers? All of this information can help with the art of character design, even when it comes to completely fictional creatures—imaginings of fictional characters come from the real world.