Storytelling, especially in animation, always have at least one vital component- a character. So, how to approach to develop the characters for your story. Probably, the simplest way to start is playing. Playing with your characters. We can begin with ‘form’. Are they people, animals, robots, or just some objects alike. And we should discover something exciting and different about each character. Something might be even non-ideal, but that will be a key to why the viewers will follow it through the whole narrative and care about it.
The character design process means that you are creating a new life form from scratch, beginning with a simple concept to a complex, and finishing with fully developt creation.
We can build our characters by using two methods. The first one is about external features. Like clothes, body shapes, colours, size of the head, eyes, facial features, how it moves, etc. Basically, their overall look. However, the second approach is much more exciting- the internal characteristics. Are they vulnerable, are they brave, are they sceptical?
Knowing a character, from both angles inside and out, will help to manage what are its true desires and what will drive it through the journey. The more we will know, the more realistic character that feels for the audience.
And this is interesting. What we need to do to make viewers feel for your character, to follow him throughout the storyline? I think the better way to get it is to create it based on people you know, who are around you, from real life. It might be a family member, like grandma or a friend, a neighbour, bus driver, someone who you see every day. Catching their authentic human emotions and experiences, that is what all these people give you.
An additional tool that helps to design a winning persona is a character arc.
“A character arc is the transformation or inner journey[1] of a character over the course of a story. If a story has a character arc, the character begins as one sort of person and gradually transforms into a different sort of person in response to changing developments in the story. “
The one way to start character arc is to ask a question- what does your persona want? If we know that it will help us to take the character for a journey within our story, to find the right place for it. And additionally, it will help to shape the narrative line as well and to make the story to actually happen.
However, the things that character want could be different from his actual needs. The crucial difference between character wants, and needs are that needs are necessary, but the character does not like to admit it. It is like- I want to go for a walk, but there plenty of work to do. These necessities are the things it needs to learn and do in order to improve and accomplish at the end of the story. Additionally, if we will put wants and needs into the conflict that makes the character more solid and the story will have some exceptional trials in it.
Now, then we know motivations of the character, and it is already on his journey in the story, besides with conflict lets put some obstacles into the narrative. And obstacles can be anything. It can be a person (a villain), vast distances to wade through or even better- something subjective, like worries, fears. Whatever it is, obstacles are something that will be in the way of a character and blocks the road path from what he wants or needs. Thus, choices that character makes in response to obstacles lead to changes in his behaviour and thoughts and make basically a new person. It is like it in his primary form at the beginning of the story, but in the end, it transforms and reaches its higher, better version.
Moreover, if the character itself might not change a lot, but it might make a significant impact in the world around it, in characters that surround it, that is also very impressive and even make narrative quite emotional.
Each decision our character makes has implied some risks and impacts associated with it. Therefore, the character arc outlines changes and transformations of the character from the beginning of his journey through the story to the end.