--- title: Character Design description: This discipline focuses on creating visual identities for characters in animation, games, and illustration. Learners will understand how to use anatomy, silhouette, shape language, and costuming to convey personality, backstory, and role within a narrative. category: arts-design subcategory: drawing difficulty: beginner, intermediate, advanced url: /subject/character-design --- # Character Design This discipline focuses on creating visual identities for characters in animation, games, and illustration. Learners will understand how to use anatomy, silhouette, shape language, and costuming to convey personality, backstory, and role within a narrative. ## Available Resources 2 Books • 2 Courses • 4 Websites ## Courses ### 1. Introduction to Character Design Learn character design fundamentals with Louis Gonzales! This course covers concepting to compelling character creation. **Difficulty:** Beginner | **Price:** Paid **Link:** https://www.schoolism.com/courses/character-design **Tags:** character-design, concept-art, visual-development, shape-language, illustration ### 2. Composition Library Master advanced composition techniques with Matt Kohr's Composition Library! Learn to create compelling art through proven visual principles. **Difficulty:** Advanced | **Price:** Free **Link:** https://www.ctrlpaint.com/library/#composition **Tags:** composition, digital-painting, visual-design, value ## Books ### 1. Creating Characters with Personality **Author:** Tom Bancroft A guide by a former Disney animator to designing characters for animation, comics and games. It covers shape language, archetypes, expressions, poses, acting and model sheets, so readers can build characters whose look communicates personality and stays consistent across drawings. **Difficulty:** Intermediate | **Language:** English | **Price:** Paid **Link:** https://www.amazon.com/dp/0823023494?tag=edmonddante07-20 **Tags:** books, arts-design, visual-arts ### 2. Character Design from the Ground Up **Author:** Kevin Crossley A practical drawing guide that walks through the full character design process, from research and thumbnails to anatomy, silhouette, costume and colour. Exercises and step-by-step demonstrations help readers turn rough sketches into finished, production-ready designs for animation and illustration. **Difficulty:** Intermediate | **Language:** English | **Price:** Paid **Link:** https://www.amazon.com/dp/0415745098?tag=edmonddante07-20 **Tags:** books, arts-design, visual-arts ## Websites ### 1. characterdesignreferences.com Character Design References is a curated hub of character design resources, featuring galleries of reference images, concept art, and anatomy/pose studies to help artists study style, silhouettes, and clothing. It also offers tutorials, interviews, and articles on character design techniques and processes. **Difficulty:** Intermediate | **Language:** English | **Price:** Free **Link:** https://characterdesignreferences.com **Tags:** websites, arts-design, visual-arts ### 2. Concept Art World Long-running online magazine, active since 2006, showcasing concept art from film, video game and entertainment productions. It publishes artist portfolio features, production art galleries, studio profiles and interviews, letting learners study how working professionals develop visual designs for entertainment productions. **Difficulty:** Intermediate | **Language:** English | **Price:** Free **Link:** https://conceptartworld.com **Tags:** concept-art, visual-development, entertainment-design, artist-portfolios, art-inspiration ### 3. line-of-action.com Line of Action is a free drawing-practice site that provides a pose generator and photo references to help you practice gesture drawing. It offers timed sessions with customizable content—from human figures and hands to faces and animals—so you can build speed and accuracy. **Difficulty:** Intermediate | **Language:** English | **Price:** Free **Link:** https://line-of-action.com **Tags:** websites, arts-design, drawing ### 4. ArtStation Portfolio and showcase platform, owned by Epic Games, where professional concept artists, illustrators and 3D artists publish their work, alongside a job board and paid tutorials. Browsing industry portfolios shows how working artists select, sequence and present projects to studios. **Difficulty:** Intermediate | **Language:** English | **Price:** Free **Link:** https://artstation.com **Tags:** art-portfolio, concept-art, portfolio-hosting, game-art, art-careers --- *This content is part of Dantes.io - Your Treasure Map to Knowledge* *Curated by humans at Dantes.io. Personal study use welcome; republishing this curation requires permission (team@dantes.io).* View this page online: https://dantes.io/subject/character-design