Hi everyone, my name is Knight Zhang and I am a freelance illustrator and character concept
artist. Today I’d like to talk about storytelling through costume design and
offer you three ways to help you develop visually interesting and meaningful characters.
Before we get started, I’d like to preface with a general statement that this isn't
technically about character design, but rather a closer look at an aspect of character concept.
A good design is not defined by its complexity, but its ability to tell
the best story for the right character. My goal with this video is not to instruct or instill
a step-by-step process for you to follow, but rather to encourage you
to find the magic in delving deeper when it comes to your character's costume design.
The way that you and I dress are choices that we make day-to-day and as a designer,
you have the opportunity to communicate the most important parts of your character's lore
with just the way they dress.
Whether simple or complex, the aim of a costume will always be to highlight the key things you
need to know about a character, namely their purpose, their personality and their history.
All of these things can combine to help you define your character's archetype or
exemplify their role within the story.
Overall, you can think of design like a spectrum. I’ve personally always believed that there's
no such thing as a bad design but rather a design that falls short of its full potential
for the person who's looking at it. Every designer has their own solution for every creative problem
and those differences are what defines the philosophies of different visual aesthetics.
For the purposes of this video, I’m going to pitch to you two different spectrums which can
help you define your design philosophy: functional versus fantasy and historical versus fictional.
Functional versus fantasy is a way to describe the technical aspect of your character's design code.
Do you lean towards designs which are purely realistic and have
logical reasons behind its visual appearance?
- Knock it!
Or are you more interested in creating graphically iconic and bombastic designs
that have very little functionality to back it up? Examples of functional designs are games
such as Call of Duty and Uncharted, while media with a little bit more of a fantastical approach
may include games like Bayonetta, World of Warcraft and Final Fantasy.
On the other hand, historical versus fictional is a way to describe
the visual aspects of your character's design code...
Are your designs grounded somewhere in history or in a pre-existing culture or
is it more ambiguous and an amalgamation of different cultures and historical periods?
Examples for a very historical design philosophy would be Seven Samurai or Dunkirk, while
maybe a more fictional approach would be games like Horizon Zero Dawn or the 2006 movie The Fall.
Most designers will inevitably fall somewhere in between the two
sides of both spectrums, and where you fall will inevitably decide what avenue
and the process in which you proceed to design the costumes for your characters.
Once you've kind of figured out the parameters of your design code, now is the time to start
figuring out the basics of your character. Research first and foremost is probably one
of the most important steps, especially if you're doing a design that is predominantly historical
or functional. Even if you're going for something more avant-garde or bizarre,
research can be a really valid way of pushing you past your boundaries and helping you explore
different solutions to complex creative problems.
So, I wanted to kind of go through some of my
own examples of reference boards and show you how I’ve done the process
just so that you can see sort of a visual example of all these things that I’m talking about.
This is for a project that I did back in 2019. First thing I always do is I go
on to Pinterest and I basically make a whole board for the entire project
and make sub boards within it just so I can organize my thoughts.
In this, I’m trying to basically kind of nail down a very specific aesthetic
and I’m not thinking about actually using any of these pictures in the final reference board,
it's primarily just looking for images that evoke the right feeling for me. I really loved the kind
of bubble gum punk aesthetic and I wanted to go with something kind of crazy, kind of wild.
Obviously, once you see the final image she doesn't end up looking [Chuckles] too
much like a lot of these images, but I really just kind of wanted to set the tone
for her at the start. And then, if we go to what eventually became of the reference board,
this is what I ended up making. So, for this project in particular,
I wanted to have the reference boards really emulate the feeling of the character itself.
So, everything about the text, the color palette, I wanted it to be very evocative of the feeling
that I was going for. So, I have two different divisions and I like doing this because it gives
me kind of a concrete way of applying my research. On one side I have the fashion, so this is very
much real world applications of kind of what I’m thinking of, maybe a little bit of the ensemble,
maybe just a little bit of images that evoke the right sort of feeling for me.
On the other side, the aesthetic part. This is more focused on the kind of feeling
that it gives me. So, I have obviously the delinquents and the biker gangs but then also
different forms of neon punk, very street, very modern sort of aesthetics. I have a
little blurb down here for the character that I was pitching for this specific
faction that I was making. And so, this is what ended up being her reference board.
Once I kind of figured that out, I went ahead and started basically just ideating. So,
I did a lot of sketches traditionally that would eventually lead to finding that very
specific feel that I was looking for. Exploring different silhouettes, different body types too.
Writing is something that I kind of started to do a lot more often,
which is really great, I do recommend it. I’m a terrible writer because
I always think much faster than I write and so, at some point I just get
really like "Oh, I’ll just draw it out", but then drawing also takes a long time.
So, it's sometimes tough to put all of your ideas down because you feel like you can't express it
properly but that's why ideating is a really good process because you can just spend the
time to really break down your concepts and from putting things down on paper,
it can also then grow and develop even further than what you originally
imagined and that's kind of the benefit of the process itself.
I really like drawing girls and I really like drawing super punky kind of outfits. And so,
when I was drawing her it felt like I was right at home [Chuckles], which is probably why she
has probably some of the most sketches out of any of the characters in this project. So,
you can kind of see just trying out all different types of things, all different types of
ideating techniques; so, silhouettes, line drawings, thumbnails, all that sort of stuff.
And so, this is kind of what happened at the end of that first pass and I realized I really didn't
like it. It felt really half-baked for what I originally envisioned for her. And that's kind of
what happens occasionally is that you just might realize that what you
tried to do, what you tried to execute just didn't feel right.
And so, I gave it another shot. This was a sketch inspired by a drawing that happened
pretty early on. So this is one of the first pages that I had ever did for this project and
she ended up being the inspiration for the final sketch. So, funny how that happens occasionally.
I wanted to emphasize this kind of really out there, really spunky kind of roller derby
athlete but I wanted to really emphasize the fact that one of her biggest points was that she was
like this runner, this skater, this outspoken moving, constantly moving kind of a character.
So, having these really big legs that were almost like rockets felt really appropriate for her. From
there, I then started doing a lot more poses, breaking down her personality... This kind of
helped me figure out specifically how I’d want her to pose, how I want her to move... Ways to
just kind of show her personality while she's being like kind of statuesque and stationary.
Final one which I did just recently... She's moving a lot more because this is I think
her best evolution yet. It I think fully displays what I imagined her doing all the time,
which is jumping and kicking and dancing and just having like the best time of her life.
So this is how she kind of ended up, which is really fun because in ways, this doesn't
really share any of the traits or similar costume designs to the original ref board, but it also
still emulates kind of what I wanted for her from the beginning and she's also grown a lot.
As a side note, it's important that we designers have an inherent responsibility for the research
that we do. It's crucial that we don't treat these cultures as merely aesthetics but rather
as key aspects which can mold and explain the various infrastructures within our story.
Having strong and genuine reasons behind each design choice you make for a character
will not only solidify their design overall
but also push you to find new and interesting ways to implement your research.
The visual aesthetics within a given society are almost always a reflection of their worldview,
geological or mythical. And how you apply these elements of design will showcase a
true understanding of both your inspirations and the scope of your character's world.
Now that you have some research to get you started, it's time to think about
the characters general ensemble. This is literally just about what they are wearing;
is it a single layered tunic or piles of armor and fur? The seams on the shirt,
types of shoes, hats, jackets... All of these things can help inform the
audience on how they choose to present themselves to the outside world.
Regardless of how little or how much the character wears, not only does this give the
audience a quick read on their personality, their job and their socioeconomic status
but it also provides an opportunity to think about some of the core principles of character design
such as having a strong silhouette read and interesting shapes.
Some things you can think about is having a varied
spread of big medium and small shapes and keeping an eye out
for opportunities to showcase a character's unique quirks through an item of clothing.
To further the impact of a character's ensemble is to define the materials of
their costume through the use of textiles and surface texture. Patterning, color,
metal grade and fabric types are great ways to not only add visual interest within a character
but it also offers an opportunity to delve into more subtle displays of personality.
Just as you and I dress in different clothes of different fabrics and materials,
the make of a costume can help communicate a character's preference in their day-to-day life.
How you communicate texture and the way light interacts with different thread counts and
thicknesses such as silk versus wool in cloths, rusted metals versus clean steel and so on,
all of these things will greatly enhance the authenticity of your design.
Additionally, color blocking is also a great way to divide up your character's costume
into shapes that add to the overall visual interest. My general rule of thumb is to
use different shades and saturations of one primary color for 40 to 60% of the character.
Secondary, parts of the clothing and medium shape decor are somewhere in a similar hue family,
such as deep blues with brighter greens or warm reds with golds and purple.
Opposing pops of color are reserved for accents and smaller details.
You can obviously deviate from this, but I found this process to be a good jumping off point,
especially if you're someone like me who struggles to envision or pick a good color palette early on.
The availability and accessibility to certain fabrics and dyes can also serve as subtle
ways to define a character's position in life. Historically, access to dies of a certain exotic
or expensive colored material would indicate someone's wealth and social standing while the
flora and fauna of a geographical location might influence the style of one's costume; are certain
common animals and plants considered spiritually significant to the point of becoming a communal
motif or perhaps naturally available materials can define the style of a particular region.
A real world example of this is the unique manufacturing process for the Oshima Tsumigi,
one of Japan's most high-end kimonos. It's distinguished for its luminous black color created
through a process of washing the silk through the iron-rich mud found on the island of Oshima.
This aspect alone sets it apart from other similarly looking fabrics due to
the geographical significance of the material. And other real world applications such as this,
can serve as inspiration for how you define the cultures behind your character's costume.
The third and final way to sell a character through their costume is
through the props they carry with them. Whether it's through a weapon,
a piece of sentimental jewelry, the overstuffed pack slung over shoulder,
props can show what is so important that a character would actively carry it on them.
How little or how much they carry can also indicate where they are in their life or
journey. Barren and devoid of ornamentation, perhaps they're at the end of their rope and
desperate or maybe they renounce material things and live life in simplicity.
Encumbered by a weighty collection of baubles and items,
that could communicate a hoarder with a penchant for over-indulgence or
perhaps they wear their guilt on their sleeve as penance for past crime.
There are a variety of ways to decorate your character's costume which can help draw your
viewers attention to specific places. Examples being beaded necklaces, creating leading lines
toward their face or dividing an empty space on a shirt with a chest holster or maybe some
enamel pins. It can even help define the big medium and small shapes we discussed earlier.
The design and make of the prop itself is also something worth considering;
would your character be able to afford a novelty knife made out of foreign steel?
Or are they thrifty enough to DIY a crude but deadly shiv from the materials at the bottom
of the bag... Do they prefer flashy guns with a custom skin or are they holding onto
a broken and deteriorating sword hilt because of its personal significance?
Questions like these can help build lore without needing to directly describe it to an audience
and makes for fun Easter Eggs if anyone cares to look just a little bit deeper. It's through
the exploration of a character's ensemble, the details and its textiles and the props that they
carry that helps designers convey a character's personality, their purpose and their history.
Using different levels of complexity within a design
is essential to creating a balanced and aesthetically pleasing character.
At the end of the day, costume design is merely a tool with which you can expand the lore of a
character through visual communication, and it can be really effective in pulling together the
world building while also adding interesting and unique flairs to the character cast.
How deeply you choose to develop an aspect of a character's costume is
really up to you. As long as the costume fulfills its purpose of truly conveying your character.
And again, it doesn't have to be this deep. If you're feeling like a t-shirt and some dirty
jeans are more than enough for your character, that is a perfectly valid
costume design. That's what's fun and exciting about costume and character design in general.
Good designs are simply designs that give an audience an accurate and quick read on the
character and their purpose in the story. Costumes are just one of the ways you can communicate those
ideas. However, that manifest itself in your work is as valid as the work of any other designer.
So, I hope this video can encourage you to explore costume design as a form of communication in
regards to building lore within a world or adding context to a story. I know it can be
kind of daunting to sort of approach it and it's a very subjective field. But I think that's kind
of what makes it interesting is that there are so many different possibilities and endless different
solutions essentially to how you can approach designing a single given character.
If you are interested in asking me questions or would just like to follow my art, you can follow
me on any of my social media but additionally to that, I also stream every Friday on Twitch
at 7 PM pacific standard time. So, if you want to watch me for a few hours every week, that's
what I do. But yeah, thank you for the Proko team for inviting me to talk about this kind of
really niche subject but I think it's really cool and maybe it got you excited about it.
So, regardless of you know, what you took away from this video,
I hope it was fun and I hope it encourages you to kind of
you know, delve deeper into the possibilities of costume design as a whole.