in this video I'm going to show you how you can use shape language to drastically improve your
character designs and how the Masters at Disney Pixar and other amazing Animation Studios do it
to start things off the big question what is shape design and is this something that
I really need don't people just draw characters and leave it at that well I mean you know that is
one way of drawing and approaching characters but if you ever want to design a wide cast of
characters that need to all look different from one another have different personality traits or
it could just be that you're stuck with drawing characters that all feel the same or look the
same that's when you would start thinking about the shape design of your characters in fact a
lot of your favorite characters from movies shows video games and comics use shape design and shape
language to help make their characters stand out a good character designer will usually use some
element of a shape to help design their characters or at least just to get them started whether it's
super straightforward and direct or subtle in a bit more abstract so element is being used and
a great example that I love to use is from the movie up a Pixar movie that a lot of people love
the designers of the film really knew how to take the basic shapes and turn them into characters now
obviously Pixar still has a somewhat realistic style to them but by just following the simple
rule of using shape language they were able to get a nice variety in shapes amongst their main cast
of characters so here I'm going to be using the characters from up to show you how the designers
use different shapes to separate the look and silhouette of the main characters in the movie A
lot of the times I find that when we're designing human characters or human esque looking characters
they end up feeling quite similar to one another and that's because when we drawing characters that
are human we give them similar proportions they have similar features and it ends up becoming
a little bit harder to separate them visually but as you can see with the characters from up
they very clearly used shapes to separate each of these characters Carl being Square Russell
being Circle in the Triangle being for Kevin and a rounded Square for Doug so he's Doug's a little
bit of an exception he's like a combination of the circle and the square but even so by just
doing this changing the proportions warping them a little bit and arranging the shapes in different
ways it makes these characters feel very separate and different from one another and by doing this
it makes them feel more like individuals rather than a similar cast of characters this also helps
that when these characters are on screen we can identify them a lot faster and a lot easier and
it creates for a nice combination of shapes when they're all on the same screen these shapes that
I just used to break down the characters from up yeah that's all you need it's as simple as using
a square circle and a triangle now don't get me wrong the concept is super simple it's just three
shapes shapes that we're familiar with since we were babies but it it is a tough one to master and
that's because there are so many different ways that one can use these shapes and how someone
can decide to apply them so that means how you decide to organize them the order in which they
are organized their proportions maybe their warped so on and so forth already you can kind of see
that the possibilities are pretty much endless and this hasn't even gotten into line weight
colors and rendering which pretty much Define what an artist's style is going to be so the
next big question is how do we use shape design how does it applied well we saw a little bit of
it with the up example but that was only one way of applying shape design and shape language into
our characters so now it's time to get a little technical with definitions because we are going
to be using these words a lot what is shape design and what is shape language like what do they even
mean and are they even different from one another this is going to be an oversimplification of what
these terms mean but it gets across the general idea for the purposes of Designing characters
shape design is when we take the literal shape and apply it in a very obvious way onto our characters
so previously I used the characters from up and I would say that up is an example of using the
literal shape to help design those characters but another great example of the shape being
used literally in the the design of the character where their shape is even in their name and that
character is SpongeBob he is literally a square sometimes it's really as easy as that and the
neat thing is that usually you will find this a lot with characters from animated TV shows and
that's because for one it's easier to animate but two it creates some really memorable Silhouettes
and Designs because of how simple they are think about characters like Mickey Mouse he's just three
circles stuck together and voila you have you have a character another example is Phineas and
Ferb right Phineas has a triangle for a head like that's it's kind of bizarre but it's as
again as simple as that so those examples are how we can take shapes and use them to help us design
simple but memorable characters usually though this is applied a lot but not limited to really
cartoony looking characters so the next one is shape language the shape language is when we take
aspects from shapes and apply them to characters so for example if we were to use a square a square
is boxy it's large chunky squat has 90 degree angles and has very flat even sides to it you
might be thinking great we just described a box how does that help with designing characters
I'll switch it up and I'll use another animated series with a completely different style to show
what I mean so for shape language I'm going to be using characters from the show Legend
of Korra which was a spin-off of avatar The Last Airbender and I'm going to be using Mako who is on
the left hand side in Bolin who's on the right hand side and I want to show how the designers
use different shapes to kind of help break down or make these characters feel a little bit more
different and individualistic from each other now for shade language I find that it's a lot
more helpful and a lot more useful when we're using it with realistic characters it's not
exclusive to realistic characters but it helps a lot more because when it comes to more realistic
characters you don't really get that much of an opportunity to to exaggerate or distort
the proportions or forms of these characters so for shape language it helps to really just take
qualities and aspects of the shape and just keep them in mind as we're designing the characters and
as you can see for Bolin he's a lot more Square his head's a lot wider his body is a lot wider
and everything is a bit more parallel whereas if you look at Mako who's very much based on
triangle shape he's a lot pointier his hair comes up literally to a point his face is a bit longer
and pointier not as wide as Bolin's and a lot of his body shape and silhouette converges to
a single point which then again allows for that more triangular feel to his body design but using
shape language also helps communicate who they are as characters so Mako is a lot more Dynamic he's
more action-oriented jumps around a lot and that's because his bending abilities or his superpowers I
guess if you've never watched the show is that he can control and manipulate fire which is
again a lot more Dynamic a lot faster and in essence the fire shape itself is also pointier
whereas Bolin he has rock Powers so he's usually more planted with his two feet on the ground his
character is a lot more grounded and his ability to control rocks also kind of needs him to be a
bit heftier and slower and a bit more grounded and rocks their shape in general also is a lot boxier
and bigger using shape language doesn't mean you have to completely distort or exaggerate the shape
of these characters but you can use qualities from the shape and kind of stick them to the characters
to help just make them look a little bit more different and a little bit more identifiable from
one another you can help support us as we continue to make free Arts education by becoming a member
on patreon or YouTube this will give you access to special perks like critiques and classes so shape
design and shape language are two of the main ways we use shapes to help us design characters but
there's one more approach and this one is kind of interesting and that is how we sometimes associate
personalities with shapes shapes aren't there to just physically Define a character but it can also
show their personalities so for the square shape we associate it with words like strong stubborn
stable rigid and or Dependable for a circle it's soft organic fluid flexible adaptable
and or friendly for a triangle it's usually linked with wild unpredictable outgoing energetic and or
dangerous so if you think back to our up example you can kinda actually see that in how those
shapes are also associated with their personality Carl's kind of grumpy and rigid Russell is
friendly and approachable and Kevin he's wild I mean he's a wild bird and Doug because he's a
rounded Square he's loyal which is kind of like stubborn but he's also friendly but like I said
before I don't want to keep using up as an example so for this one I'm going to use Disney's 2D
animated film Mulan because it perfectly captures and takes advantage of this shape principle so
we're going to be using Ling to start us off with the shape Association and a lot of the times we
can use shapes to help us get a subtle indication of who these characters are their personality
traits and just give a first impression as to their behavior and who they're like so with
Ling he's very pointy he's kind of lanky and long and his poses are also a lot more Dynamic and this
perfectly fits with the triangle shape his head's pointier his hands are thinner and his forearms
kind of also come to a point but not only is the shape language applied to his character design
but it matches his personality really really well he's kind of a wild and eccentric person
he's not mischievous necessarily but he's not like super super friendly as we'll see with some other
characters so again he's kind of a wild card now if we move on to Yao he is very clearly using the
square shape he's a lot wider very boxy and if we compare his hand shape to lings hand shapes it's
definitely a lot larger and more square like whereas Ling has a lot of converging points
similar to Mako in our previous example Yao is a lot wider kind of like Berlin but he's definitely
a lot more wider as you know with Disney films they tend to exaggerate the proportions a little
bit more and as for personality again fits really well with the square shape as these like grumpy
stubborn proud person that gets angry pretty easily and our last character is chenpo and for
him he's probably like the easiest to spot which shape is being associated with him as his head is
essentially made up of two circles and then his body is one big circle and then everything else
is just these big sweeping curves so chembo pretty straightforward he's going to be the friendliest
kindest most easy going character out of the trio of these characters in Mulan and these are
ways of just how you can use the shapes to help the audience get a sense of who these characters
are and who their personalities are it doesn't always have to be this straightforward but it can
help another example is like inside out where the anger emotion is emoted by a very blocky
chunky red kind of character so as you can see it can be used in different ways sometimes it's
very very straightforward and sometimes it can be applied in a little bit more of a looser kind of
a way but shape associations can always help you get started and get you kind of hit the ground
running if you're stuck trying to come up with character designs so as you can see with these
three characters they really took advantage of the three basic shapes and the associations that those
shapes have with personality traits but with that being said what you'll notice is that that's not
exactly true for a lot of characters and that's why I like to think of this quote-unquote rule
as more of a jumping off point rather than a hard rule that I can't break now don't
get me wrong using shapes and the associations that those shapes have can really help get the
creative juices flowing and hopefully get you started with a design so you don't get stuck
sometimes it can be extremely well implemented in the design and the personality themselves
like demonstrated with Mulan but other times it's not used at all like in SpongeBob and so that's
the neat thing about Art and Design is that rules are there to help get you started but it doesn't
mean you have to stick to it to completely be successful in your art so the main takeaway is
that using shapes can help build Variety in the designs of your character whether it's implemented
in the way they look their personality or just subtly hinted at using shapes can really help
with creating your characters and hopefully allow you to start creating a wide variety
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