@ARTISTS, HAVE YOU NOTICED THIS?
I took animation class and our teacher told us that basic shapes can define a character. He used a Triangle, Square and Circle to explain it to us.
A Triangle looks very sharp and therefore he said it is dangerous. He pointed out how caution symbols are a yellow triangle with an exclamation point. Squares are less sharp in a way because they don’t come to a point they only have corners. Compared to a Triangle Squares look more trustworthy and he described square shapes as strong and sturdy because they are so even. Circles have no sharp edges what so ever. Circles are round like a ball and a ball can never hurt you. Circles are very friendly looking.
He told us how this helps develop characters and their designs. A villain may look more sharp or sturdy, a hero may be more rounded in appearance. The hero would look friendly while the villain is dangerous as they should be. Here is a simple example:
Bill Cipher is a evil character. He takes over Gravity Falls (spoiler!) and puts the world at risk for destruction and doesn’t really care as long as he has fun. He is a villain character and he is shaped like a triangle because he is DANGEROUS. Kibry on the other hand is very cute and friendly. He is made completely of circles and we trust him as the hero because of his perfectly rounded look.
Now one can argue that Bill is only a triangle because he was designed after the Illuminati thing, but I personally think Alex chose the Illuminati idea because it is known as being dangerous and evil and it coincidentally looks like a triangle. Kirby may not look it either but he is dangerous, the puffball is a literal walking black hole after all, but he uses those powers for good! He wouldn’t attack an innocent so Kirby is not dangerous.
That’s a simple way of looking at things, but character shapes and designs are more hard to notice then this and sometimes you can MIX SHAPES to develop a character’s personality.
Take a look at Wander vs Hater for example(sorry been watching the show lately).
Wander’s base shapes when traced are very round and curvy. Round characters are friendly and trustworthy, as Wander is. He doesn’t seem to have a single sharp edge in his design at all. He is the protagonist of the show and the good guy. The Hero.
Now look at Hater. He was originally the main antagonist of the show before Lord Dominator showed up. While his scowl, his outfit and his color scheme make him look evil as intended if you look closer you can see hater’s basic shapes are very rounded and curvy for the most part. He almost forms a circle in this image I found of him. Notice how though, he has sharp edges as well, most notable his ‘horns’ and the ridges of his gloves. This is an example of what I mean about mixing shapes.
And y’know what this means? That? Hater is both dangerous and a “friendly” character. Throughout the show he gets tangled up with Wander who aim to make best friends with Hater. Hater at the start is a very scary and good villain but as the show goes on, getting distracted with wander he allows his title of greatest villain to slip from him, and he often ends up in ridiculous situations thanks to Wander.
Hater on numerous occasions actually had the chance to destroy wander, but never actually does do it. He does have lightning powers and he if did hate Wander as much as he claimed he would of done it long ago. He actually ends up teaming up with Wander in the recent episodes to stop Dominator. (spoilers!)
Now lets look at Dominator.
She has very many sharp edges, her larger horns for example, the sharp gloves like hater, the claw like fingers. In her battle armor she has a triangle shape. She has many triangle spikes. This is all because Dominator is the new antagonist, and she is by far the most Evil Character the others have witnessed. The shapes define her personality. Yes, she also has some curves, and again the shapes define her. She is shown to be a bit childish and girly because she is a girl when alone and not normally in the pretense of the other characters. The curves symbolizes that. She also has a very squared shape when in her normal form, which states that she is strong, which she very much is.
Now again this could be argued that the shapes have nothing to do with the characters, its all a coincidence and it’s just the shows art style but it’s just some food for thought as you can examine any character and pick out these shapes and usually they will fit like this.
This was just some food for thought when trying to design characters to give a feel for them. Want a mean character? Make them a bit edgy. Got a fallen angle who is too pure for this world? make them rounder and softer.
This may not apply to all characters, but it seems to be very common to me. I hope this helps!
