CHARACTER DESIGN

Character Design: A Lifestyle, Not a Hobby

There’s an idea that character design is a lifestyle—one you have to live every day, all day, much like a dedicated fitness enthusiast. There are no days off in this practice.

If that sounds extreme to you, perhaps you haven’t yet pinpointed what truly makes a design strong versus what falls flat. Maybe the concepting process remains a mystery, or perhaps you believe character art and character design are one and the same.

Many of these distinctions are perfectly valid, and the unscrupulous might call it “splitting hairs”—but that’s not the case. AKAPAD has dedicated this page to exploring and answering these very questions.

For Peter, character design is as simple as it is complex, as exact as it is loose—all of which adds up to the pure fun of it.

Displayed here are puzzles Peter has attempted to solve: some more successfully than others.