Big Hero 6 Character Design Secrets

How do our favourite animated characters get designed? Character design on a feature film is often a long and complex process, involving a team of artists. In this excellent Disney video, Big Hero 6 Character designer Shiyoon Kim talks about how the characters in the film were created.  Watching videos like this is a window into the workflow of some of the most talented designers in our industry, and how they come up with original, fresh material.

And, in this second video below, Designer Jin Kim shows how the principles of design of the Baymax character come down to very simple, appealing shapes.


Character Design is coming to Escape Studios on 23rd October. Taught by industry professionals, and aimed at helping students to develop a portfolio of design work,  this 8 week course is an introduction to the art and craft of character design. As with most of our evening classes, this is a part-time course, designed to fit around jobs and families.

character design by Ronnie Kaye

Character Design is one of the most rewarding parts of our industry - and also one of the most competitive. As with everything we do here at Escape, the class will build up to a live industry brief, with the final project mapping as closely as possible to the experience of working in an industry environment.

Students will attend an evening class one night a week, and will be set simple projects to do in-class, and  more complex ones to complete by the following week.

Aftercare
There will also be an 8 week period of online mentoring and aftercare, in which students can polish their skills in a virtual classroom and receive ongoing feedback and support.

Industry relevant
The course has been designed after consultation with industry, with individual classes being delivered by character designers working in the animation industry,

Tutors
Tutors include Vince Woodcock, author of How to Draw and Paint Crazy Cartoon Characters: Create Original Characters with Lots of Personality.  Vince was a character designer on animated hits such as Space Jam and the Tigger Movie. Also teaching will be the very able Andrea Torrejon, whose work you can see here.

Where and when?
The course starts on 23 October and will run once a week for 8 weeks at our Shepherd's Bush campus.

Recommended Reading
We recommend these two books. The first is by our very own Vince Woodcock. The second is by the awesomely talented Tom Brancroft, who animated Mushu on Disney's Mulan.


1. How to Draw and Paint Crazy Cartoon Characters: Create Original Characters with Lots of Personality Paperback – March 1, 2007 - by Vincent Woodcock

2. Creating Characters with Personality: For Film, TV, Animation, Video Games, and Graphic Novels by Tom Bancroft.

To see the official course page, follow this link.

The Escape Studios Animation Blog offers a personal view on the art of animation and visual effects. To apply for our BA/MArt in 3D Animation, follow this link.  To apply for our storyboarding evening class, visit this page here.  For the next 12 week animation course, click here. And to apply for the next evening class in Producing Animation, see this page.