How Shapes Make the Character - Shape-Driven Character Design for Your OCs

Some of the most iconic characters in history are driven by shape language character design, referring to the character’s construction comprised of shapes. Shapes carry important meanings and associations that creators can tap into to emphasize aspects of a character—for example, the character’s structure, pose, and arrangement in an image.

For example, look no further than Mickey Mouse, the ultimate distillation of iconic shape design. When he updated Mickey for recent animated shorts, Paul Rudish understood the assignment, emphasizing strong shapes across the board.

But the most iconic element of Mickey’s design is three simple circles. Anyone with the minimum exposure to the character instantly understands what these three circles represent. Mickey is Mickey, and Mickey is Disney.

Mickey’s three simple circles represent the power of shape language character design. There is a lot to learn regarding shapes when designing original characters. However, shapes aren’t just for character design. You can integrate these forms into posing and staging, too. Shapes incredibly influence how you can draw your character. Shapes also affect a person’s understanding of the character.

Shape Language Character Design: Why Shapes Matter

Shapes are the foundation of graphic design. Even in the most organic moment of sketching someone during a live drawing, an artist usually sees their subject as shapes, whether as simple as an apple or as complex as the human body. Humans have evolved to look at shapes and draw conclusions from them. 

For example, our ancestors could tell themselves apart from a predatory sabertooth cat at a distance by the simple orientation of a rectangular shape. Your ancestor Grog didn’t wander into an ambush because he recognized the cats were the sideways rectangles.

All objects we see have a basic shape or are comprised of shapes, which inevitably carry meaning. We can often classify the types of shapes we recognize. How so? Usually, we have paired classifications to work from.

Simple vs. Compound Shapes

At a fundamental level, all objects and character designs can fall under either of these categories. Most character designs are likely to be compound, meaning comprised of multiple shapes working together. That’s not to say that simple shape characters do not exist either. Look at Kirby. Kirby is shaped like a friend.

Meanwhile, for characters as detailed as Ichigo here, you can still break them down into compound shapes. Even realistic human forms can borrow heavily from shape design language. You can find many shapes in Ichigo, but his pose is a giant triangle - showing stability. We can even consider his body a fusion of at least two key triangles. 

Often artists can think in terms of simple and compound shapes in a broader sense for posing. But we will get to that later. Let’s focus on the forms that help build character designs, for now, moving into shapes both from and without natural associations.

Organic vs. Inorganic Shapes

Organic shapes are those we recognize from nature. While inorganic shapes may be more symmetrical, smoother, and rigid, organic shapes are usually full of little things that make them feel uneven and looser. It’d be like looking at a mountain's silhouette versus a skyscraper's. The building doesn’t feel “natural” compared to the peak. That is also why when architects use the organic form in their designs, they are very novel or sometimes can feel unnatural. A lot of it comes from context.

Abstract vs. Non-abstract Shapes

The hardest to quantify is the abstract and non-abstract shapes. Abstract shapes usually contain non-abstract shapes, confusing things further. A great example of how this works is a simple, iconic representation of a person you might see on the restroom sign. The whole image is abstract as it is not naturally occurring but comprises non-abstract shapes such as a circle and an oval.

There is more to shapes when it comes to simple shape language character design. There is a psychology at play regarding how we interpret forms as well. 99 Designs has a good overview of the type of meaning we can derive from basic shapes, but here are some principles to keep in mind:

• Square: The humble square tends to reflect stability and strength. They can also appear heavier than other shapes. Regarding superhero characters: they can often have squarish features and proportions. For example, imagine Superman’s squarish shoulders, chest, and strong jaw.
• Triangle: The points of a triangle can carry feelings of danger. However, a triangle can also represent balance. In character design shape language terms, a triangular form expressed in a gown may suggest regality, while rows of triangles as spikes can emphasize aggression. A character with a wide stance often appears confident because it builds on the stability of the triangular form.
• Circle: Circles reflect movement more on the principle of not having a “resting” portion on the shape. Circles tend to be the friendlier and more welcoming shape as well. After all, curves can make a character appear soft. Circles are often more inherently energetic and associated with a kind of bounciness. For example, cute mascot characters like Pikachu tend to have circular forms.

Let’s start by looking at iconic character designs and understanding the shapes you can find. We’ll be looking at examples from video games and cartoons, specifically.

The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker: A Masterclass in Shape Language in Character Design

One of the most iconic video game series, Nintendo’s The Legend of Zelda, utilizes a lot of shape-driven design when it comes to characters, and no game in that franchise is more symbolic than The Wind Waker (2002). The game's heavy stylization is beloved today and remarked for the expressiveness of the characters, and much of that is a result of shape language in character design. Let’s consider two characters: Link and Ganondorf.

Link is the player character and heroic ideal in the game’s style. He is an adventurous, expressive child on an adventure, and the shapes that inform his design are essential to that. Notice his relatively simple forms: a sphere, a triangle, and a series of rectangles. He occupies the “ideal” proportions of this setting as the player character, and his sturdy and impressive construction emphasizes that. He’s sturdy without appearing too big. He also has cute features without appearing too soft.

In many ways, Link’s proportions and shape design principles are the base for the game's whole host of character designs. One can break down every character design in the game into core shapes that create strong silhouettes. The art team designed around the most crucial character, Link, and it helps that this form of Link is perfectly whimsical thanks to such strong shape language. Just look at the game’s villagers below.

Silhouettes are a great test of character design language. They do not apply to every situation, but the more recognizable a character’s silhouette is, the stronger the design likely is. Paper Pirate puts it excellently in their overview “The Language of Silhouettes,” writing, “Effectivity in character designing is not just about uniqueness, a simple character silhouette can already be solid and iconic because of how easy it is to remember in terms of its weight.”

The Walt Disney Family Museum offers a good overview of this idea. Each character shows characteristics from their silhouette shapes alone. Which character is the strongest? How can you tell?  Who might be the friendliest based on their silhouette alone? Who might be the youngest?

The body shape language character design is quite stark in this example. With these basic silhouettes, you see three distinct personality types. Let’s see how this principle plays out with another character.

Turning to Ganondorf, the antagonist of The Wind Waker, we see his shapes are mostly triangular and rectangular. Even his most triangular features, such as his nose, brow, and hair, fill a squarish frame. While there is some curved stylization, he is very blocky, imposing, and made of solid shapes. He is the obstacle, after all. 

The body shape language in his character design appears insurmountable. That isn’t even factoring in the size difference between the characters, either.

The Wind Waker is only one game in a long franchise full of excellent character design and shape language. You could easily do an entire study on character design in the franchise. Another superb example of shape-driven character design in the franchise is Twilight Princess (2006), noted for exaggerated character concepts.

But how about another iconic franchise? Let’s look at one of the most iconic cartoons of all time - and no, we’re not bringing up Mickey Mouse again.

SpongeBob Squarepants: Ideal Simple Shape Language Character Design

The iconic Nickelodeon series, SpongeBob Squarepants (1999), is a cartoon built around solid visual silhouettes for characters. These silhouettes are part of an aspect of simple shape language character design. The core three members of the cast have very different personalities, visualized by tight character design utilizing the psychology of shapes.

Let’s look at the “core three” of the Spongebob cast, starting with the iconic Sponge himself.

Spongebob Squarepants, ironically enough, isn’t a square at all. Spongebob is the personification of the rectangle. Even his pants are a rectangle. He does have some rounded features, among which the most important are his eyes.

SpongeBob’s shape would typically come off as pretty rigid in most cases, but it is usually tweaked and shifted to emphasize his energy - SpongeBob bends and twists. He rarely stands up straight and seems to radiate a child-like aura. The breaking of the rigidity of his rectangular form represents the energy of the character. 

The large round eyes reflect childlike wonder. SpongeBob is a masterclass of design up there with Mickey Mouse. With SpongeBob, most of the character's pose derives from how the rectangle bends and how the eye placement.

Now we can turn to Patrick Star. Patrick is a simple character, presented as a little slow, soft, and pretty lazy. Imagine a sentient gumdrop, and you get the basics of the character—or, more to the point, an egg.

Patrick is a soft-hearted and soft-witted character, meant to appear gentle and ineffectual. Even the points of his star shape are dull. Combine that with a low-slung rounded body, and you get much of his characterization at a glance.

The best character from the show, Squidward, contrasts nicely with SpongeBob and Patrick. He’s a real stick-in-the-mud, and his design reflects that in a long, straight rectangle that makes up most of his silhouette.

Of course, Squidward has his rounded shapes, belying his role as a lovable curmudgeon. That and in animation, his long body bends, squats, and squiggles, almost as though the stiff, uncomfortable rectangle is a mask for what he should be deep down.

But enough about these icons. Let me walk you through one of the characters I designed around many of the principles we’ve discussed.

Practice: Building a shape-driven character.

One way to build character design skills is to put them into practice with a challenge. In that regard, I have the pleasure of developing a character for you in this article.

Let me introduce you to my original character, Anda Bandit, who is my example of simple shape language character design. 

She hails from a video game-themed comic I have been writing. I designed her to evoke some classic game designs. Many classic games would use shapes to make up for the relatively small size of sprites on the screen. It’s why Super Mario has his iconic hat and mustache. 

At least, that was my inspiration when I came up with Anda Bandit. You should be able to identify some predominant shapes at a glance.

As for how I draw the character, let me walk you through it so you can see the core shapes in action.

At her core, Anda Bandit is a cute character with cute proportions and an oversized head. A few times in this write-up, you may have seen me point out “keyhole” shapes in some character designs. Well, Anda Bandit is an example of the keyhole shape.

The proportions and orientation of the keyhole do a lot of work in establishing the pose I aim for. As you can see here, she’s not quite standing straight. I am feeling things out at this stage, but I have a central shape that establishes the anchor of the final character drawing.

Next, I refine through limb placement and the important pentagon that defines her head shape.

We keep building on the form and refining shapes with the basic form and proportions down, for example, piping the limbs to create a little volume. Also of note is that Anda’s hood receives details, such as the trail and the heart shape that frames her face. At this stage, I would also include the flare on her gloves.

By this point, detailing and rounding out features to give her a cute and naughty appearance becomes an issue. However, the foundations are very much in line with the shape-driven approach we’ve discussed so far. We add things like her eyes and mouth, but we also add the fold of the hood and details on the hands and feet.

Since she is from the monkey tribe, I want to add in her tail which has a chunky, squarish look. I also need to include her signature red bandana. I use multiple colors for many overlapping elements in my sketch process. I added a little more sass by giving her a winking eye and some cute details. She is quite the charmer.

Satisfied with how it looks, I turn my attention to inking. At this step, we have another opportunity to refine the figure while maintaining the body shape language character design. 

Lastly, I color the illustration. I also made the winking eye slightly more significant at the last minute. Regardless, this complete drawing started as a titled keyhole shape. You can also make it out through the finished picture. I started strongly emphasizing forms, which carry through the whole process. Color pallete coice is the next imortant step in character creation.

Now that you’ve seen how I draw Anda Bandit - let’s see if you can take a similar approach with some premade shape combinations.

Challenge: Shape Archetypes to Work With

If you want simple shape language character design practice, try these provided shape constructions and share what you develop. Be sure to share your results as well! Just drop us a line on Twitter, @characterhub.

Going Beyond Shape Language for Character Design

As you can see, shapes tremendously influence how you can construct characters. That even applies to characters with realistic proportions and body construction. No matter the character, starting your design work with some fundamental shapes gives you a leg up on a successful design. But what if you want to go beyond the shape language of squares and circles character design?

In a future blog post, I’ll be helping you explore how shapes can influence characters' poses, lending them specific feelings and interpretations. Beyond that, we can also look at how forms applied to the composition of your multi-character drawings to highlight relationships, attitudes, and hierarchy. There is still so much more to learn with shapes.

With that said, please experiment with shape-driven character design and add some of those OCs to CharacterHub! And don’t forget to share your results with @characterhub on Twitter.