Product Description

• Character design is the key in many industries—and they’re all covered in this book

• Practical step-by-step exercises

• Contributors include Glen Keane, Supervising Animator, Disney

From Snow White to Shrek, from Fred Flintstone to SpongeBob Square-Pants, the design of a character conveys personality before a single word of dialogue is spoken. Creating Characters with Personality shows artists how to create a distinctive character, then place that character in context with a script, establish hierarchy, and maximize the impact of pose and expression. Practical exercises help readers put everything together to make their new characters sparkle. Lessons from the author, who designed the dragon Mushu (voiced by Eddie Murphy) in Disney’s Mulan—plus big-name experts in film, TV, video games, and graphic novels—make a complex subject accessible to every artist.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #9697 in Books
• Published on: 2006-02-01
• Released on: 2006-02-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 144 pages

About the Author
Tom Bancroft has been an animator for more than fifteen years, working for Disney and Big Idea Productions (producers of Veggie Tales). Most recently, he contributed to Disney’s Brother Bear. He lives in Franklin, TN

Customer Reviews

Creating Characters with Personality for film
This is a very light book on the subject of using cartoon techniques to inject personality into animated characters. The author's background in the Disney film animation studio made the book something less than I was looking for. I still found the Disney approach to character creation usefully laid out. That I was looking for the Pixar or Hayao Miyazaki's approach is irrelevant. This book is plenty of material for somebody doing light animation stories.

Now I Know Why
I've read several how to draw books. So far the the most instruction I've ever gotten was "do this, then do that." The books never explained why. This book explains why. The reason why you start out with simple shapes was probably the biggest "Oh yeah! OK!" moment for me and there were several other momnets.

The book is very well narrated. I actually read through this like a story book, the first time. It is easy to follow and at the end of each chapter there are homework assignments to help you get going. The assignments are a little tough, so you are expected to know how to do a few things, but I haven't met a how to draw book that started with "This is how you draw a line."

I personally love Anime and Manga and that is the style of art I try to emulate. With this book it doesn't matter what style of art you are trying to master, you will get help from this book.

excellent resource for anyone wanting to improve character design skills!
This book by Tom Bancroft was a very entertaining and helpful read. I am not a professional in the field of animation or illustration, but I am trying to learn how to improve my skills in the area of character design in hopes of moving into this field in the future. This book does an excellent job of covering all the different facets involved in designing and bringing to life a drawing with real personality. It teaches the basic principles needed to convey character types, emotion, and personality with many helpful examples.
The two best "stand-out" features of the book to me are the guest artists who each come from a different field of "cartooning"; whether it be humorous cartooning, tv animation, comic books, or feature film animation, to name a few. It was very interesting and informative to read these professional's take on designing the same character, and to see how each artist approached it. The other "stand-out" feature was the progression of assignments given throughout the book. These really helped me get a feel for what a real assignment could actually be like for a character designer. They were very helpful in allowing me to think through the process of designing each character for the "script" provided in the assignments.
All in all, my hat's off to Tom and company for a wonderful resource for aspiring professionals and hobby artists alike. Definitely a wonderful investment!