Shapes in Animation

One of the things I've been doing in my own time is looking at character shapes and how they are used, since character design is an area I have always been interested in. I also thought that practicing other characters could also help me figure out what shapes I find easiest to use, and how consistent shapes are with all characters within one show.

Rob Valley, an animator on some of the Gorillaz videos designed the characters of Motorcity, and it is easy to see how his past work has influenced his design now. The characters all use lot of angles, making the designs, dare I say it, edgy. They are all very strong, confident shapes, which is important for an action driven series like this.

On the other hand, Steven Universe (Rebecca Sugar) use much more round, friendlier shapes. It is less action centres for the most part, with a few more angled weapons when there is violence, but usually it is quite calm and relaxed, reflected in the characters' designs. Some of the younger characters, Like Steven (top left) and Connie (top right) are even more round than the others, showing both their youth and how little they are involved in the violence.

Other designs follow these rules, and a lot more of the characters in fun/comedy types of cartoons are made up of mostly round shapes, with only a few edges.

Again, characters from shows like Powerpuff Girls and Gravity Falls follows this style. I also accidentally ruined this page with ink on the back side of it,so I tried to save the characters by outlining them in white, and I quite like the effect it has had; I might experiment with things like this in the future.