Fictional characters, we find them mostly everywhere! in books that we read, cartoons, ads, and movies that we watch, as well as toys and video games that we play. We live and interact with them in their imaginary worlds and enjoy all the stories that they tell.
The way they are described, their emotions, dress code, moves, expressions, personalities, lifestyle…etc, all sums together to provide us with a unique experience that lets us believe, listen, and get emotionally attached to them.
According to a dynamic List of highest-grossing media franchises featured in fandom.com, there are fictional characters that made their associated brands worth billions of dollars such as Pokémon with an estimated revenue of 95B$, Hello Kitty (80B$), Winnie the Pooh (75B$) or Spiderman (28B$).
Sales and revenues of Licensed merchandise, books, box office, video games, toys and card games, retail, DVD, ads, stage play, …etc that features those characters boost their brand equity dramatically.
It might start with a fictional character such as Harry Potter in a series of books to expand into an empire of movie chains, video games, and multi-billion merchandise businesses.
We can see fictional characters that represent and identify their own corporates genuinely such as Mario (Nintendo), Sonic (Sega), or characters that became idealistic symbols for an entire culture such as Mickey Mouse and Barbie.
We have Characters who positioned themselves under their novel genres such as Pikachu from Pokemon and Superman from DC. In Japan, there are anime characters who are associated with the entire country’s heritage such as Doraemon and Anpanman.
The list can go on to infinity with thousands of fictional characters entered our lives through different media channels affecting our lifestyles, decisions, personalities, and reactions.
The Art of Storytelling
Characters in stories, games, and movies are not a result of coincidence. Character design is a mixture of two creative industries, Visual Art and Storytelling. While most of the people will be giving more attention to the visual aspect of the character, the backbone of character design is the story that they communicate.
Character’s biography, personality, dress code, appearance, accessories, movement, and expressions should be creatively crafted in words even before starting a concept art. In fact, fictional characters in books or narratives might not have a visual at all! As a visual artist, you are always tempted to start sketching or modeling before connecting the rest of the puzzle together.
However, in complex scenarios, this might cause a disaster in your production workflow, especially if you are working on projects such as Avengers, Naruto, or Final Fantasy where all the characters are interconnected with the main storyline, belonged under the same environment, and associated with each other in sub-stories.
Visual Art – The Inflection Point
In contrast, visual art is what makes these narratives come to Life. The tale of the character must genuinely represent shapes, forms, figures, poses, expressions, textures, colors, lightings, shades, and shadows to convince the audience with the story in mind. We see a lot of concept arts that we understand their stories, even without any explanation! This is due to our brain’s ability to make complex reasoning and comparisons.
Let’s take a protagonist such as Guybrush Threepwood from the Monkey Island game series as an example. Guybrush is a fictional character who claims to be a mighty pirate. He is a tall middle age youthful character who throws himself into trouble due to his simplicity. However, he always finds a way out by fixing a hilarious puzzle. He fell in love with governor daughter Elaine Marley and always gets in trouble with the villain pirate LeChuck.
It’s important to notice that Guybrush‘s pirate costume, hairstyle, his numb long face, and youthful expressions are what made him believable and lovable. The way that he speaks and makes hilarious jokes made him unique and different.
We get attached to those characters to an extreme of playing their games, watching their movies, wearing their costumes, buying their merchandise, as well as feeling and reacting to their emotions and beliefs.
Nowadays, with more than millions of fictional characters, the character must stand out from the crowd by creating a memorable iconic figure that tells an extraordinary story and creatively incorporates the character’s visual and story dimensions.
Ahmed Al-Ansari
Founder of Alansari Studios, Co-Founder of Impressco. Author, Researcher, Media, Marketing, & IT Consultant from the Kingdom of Bahrain.
