A tale on constant character redesigns (animation update #2)

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A tale on constant character redesigns (animation update #2)

Posted by psychicpxl - 6 days ago

Hi everyone! I hope you've all been well. I have been working on the upcoming animation quite a lot these days, but I've been struggling a lot on my main characters design. I'm finally happy with a design, but I thought I should share my working process for those interested :)

This was the first design of the cat character that I had for the animation. At the time I thought he looked alright but I quickly felt that he looked too scary or creepy. I wanted something cuter...

I then tried to come up with a redesign. I was quite happy with this guy but again I thought he looked a little too creepy, so I rounded the eyes and made the mouth look a little more soft and rounded.

I then drew the entire scene which is about 15 frames of character animation with this guy. But then I woke up the next day and looked at it and I was so unhappy with it. I thought he looked absolutely terrible XD Like the ears were too tall and his haircut looked so off and strange. I can't believe I spent yesterday drawing this guy, so I went back and did some more drawings.

I felt the problem was that he was too sharp and detailed I guess. I'm not a trained animator so I don't know, but I tried to make the cat cuter and more rounder. I was sort of happy with this cat creature thing, but I looked back on it and felt he looked too much like a knock-off disney character so I quickly scrapped the idea and I looked back to my original cat designs.

I then felt satisfied with the same cat that I've been drawing for most of my animations, this nekojiru cat guy who I can't seem to get away from XD

So I re-drew all of the character frames for the first scene but was again extremely unhappy with how he looked. Especially in this pose, he just looks very .... I don't know..... (;-; )

But after a few adjustments I felt like I was happy with this. I made the eyes a bit smaller and the nose/mouth a bit bigger and higher up. You may notice that this looks very similar to the first cat that I drew for this project, and you would be correct. :) But at least I'm finally happy with him.

Anyway, hope you don't mind the longer post :) Take care everyone >u<

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TinFoi 2025-07-06 02:23:54

Oh shit you're here again?

psychicpxl 2025-07-06 02:23:54

Yeah! ^_^

NothanyTPM 2025-07-11 13:11:46

I will say, I had similar issues when it came to designing my OCs at a certain point.

Most of the creep factor comes from the eyes. It's a weird balancing act when you add eyelids to your characters. Making them too big or too small will for some reason make the character creepy looking, and I can't quite pinpoint why it does that.

Everyone seems to have their own solutions from making their character's pupils always stick to the side of the eyelids and never letting them go to the center, making them ever so slightly off-center, making the pupil bigger than the top and bottom eyelid, or by making the pupils ovals (which weirdly works even if it makes no sense). These aren't suggestions, just what I found while studying this.

Glad you found a design that suits you, but don't worry, you're not alone with that struggle to make eyes not look creepy.

psychicpxl 2025-07-11 13:11:46

Woah thank you for the response! I do feel like a lot of character design is a balancing act, and the eyes are funny enough an extremely important part of that. I feel that if the eyes are bad, it ruins the whole design. Even some super simple eyes like the ones I drew, only a few were actually good.

I'll remember your tips next time I design a new character :) Thank u again ^_^

A tale on constant character redesigns (animation update #2)

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