Chewing Pencils

Developing Characters

Stories only become stories when characters live them out. The Scriptural writings common to Jewish, Christian and Muslim faiths, commonly known as the Old Testament in the Western world, is a book full of stories. Although it forms the basis for entire belief systems, it is not a series of rules or instructions, but the life stories of Abraham, Moses, King David and a long list of others. Without the characters, the Old Testament would be boring, but add in a bit of conflict, betrayal, murder amongst the main players and you’ve got the best selling book of all time.

We relate to stories through the characters. We may even live out some of our own dreams through the characters of the stories we love. We feel their pain, share their joy and claim their victories as our own. Hence, it is extremely important that cartoonists put effort into developing good characters.

Most of the time we think of character development as something only comic book artists, cartoon strip artists and book illustrators need to worry about. While this is certainly true, developing characters is something that all cartoonists need to come to grips with. The characters that populate our artwork must become alive for our cartoons to have any impact and hold our audience’s attention. Bland characters are a fatal blow to a cartoon strip artist, and even a spot/gag cartoonist will go broke if blandness appears in cartoon after cartoon.

The best way to develop character or personality in your cartoon characters is to think about people you’ve met. Sometimes we meet people and forget them almost instantly, quite simply because they are boring. We don’t find anything about them even remotely interesting and so relegate them to the not-worth-remembering file in our heads. On the other hand, sometimes we meet people that fascinate us, scare us, make us laugh, challenge our thinking or even confuse us. These are the people we remember and these are the ones that we can utilise in drawing our cartoons.

When I wrote about character development for the Top Ten Tips, I described somebody I know as follows:

I once met a minister of a church. Normally that might not be such an interesting thing, but this pastor was also a contemporary artist, a Portuguese bullfighter, a martial arts instructor and a cage fighter. He had tattoos all over his body, with the words “Jesus Saves” written across his stomach. This guy was (and is) somebody who I will never forget. He is a walking cartoon - the only reason I haven’t used him in my work yet is that I’m scared he’ll kick my head in…

Since writing that, I still haven’t included him in any cartoons, but his life continues to be a treasure chest of material that I will one day ‘draw’ upon! In real life, he is a character with a story to tell - why not making him tell a story in a cartoon as well?!

The type of story you want to tell will have some impact on your characters, as will the setting. Sometimes story and setting almost demand certain types of characters. But whatever the case, it is worth taking the time to develop your characters and give them a personality that will tell your story properly

Finally, once you’ve thought about what your characters look like, how they act, how they express themselves, what they wear, where they live, what they do, who they’re related to (etc) - draw them! Draw them in every possible pose and setting that you can think of. Draw them in their home, at work, interacting with others and relaxing. Draw different expressions and emotions. Make your character come to life!

As I’ve said before:

It might seem like a chore, but doing this ground work produces a more ‘mature’ character and one that can be a source of income for, potentially, many years to come.

An exercise to help you with developing a character:

A thirty-something man who trained in the IT industry, suddenly finds himself unemployed. His skills have all been superceded and so he is unemployable, with people ten years his junior taking al the available work.

The cartoon strip is to depict this man’s attempts at re-entering the workforce in whatever area of work he can find.

Firstly, draw what this man looks like.

Secondly, give this man an identity. I.e. name, marital status, location etc.

Finally, come up with ideas for the first five strips in the series that establish him as the main character of the story.

Post your ideas on your own blog and send us the link, or leave your ideas in the comments section.