In previous posts we discussed how visual thinking helps us focus on core concepts and teaches us to communicate those with graphics and other visual elements. We also looked at ways to practice developing your visual thinking skills so that you can effectively apply them to your course design.
In today’s post we’ll look at how to create custom characters that you can use in your visual thinking activities and course design.
You don’t have to be an artist to create custom characters. In fact, there’s a lot of value in hand drawn characters because they add personality and stand in contrast to the more typical (and often sterile) characters used in a lot of elearning courses. It’s just a matter of learning a few production techniques and then taking some time to practice.
Street Fighter X Tekken On Vita Lets You Create Custom Character Designs
Here are some examples of hand drawn characters I found online. You’ll notice that they’re relatively simple and that’s the key. Unless you’re really skilled, keep them simple. I think you’ll agree that the characters below are something most of us can create.
I like the custom characters below created by Ella Zheng. They’re clean and based on a few simple shapes. And they work well with the other icons in her examples.
I could see something like these characters and icons working in an elearning course. And for you, they’re easy enough to build in PowerPoint because they’re simple combinations of some basic shapes. This is something we discussed in the post on creating your own pictograph characters.
My Boyfriend Used Some Mtg Art To Create This Custom Character Sheet For Me 🥺 [oc]
Start with a simple stick person. There are a number of ways to create them. You can go with straight lines, thick/bent lines, filled in shapes, square or oval bodies, or just trace over pictures. Below are a few ideas I played with. I like the first one which is a head and lines for legs and arms with no body. It’s easy to create and has a distinct style.
Once you develop a style, practice creating that character over and over again so you feel comfortable creating the custom character when you need it. What makes a simple character like this work is the expression and pose. We’ll look at both below.
Identify a few facial expressions and practice drawing them. Look at what others have done for inspiration. I like this guy’s approach below, draw some circles and practice the expressions.
Make Animated Characters Online
Articulate’s illustrated characters have twelve common expressions. That’s probably all you need for expressions. Practice by recreating those twelve expressions with your own custom characters.
And here’s a good example from blogger, Chinie Hidalgo Diaz, who’s created a distinct look for her characters. As you can see the style of drawing isn’t overly complex. And the water color brush is an easy effect to apply using some of the mobile drawing apps or other graphics editors. These would work great in a comic-panel style course. She also offers some of her own tips on creating facial expressions.
She focuses on two key areas: the mouth and brows. Start with her expressionless face and then practice drawing mouths and brows to create simple expressions.
Tiny Tina's Wonderlands Character Creator Is Delightfully Bonkers
Here are some other examples that require a little more practice. And finally, here’s a site that has all sorts of drawing tips for those who really want to push their skills.
As far as the expressions, I’d probably build the expressions as images that I can copy and paste into faces. That means I only have to work on them once and then just pick and choose what I need later.
Poses are a bit more challenging. The easiest way to practice is to find common poses and then apply those to your custom character style. I’d start by copying what you see so that you get a good feel for the pose and then draw your character in the poses you prefer. This is also a good reason to keep the custom character’s detail limited. It’s easier to create a pose for a stick figure than it is a character in an outfit.
Custom Character Sheets! By Atomicfeckmagician Fur Affinity [dot] Net
Here are some people who sell stick figure characters if you’re inclined to buy some. You can also find inspiration in how they pose their characters and try your hand at creating the same pose with your custom characters.
I quickly drew the images for this presentation on how rapid elearning is so simple that even a monkey can do it. As you can see, nothing fancy, but they work.
If you want to learn more, Dan Roam released a great how-to workbook that shows how to create the images for visual thinking. You may also be interested in Beyond Words: A Guide to Drawing Out Ideas. You can learn some simple drawing techniques that can be applied to your elearning courses (and wow your peers as you doodle during those boring staff meetings).
Create Custom Character, Nsfw, Illsutration
The goal in all of this is recognize that for some of your courses and presentations you can create your own illustrated graphics. This also works well when combined with visual thinking skills. And learning to create your own may help speed up your production and lend itself to courses with more personality.Every brand, no matter the size should be using custom characters that truly reflect your brand and audience. The math is simple. All great brands tell great stories. All great stories need great characters to take the lead, learn the lesson, and save the day.
But if that’s the case, why would you tell brand stories with clipart off Google Images, generic animated characters, or white-washed stock-footage that doesn’t fit your brand? Making custom characters allows you to create visual representations of your brand and audience that’s completely unique to you! If you think they’re out of your reach, think again. Let’s dive in.
Custom characters are animated characters whose features can be set to match… well, whatever you’d like them to! That means fine tuning skin tone, face shape, hair style, clothes, accessories, and more.
I'm Trying To Create A Custom Character Based On My Own Avatar, Is Their Starting Item Balanced?
By making the characters yourself, you can skip the hefty price tag of a creative agency, while making as many characters as you’d like, in the way
If you’re an entrepreneur or marketer, you might use custom characters in an explainer video to have them play the role of a product guide or represent your target audience. You can also use them in virtual event presentations, pitch decks, or social media posts to add personality to an otherwise dry topic while showcasing your brand’s look.
If you’re looking to visually communicate within your company, let’s say for employee onboarding, a company update, or a meeting recap, creating custom characters is also a great way to show off company culture as well as the diversity of your dream team.
How To Create A New Custom Daz Studio Character
Your brand’s got a life and personality of its own, and it’s simple to discover it! If you’ve never done this exercise before, do it with me now.
With your character that represents that personification of your brand, go ahead and think strategically (and creatively!) about where you might want to put your new brand mascot. Add them to a screen recording, an email GIF, or any video or presentation you can dream up in ’s visual communication platform.
Now, this is where things get interesting. There’s a good chance the videos and visual content you create are for a specific audience. If you’re in sales, your prospects are your people. A corporate trainer or in instructional design? Your audience is likely employees you want to onboard or upskill. If you’re a marketer, your audience is your leads, followers, and fans.
Unreal Engine 5 Character Creation, Animation, And Cinematics: Create Custom 3d Assets And Bring Them To Life In Unreal Engine 5 Using Metahuman, Lumen, And Nanite
. People want to see characters that reflect themselves in the videos they watch. It makes your story that much more captivating and relatable. Plus, characters that resonate with your audience makes your viewers feel seen and understood. Why wouldn’t you want to give them that sense of belonging?
Of characters that showcase the diversity of your audience. That’s immensely valuable to your viewers to know that your message is for someone that looks, dresses, and acts just like they do. That sense of inclusivity, equity, and belonging is key to help your audience understand that
It’s easy! With ’s Character Builder feature, you can now create a character that reflects your brand and audience with just a few clicks!
Custom Character Create Your Own Toy
To celebrate the launch of Character Builder, we’re giving you full access to the feature — as well as our more valuable plan — for 40% off through February 28th! Don’t miss out on the chance to make custom characters all year long!
Shoshi joined as a Marketing Assistant. To read more of her stuff, you can find her content on Upwork and Business 2 Community talking all things inbound marketing for SaaS. After only 2 weeks at , Shoshi was dubbed by the marketing team as having the superpower of Unbridled Enthusiasm. So that was pretty cool.
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