Good books about cartoon/2d game charcter design

[rinkans]

Hello! I'm new to character design and i would love to learn to design and draw cartoon and/or 2d game characters. What ar good books that teaches not only concepts but teqnicues(techniques) for good character design and all the needed things (like perspective etc.)

[arenhaus]

Try Preston Blair's animation book.

Andrew Loomis's "Fun with a Pencil" and "Successful Drawing" also have a lot on what you are after, but they are out of print.

[Raoul Duke]

if you are talking about pixel art you might want to check out http://www.pixeljoint.com

[rinkans]

No, not pixel art, first i want to learn the basics of good character design, all the color theories, perspective etc. and then start going into pixel art.

[seetsy]

Not sure about books, but http://characterdesign.blogspot.com is a good site with interviews of character designers mostly in animation industries. Also http://theartcenter.blogspot.com has lots of good tips and resources.

If you are serious about it you might also want to consider stephen silver's class on character design through schoolism. I havent attended it but it looks good, you might want to check it out.
http://schoolism.com/school.php?id=10

Are you just starting out?

[rinkans]

Yes, i am just starting out. I only draw doodles.
Blogs look realy interesting and probably gonna read through them.
As for schoolism course - it looks realy awesome but the fee is too high for me.

[timpaatkins]

Skillfull huntsman, maybe not so much on techniques, but a step by step guide how some students at Art Center illustrated a book. Worth every penny.

"A tale from the Brothers Grimm provides inspiration for three gifted students from the world-renowned Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California. Khang Le, Mike Yamada, and Felix Yoon were guided by their instructor, Scott Robertson, to create original design solutions for the environments, characters, props, and vehicles found within The Skillful Huntsman. The trio's sketches and full-color renderings thoroughly document the creative process of concept design, revealing a host of intriguing places--from sci-fi cities to castles, and people--from giants to royalty. A must for artists, aspiring entertainment designers, comic aficionados, and anyone interested in the creative process, The Skillful Huntsman offers insight into the mysterious world of the imagination."

http://www.amazon.com/The-Skillful-H...3019152&sr=8-1

[rinkans]

got the Skillfull huntsman. It looks interesting. Gonna go through it.

[Parka81]

You should be able to find some here
http://parkablogs.com/category/tags/character-design

This is quite good. Alive Character Design
http://parkablogs.com/content/book-r...ation-and-film

You might want to go through this list also. There are some Japanese RPG artbooks with character designs
http://parkablogs.com/content/art-books-asia

[Kiera]

Preston Blairs animation book that Arnhaus mentioned is a classic and is availabe for free on Asifa:
http://www.animationarchive.org/?p=2091
The newer version has (worse) redrawings of the copyrighted characters from the old version. It looks like the characters in this book are a bit oldschool (30s and 40s animation style) but the fundamentals and ideas behind them are so important and appear everywhere. Redraw some of them after the principles in the book. Read up on John Ks Blog if you want to get deeper into cartoon and animation design

If you want to get cartoony with strong shapes,
try the "Force; Dynamic life drawing for animators" books by Mattessi:
This is the first one
http://www.amazon.de/Force-Dynamic-D...0&sr=8-3-spell
There are two additional ones, which further explain the concepts of the first one for either animals or characters.
They are easy to read and full of brilliant ideas. But they are more useful if you already can hold a pencil and know a thing or two about life drawing.


Also Loomis, lol. If you stay on this site you might hear his name more often.
Best of luck with your art journey!

[rinkans]

Thanks for a whole lot of information. appreciated. Actually i started with loomis book witch is quite good for a beginner like me.

[pipboy]

I also recommend Cartoon Animation by Preston Blair. That book is great for learning the structure when creating characters. It is also a great practise to improve your drawing skills since those structures are all circles, lines and curves. But I am guessing you should also study anatomy and the real proportions of human body to make the most of that book. At least this is the case for me. Cheers