Form and function

After receiving feedback from the tutors at my project pitch, I had to go back and do some more research in order to further refine my aim. While I was looking further into character design as a whole I decided that I wanted to focus my attention more on the relationship between form and function.

By form and function I mean what a character is meant to accomplish/do (function), and whether the design of the characters aesthetics (form) meet those requirements. In design, one of the fundamental rules is that form follows function; the aesthetics must fit around the functionality.

In character design, this means making sure that all of the elements that make up the character design make sense to the context of their particular setting. Take the disney animated character Robin Hood for example. All of the characters in Robin Hood are animal characters, with the main character as a fox. In reality, a fox would not be able to accomplish the feats shown in the story, such as drawing a bow up to eye level; it's physically impossible because of the fox's anatomy and bone structure. Additionally, a fox has no opposable thumbs with which to grip a bow and arrow, and standing upright on what is essentially the tip-toes while doing this makes it all the more awkward.

Disneys Chuck Jones had a formula for creating humanlike feet for anthropomorphic animal characters which made the shoes of the character cover the feet and bottom of the leg, turning that entire area into the foot. The rest of the character was designed half way to human proportions, with the shoulder blades moved back and opposable thumbs added. This allowed them to keep the anthropomorphic qualities they wanted by keeping Robin Hood still looking fox like.

This is a classic example of form following function in character design, but it can apply to all types - Robin Hood was designed how he was in order to be able to accomplish all the feats required of him by the story, but form following function within the context of a story is important aswell. Take for example a character who spends alot of time in the artic tundra; the character obviously has to be able to survive in that environment, and so the character should be designed in such a way that reflects this. This could be achieved by making the character wear big warm clothes and furs as opposed to walking around topless, and adding hard callused skin caused by the cold. If they dig alot, then they should have an implement capable of cutting through the hard ice.

These may seem like obvious things but are often overlooked in character design. Dragons with wings not large enough to believably lift them off the ground and spacemen without any type of oxygen source could be some examples, as they don't make sense. There are exceptions however. The 'Rule of Cool' states that "The limit of the willing suspension of disbelief for a given element is directly proportional to the element's awesomeness." Stated another way, all but the most pedantic of viewers will forgive liberties with reality as long as the result is wicked sweet or awesome. This applies to the audience in general; there will naturally be a different threshold for each individual.

For my project I want to look at how the use of functional design helps make believable characters, what methods artists have when designing implausible characters to make them seem more credible, and the balance between functional and aesthetically appealing characters.