Our list of some of the best Character Design books & series in recent years. Get inspired by one or more of the following books.
- Creating Stylized Characters (2018)
- The Silver Way: Techniques, Tips, and Tutorials for Effective Character Design (2017)
- Sketching from the Imagination: Characters (2017)
- Beginner’s Guide to Digital Painting in Photoshop: Characters (2015)
- Figure Drawing: Design and Invention (2009)
- Creating Characters for the Entertainment Industry (2019)
- Character Design Quarterly 9 (2019)
- Character by God’s Design: Volume 1: 13 Lessons on Diligence, Faithfulness and Gratitude (2016)
- Beginner’s Guide to Sketching: Characters, Creatures and Concepts (2015)
- Draw With Jazza – Creating Characters: Fun and Easy Guide to Drawing Cartoons and Comics (2016)
- Character Design Quarterly 7 (2019)
- Designing with Pixar: 45 Activities to Create Your Own Characters, Worlds, and Stories (2016)
- Character Design Quarterly 6 (2018)
- Character Design Quarterly 8 (2019)
Creating Stylized Characters (2018)
Creating Stylized Characters gives readers a valuable insight into the popular art of character design. Professional illustrators, animators and cartoonists, well versed in creating characters for video games, comics and film, guide the reader through accessible tutorial projects packed with images and advice. Any budding artist will soon be able to draw characters of all ages, shapes and sizes!
The Silver Way: Techniques, Tips, and Tutorials for Effective Character Design (2017)
The Silver Way: Techniques, Tips and Tutorials for Effective Character Design by Stephen Silver offers invaluable instruction from one of best teachers in the industry.
Sketching from the Imagination: Characters (2017)
Sketches and drawings are the foundations of great art, where thoughts and concepts first come to life as an image. In Sketching from the Imagination: Characters, fifty talented artists share their sketches, inspirations, and approaches to creating characters.
Beginner’s Guide to Digital Painting in Photoshop: Characters (2015)
Beginner’s Guide to Digital Painting: Characters is a comprehensive guide for artists wishing to create convincing and detailed characters.
Figure Drawing: Design and Invention (2009)
Figure Drawing: Design and Invention is an instructional figure drawing book geared towards the novice and experienced artist alike. This book emphasizes a simplified understanding of surface anatomy, in order to clarify the mechanics of the figure, facilitate invention, and ultimately create a skill-set that can be successfully applied to other media.
Creating Characters for the Entertainment Industry (2019)
Creating Professional Characters: Develop Spectacular Designs from Basic Concepts is an inspiring and informative exploration of how popular professional character designers take the basic concept of a character in a production brief and develop these ideas into an original, high-quality design.
Character Design Quarterly 9 (2019)
Character Design Quarterly (CDQ) is a lively, creative magazine bringing inspiration, expert insights, and leading techniques from professional illustrators, artists, and character art enthusiasts worldwide.
Character by God’s Design: Volume 1: 13 Lessons on Diligence, Faithfulness and Gratitude (2016)
Equip kids with the character qualities they need to each become the person God created them to be. This first volume of exciting, hands-on Bible lessons explores the three character qualities of diligence, faithfulness, and gratitude. Kids will explore each character quality in memorable lessons that are rooted in Scripture and reinforce God’s foundational plan for a fruitful Christian life.
Beginner’s Guide to Sketching: Characters, Creatures and Concepts (2015)
The ability to sketch confidently is an integral part to the beginning of any concept artist’s workflow! The Beginner’s Guide to Sketching: Characters, Creatures and Concepts teaches the fundamentals of sketching, showing how important concept sketching is to artists of all levels. Established artists such as Rovina Cai, Justin Gerard, Nick Harris, and Rebeca Puebla explain how and when to use a variety of sketching materials, before moving on to warm-up exercises and top tips.
Draw With Jazza – Creating Characters: Fun and Easy Guide to Drawing Cartoons and Comics (2016)
Draw With Jazza YouTube star Josiah Brooks breaks down an easy-to-follow method that will help you to invent and draw original characters time and time again. Whether sci-fi or steampunk, comic book heroines or tattooed action heroes, animal familiars or alien races, you will discover the limitless possibilities of creating your very own characters for comic books, cartoons, video games and more!
Character Design Quarterly 7 (2019)
Character Design Quarterly is filled with inspiring advice and new techniques from popular professional character designers, visual developers, and illustrators. Learn how to transport a character from the first germinations of an idea, through invention and deeper explorations, to a polished coherent final design. Follow quick tip guides and inspirational articles to learn new skills and even try out a new style for your work.
Designing with Pixar: 45 Activities to Create Your Own Characters, Worlds, and Stories (2016)
Creativity abounds in this one-of-a-kind activity book from Pixar Animation Studios. Inspired by behind-the-scenes work of Pixar’s animators, it encourages fans and artists to explore their own imaginations through Pixar’s favorite characters and iconic scenes.
Character Design Quarterly 6 (2018)
In the newest issue of Character Design Quarterly, an exciting quarterly magazine for character designers, artists, illustrators, and animators, learn new industry techniques from top professionals. Follow the in-depth design tutorials to discover the approaches popular character designers take when creating original characters for animations, games, or book illustrations.
Character Design Quarterly 8 (2019)
Character Design Quarterly (CDQ) is a lively, creative magazine bringing inspiration, expert insights, and leading techniques from professional illustrators, artists, and character art enthusiasts worldwide. Each issue provides detailed tutorials on creating diverse characters enabling you to explore the processes and decision making that go into creating amazing characters.
Best Character Design Books that Should be on Your Bookshelf
We highly recommend you to buy all paper or e-books in a legal way, for example, on Amazon. But sometimes it might be a need to dig deeper beyond the shiny book cover. Before making a purchase, you can visit resources like Library Genesis and download some character design books mentioned below at your own risk. Once again, we do not host any illegal or copyrighted files, but simply give our visitors a choice and hope they will make a wise decision.
Creative Character Design for Games and Animation
Author(s): Jenny Harder
ID: 3677468, Publisher: CRC Press, Year: 2023, Size: 24 Mb, Format: pdf
In Situ Characterization Methodology for the Design and Analysis of Composite Pressure Vessels
Author(s): Martin Nebe
ID: 3201782, Publisher: Springer Vieweg, Year: 2022, Size: 14 Mb, Format: pdf
Nature-Inspired Structured Functional Surfaces: Design, Fabrication, Characterization, and Applications
Author(s): Zhiwu Han
ID: 3352463, Publisher: Wiley-VCH, Year: 2022, Size: 14 Mb, Format: pdf
Please note that this booklist is not final. Some books are really record-breakers according to The New York Times, others are written by unknown authors. On top of that, you can always find additional tutorials and courses on Coursera, Udemy or edX, for example. Are there any other relevant resources you could recommend? Drop a comment if you have any feedback on the list.