Channel Frederator Blog

When most people think about what makes a good character in animation, most people get right into what a character looks like. What about the stuff you don’t see? What is the character thinking? That was very important to understand a character, according to Ollie Johnston.

What’s the GI Joe connection? Well, on the backs of the boxes of figures, they would have descriptions of the characters. These often included lots of information about them as people. Yeah, Airtight is an expert at chemical, biological, and radiological warfare… but did you know he was born in New Haven, Connecticut and, as a kid, had the largest collection of plastic dinosaurs on his block? It’s all right there in the character description.

What is the character thinking, and why does he feel that way? It has a lot to do with a character’s story and experiences, and often little to nothing to do with the way he, she, or it looks. Keep that in mind when designing your next character. A guy who is an expert at radiological warfare might be cool, but if he has a big dinosaur collection, now he’s interesting.

-Floyd Bishop