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Creating Characters with Personality: For Film, TV, Animation, Video Games, and Graphic Novels Paperback – February 1, 2006
| Tom Bancroft (Author) Find all the books, read about the author, and more. See search results for this author |
Enhance your purchase
- Print length144 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherWatson-Guptill
- Publication dateFebruary 1, 2006
- Dimensions8.5 x 0.4 x 11 inches
- ISBN-100823023494
- ISBN-13978-0823023493
Frequently bought together

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Editorial Reviews
About the Author
for more than fifteen years, working
for Disney and Big Idea Productions
(producers of Veggie Tales). Most recently, he contributed to Disney’s Brother Bear. He lives in Franklin, TN.
Product details
- Publisher : Watson-Guptill; First edition (February 1, 2006)
- Language : English
- Paperback : 144 pages
- ISBN-10 : 0823023494
- ISBN-13 : 978-0823023493
- Item Weight : 1.35 pounds
- Dimensions : 8.5 x 0.4 x 11 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #372,577 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #130 in How to Create Anime & Cartoons
- #196 in Animation Graphic Design (Books)
- #326 in Figure Drawing Guides
- Customer Reviews:
About the author

Tom Bancroft is a veteran Disney and Big Idea director. At Disney, he helped create the animation for many memorable characters including: Roger Rabbit, Young Simba, Jafar and Iago, Pocahontas, Rutt and Tuke and for the film MULAN he designed the character "Mushu", the dragon. While with Big Idea, he designed and directed the LarryBoy 2D series of videos. Tom still keeps his hands in animation, but he also enjoys creating comics, children's books, and characters for all forms of media.
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So a bit of info on the book. The book starts with giving you a bit of insight on the world of a character designer and the main types of such in the career field which is a little useful for someone wanting a bit of info to get them into learning more about the field. As you get more into the book you get small assignments here and there and one big one that is covered through the whole book: The fleshing out of an assigned cast of characters for a fake cartoon. With this project, you get some advice and examples from various illustrators and animators like Butch Hartman and Mark Henn at the end of each chapter.
This book won't magically tell you the answer (wouldn't we all like such a book xD), but it will at least put you on the road to be more adept at making characters that truly match any descriptions someone might give you for whatever creations they may need.
Heh wish I had this book sooner while I was in art school for animation.
The character to the left is my version of Dillon, the book gives assignments to design characters in an entire setting, thats just one way I see him, the other way is highly realistic and closer to my other arts which focus on lighting and contrasts. But as he says in the book he really gets down to the "meat, potatoes and veggies" of character CREATION.
I highly recommend getting Tom's book and giving it a good thorough read, it speaks to the mind of the artist in an interactive way and has loads of pictures ( I like dem books with the pictures) to illustrate not only the points that he is making, but also VARIETY and how a well thought out character and even recognition of shapes goes a really long way in expressing one's imagination.
Thanks so much again Tom, you've most definitely given me loads to think about and incorporate into my art to make my work more lifelike and help me achieve something I've been struggling to find for so many years.
It only have some minor cons: Although the book try to cover many areas of the design the truth is that is too centered in the theme of the animation (Specially the classic Disney style) and the fact that sometimes some topics that may interest you don't have the length that you would probably prefer.
But honestly it have far more pros: Each chapter is pretty well explained in an easy to understand way, the fact that the author have a lot of experience in the field makes you confident in the quality of your purchase, the advices are very good, the illustrations are beautiful.
I can go and go telling you why you should buy this wonderful book, but probably it would be enough letting you know two things:
1. Instead of telling you how you must do the job the author seeks to help you find a vision and style of your own, giving you just tools and tips that are going to make your technique stronger and more appealing to other people.
2. Only watching the bunch of sketches and conceptual art and reading about how exciting its to bring to live to a character makes you want to look for a paper piece to start drawing and watch by yourself how the magic works.
Top reviews from other countries
Overall delivers very well the narrow brief it describes.
For all future character designers who are serious about perusing a career - read this book!







