I think Charcter design is an evolution of a Character or the start. It's a way of what changes and what stays the same. It's a way to create a story with out showing too explicitly. It can be a way to tell about the character, their lifestyle, or choice in fashion. It can tell a person's personality without shoving it in your face. And these are only a few Qualitys of Character Design.

For example Disney makes a good character Designs that designs that character in such a way that people will love and relate to it on a very intimate level. It’s all about the personality that you empower your character with, and that unique personality can derive from the way it looks, talks, walks, thinks, etc. Character design creates lovable or memorable characters, whether they are good or bad, cute or weird, happy or sad.

One of the most common theories in design is that form must follow function, and this applies to all areas including character design. A character with a logical, clearly understandable form is more easily perceived and understood by the human brain. Simple shapes like circles or ovals often work best as the wireframe for a character because of their versatility and visual straightforwardness. Simplicity in the character’s overall shapes is also great if you need to draw your character from various angles. When rotating or viewing your character from another angle, all the planes within the character’s design will change their appearance in proportion to the angle which makes it harder to maintain consistent proportions and scale for each characteristic. Thus starting off from a more basic, generic shape requires less effort in accurately representing the character in different positions.

I tend to fail at this which I try do more, even with realistic characters they have a form or shape of their own. Which is a problem with many Artists, inculding myself. The body shapes are always Tall, Skinny Males/Females which makes the character feel copy and paste. For example try putting your character to a silhouette, and compare to other charcters. Try to exaggerate more with certain feature of form, not always with faces, try doing clothing, body and pose. It's a way to dignify your characters from the rest

How I design Charcters follow simple rules, Silhouette, Color Choice and Shape. When I design a oc I want to make the oc have a Primary color that stands out from the rest, for examples I use neons to a dark color to contrast. When a character blends too much the eye will not have a place to look, it will just wonder to the brightest color. Making a character blend too much makes the character bland. I limit myself to 2-12 colors, you don't want to many colors on the character, you have to make in more memorable with how simplified the charcter is. You dont need to add so many colors since it will most likely clutter and ruin the character.

Silhouette is all about shape and pose, the shape of the character can tell a lot, like are the circular? square? ect. It can show what kind of person even without the pose, for expample majority of Character/ Concept Designers follow this, it's just expanded upon. It can really tell about your character to the simplest form even with out actually seeing the character. A Good example is JoJo's Bizzare Adventure, when putting a charcter to a pose and a silhouette you could tell what character is who, even if the designs JJBA started of as buff to skinny and lanky, they still show what kind of person they are. But make sure not to add too much to the character, like too many details, it would be a pain to draw everytime and imagine it in a 3d space with too many details, it's cluttered. Most JRPGs or RPGs in general have not many details with in the character, for example Kingdom Hearts and Final Fantasy are good examples with Sora and Cloud, similar characters, with a few small details but pretty simple.

When actually designing the character I make a basic idea and expand. I figure out personalities first before actually designing, but I have a problem of making look the same which I'm improving on. The design must be unique and really telling of the character without shoving ideas, colors and more into the viewer. Good examples of this is Cartoons. They have simple design and memorable. This can also go for Armored characters, the have simple designs. Hear me out, the may have many feature e.g DnD charcters, but once actually thinking about it it's simple. They dont add too much to their character only items that are essential to the character, but not too much, like Critical Role and Fool's Gold, made by completely different people but have simple character designs with features that don't clutter

Character design should be unique rather than a copy and paste design of tall, lanky people. I myself have a problem of this but I want to improve on that, and so can you. Just remember Colors, Silhouette and Personality. It doesn't need to be complicated. Imagine them in a 3d spaces and see how they clash or blend. Its about making a chacter memorable and different. It's a way to express a way of design as a passion or hobby. And well designing for me makes happy for reasons like these. So anyway, have fun designing!

https://www.skillshare.com/projects/The-Basics-of-Character-Design/137943 https://blog.ed.ted.com/2018/02/28/character-design-101-how-to-infuse-a-drawing-with-personality/ https://blog.inkydeals.com/basic-principles-for-great-character-design/ https://yesimadesigner.com/10-principles-of-character-illustration/ https://alchemistdigital.eu/the-principles-of-character-design/