Artist insight
GET WARM WITH A CREATIVE EXERCISE
Stephanie Rizo reveals how she prepares for a character design session with a fun and simple shape exploration
Artist
PROFILE
Stephanie Rizo
LOCATION: US
Stephanie is a MexicanAmerican artist working in animation. She is currently a story artist at Walt Disney Animation Studios and has also worked for Warner Bros. Animation, Nickelodeon, and DreamWorks. In her time at Sony Animation, Stephanie was a part of the team that created Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse. www.stephanierizo.com
Sometimes when designing a character, it’s easy to get lost in making a complex design that looks and feels interesting. As a character designer who has been working in development for the past seven years, I’ve learned the importance of shape language and having fun exploring a variety of designs by using nothing more than simple shapes.
Boiling down what complex versus simple is can be quite challenging – wrestling with less versus more and clean silhouettes while also trying to keep things fresh, pushed and stylised can be an overwhelming task. When I first got overwhelmed and stuck looking at a blank canvas, I wanted to find something to help me warm up, an exercise pushing shapes and designs in a fun way. What may initially look like random pushed and pulled blobs are shapes that can make almost any design you can think of with enough practice, repetition and imagination.