Have you ever wondered how some cartoon characters became so
famous - with hundreds or thousands of merchandise bearing their names
and images? Remove the ones with animated series out of the equation
since they have a marketing medium - and you still have a handful of
characters out there who became famous through the merit of their
designs. Examples are Julius the Monkey and Emily the Stange.
This article discusses some tips for creating and selling cartoon characters.
Cute VS Cool
Are
your characters cute or cool? Cute characters easily attract the
females and the young children markets - two of the largest consumer
markets. Character merchandise is often cheaper and more affordable.
Therefore profit through sheer volumes of sales can be quite astounding.
Cool
characters are more suitable as collectibles, and often cater more to
the male market. As they are often more exclusive and expensive, sales
volumes are seldom as impressive as cute character merchandise.
In
the spirit of games development, decision makers might simply want to
pick a design that is most suited for the game concept. But as far as
possible, if the game concept so allows, do try to go for cute
characters because they stand a higher chance of getting licensed for
merchandising.
Character Bible
A character bible is
the foundation for every product that would stem from an intellectual
property - be it a game, animated series, comic, story book etc.
Regardless of the resulting product, everything should refer back to the
character bible. This is what the bible is all about - a kind of
blueprint for an intellectual property besides being a showcase for the
intellectual property.
Style Guide
A style guide to
showcase your characters in their full glory is absolutely necessary if
you plan to license your characters. The average licensee is often quite
unimaginative and seldom sees beyond what you show them. So if you are
showing them screen captures of your game, hoping that they would see
the full potential of your character designs, chances are they will not.
A style guide with multiple poses and designs of each character would
help them understand and appreciate your character designs better.
Product Concept Boards
In
your style guide, it would be good to include product concept boards.
These are renderings of mock products with your character designs
integrated within. Product concept boards are great for letting
potential licensees see how they can use your character designs on their
products.
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