Akira Toriyama's Process to Designing Characters
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 30 ก.ย. 2024
- Over the years Akira Toriyama has given us a glimpse into his process of designing some of the most iconic characters in shonen from Frieza to Goku. Join me today as we discuss his process collected from several interviews over the decades to somewhat gather a better understanding of these characters came to be!
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#1 come up with characters personality
#2 Come up with design of the face with loose pencil sketches
#3 then move on the body and clothing
#4 Then lastly move on the color
#5 Simplify your characters as much as possible!
#6 sometimes take inspiration
#7 give characters a distinguishing silhouettes
Golden nugget: Simplify your design in a interesting way!
Elaborate on silhouette
@RealityKun Basically the very shape of the character that is very striking. Look at frieza and goku. We all know goku by his height and hair. We know vegeta by his hair and body shape. We know Majin buu by his banana head shape and his fat body with the cape big gloves.
That stuff!
@ Thank you!
It's interesting how the rejected examples sometimes get morphed into other characters.
saw a buu lookin monaka
@@migy9k599 The one that stood out for me is the Yakon looking Buu.
In the buy sketches there was a guy who looked like botamo
@@justajobro1266 His characters look the same.
I think that Frieza prototype may have inspired Dodoria
I feel like Toriyama has a goldmine of unused character designs like his early designs for buu saga gohan were pretty cool especially one where gohan had his base form cell saga hair cut a bit shorter and a trunks like jacket
Check out Toriyamas character designs for Tobal number 1 and 2. He put really cool shoes on most the cast
If you look at his early designs for cell, one of the faces is exactly like beerus, so yeah, the guy does keep tabs on a lot of good designs that he can ocasionally use later
Theres this one Cell design which was reused recently in Dragon Quest 11
I believe this design ended up being used for Goten in GT, except for the jacket
@@polterghost_ And there's the Abbot in Dragon Quest IX which looks like an alternate version of second form Cell when he gets transformed
Toriyama's Designing Philosophy: _"Less is More."_
Pretty sad to hear Toyotaro didn't follow that philosophy :(
That's architecture usual philosophy and it works
Minimalism art movement
unless it's ssj3
Dank Mayo Huh?
RIP Mr. Akira, thank you for making one of the greatest anime series in the whole universe, fly high and keep collecting those Dragon Balls. 🙏🙏
For those unaware, yes, Akira Toriyama died on March 1st from acute subdural hematoma, his family and some people he worked with announced it today. He was 68, and his funeral was already held, but his family does not want to be interviewed at the moment, so in the meantime, pay your respects by watching DB and collecting manga too, it’s a proper way to honor a legend. 🙏🙏😇😇
Fat frieza isn't real, fat frieza can't hurt you
Fat Frieza:
I’ve dubbed him Fredoria
Super Kami Frieza
Frieza the hutt
"Its no good if you can't tell who's who."
Goku, bardock, goku black, turles, goten, goku jr.
Lol but to be fair only Goku and Goten where created by Toriyama. The rest where from Toei, although he did redesign Bardock so that kinda counts haha
@@forgottenrelics1197 lol you're right. I'll let that one slide...for now
Well u can tell😭
to be fair though, all of these characters never share the same chapters for the exception of black and turles. For example: Goten looks like kid goku but goku is grown up for a long up until then and the same thing goes for bardock.
@@pumpingpriest5893 Goten looks like Mini adult goku at best but u can sorta distinguish them
Damn a lesson can be learned from Toriayama, "simple is sometimes better" look at final form Frieza that is as simple as it gets. Take away the weird horns, body shapes, body armors, and just make him look humanoid, his simplistic, weak-looking design is what makes him more menacing, especially the eyes......damn those red eyes gives me chills
Toriyama is a genius. I love his clean designs.
makes a lot of sense that he would start with heads and faces. those features tend to be the most focused on in comics and storytelling do to their ability to express and emote character feelings better than any other body part. great video as always, i always learn something new and useful from them.
"it's no good if you can't tell who's who"
*Toyotaro has left the chat*
What do you mean?
?
What?
What does this even mean.
@@Y_ANDZscientists have been pondering for years now
3:53 Wow, im not use to seeing krillin that tall!!!
Same lol and especially different considering how Toriyama drew him so short in BoG!
@@forgottenrelics1197 I heard that the character models in BoG were changed by the animators, though don't quote me on that
I think the new animated series made him a little bit shorter than he used to be in the manga (+ Goku was only a teenager on this screenshot)
well, Krillin was in fact taller than we've depicted him. sometimes they make him shorter for some jokes in DBZ but without anyone knowing he gets gradualy shorter during the series. Just watch the Piccolo Jr. arc once more and you can see how tall Krillin actually is when he's a teenager like goku
@@mpoops2936 He's supposed to be 5'0 I believe. Short, but they're drawing him like a foot shorter in super.
Aw man, i wish your videos were like 1 hour long, they're so good!
@@ajmusiq6742 you’d watch 1hour bruh 😂😂😂😂😂 doubt it
no
@@Ben-hw7wn i would if it's as good as this 5 minutes.
less is more.
@@Ben-hw7wn i put on hour long vids while im doing something else
0:09 that’s not a forehead that’s a fivehead
No, it's an over 9000 head
Man looking like frieza third form if he go bald
1:31 there's a Majin Beerus there wtf
Looks more like a skinny babidi
Rest in Peace Toriyama-Sensei
I definitely prefer “SIMPLE” designs
R.I.P Goat
Rest in peace
“Tries to design character types he hasnt done much of before”. He must have given up on that philosophy a loooong time ago
He hardly has a hand in things nowadays.
@Some characters aren't allowed nowadays compared to the time he is talking about
Toyotaro designs most of the new characters with help and advice from Toriyama.
what are you taking about, tournament of power has a lot of interesting characters, the gods, the robots, the angels, the sailor moon squad, he even managed to make different powers
@@patrickmulopo7957 I feel like the closest we got to Toriyama in the ToP were the magical girl universe.
Even their strongest warrior turned into a fat buu which is very Toriyama.
"A green human feels unnatural, which is good."
Rip Akira...
Imagine if we got that C h o n k y Frieza as his "Final form" in the series (From the thumbnail). Not even SSJ Goku could be able to ki blast that belly. 😂
To me the removal of Goku jumpsuit logo or Vegeta armor changes felt like the characters were growing like real life people. If you look at Goku and the gang and Vegeta in the Saiyan's arc vs. The Cell's saga you see the big change in each character from attitude to their style.
1:25 We just gonna ignore that badass dragon face buu sketch. Honestly prefer that design from the original
It's really cool
His early art was absolutely amazing, it's always been a shame to me that he kind of got burned out drawing and simplified everything.
Imagine being drawing weekly manga over 10 years with no rest, anyone would be burned out in less than that
Rip to the goat
Rest In Peace
Akira Toriyama
Imagine if he went with the cell with hair like I wonder how would that work
So Krillin was designed to be up to Goku's shoulder? In "Dragon Ball" he was that much tall, but Z and Super made him super short!!!
THIS MAKES ME MAD!!!
Nah, that was just in the character sheets, Krillin was much shorter in the DB manga.
0:05 That is just creative AF bloody hell xD
When I was younger, I thought Trunks had one of the coolest character designs I had ever seen. And Dragon Ball Z is the greatest anime of all time.
The japanese man with a white blazer in the photo is not Toriyama
Toriyama won the title of "art genius". I think he and Matt Groening are the greatest graphic artist of the last 30 years. Their respective style is so recognizable, they had so much success with what they created that yeah, to me they're true geniuses.
If we’re talking comics too then I’d have to give Alex Ross a vote too. All three styles are incredibly different but they’re all amazing for what they try to convey with their art.
Rip Akira toriyama
Thanks Akira for everythink
In the thumbnail frieza looks like dodoria
It’s ironic how the designs are all very different but every character more or less has a very similar face? Especially the humans
You notice it in his game character designs. There are basically a Gokuesk, a Bulmaesk, a Pilafesk...
@@lucassantossj exactly, still great just very similar.
dbz staff : what design will we chose for freeza?
toryama : yes
*toei
OOOH so that's why Dragon quest's art looks so much like DBZ
That hybrid of perfect and first form cell looks sick.
Cell if he absorbed 18 first
I swear if i had a dollar whenever someone shows Akira Toriyama and uses a picture of Go Nagai (creator of Devilman and Mazinger) id have enough to buy a PS5
Forgottenrelics is so underrated he does such good videos and he has a fraction of what he deserves
I wish other mangaka's would follow the advice that it no good if you can tell who's who. In some manga's Its like who is this guy and why does this other guy look the same as this one they look alike
Yeah readability is a common problem, I remember having trouble figuring who was fighting who while reading some of the early volumes of Naruto
@@forgottenrelics1197 For me it was Tokyo Ghoul All of the characters looked alike and Because I waited for the tankobon which only came out 3 months at a time and I forgot who the characters were and had to look each of them up to remember. THe fights were all full of a lot of clutter and the fact that it was in black and white made it worse
@@sonnywoods6846 Attack On Titan suffered from this also.
Plot twist: the drawing at 2:44 isn't sped up.
'It's no good if you can tell whos who'
One of the reasons i struggle to enjoy a lot of action manga, so hard to follow but Dragoball despite its hugely action based premise was always a claen read to me.
Step 1: Design villains with cool unique alien/demon-like first forms
Step 2: For their final forms, just let the Same-face Syndrome fully take over and add suction cup ears
Step 3: ???
Step 4: Profit
Rest in peace Toriyama
Doctor: Chonky Frieza doesn't exist, he can't harm you.
Chonky Frieza:
farmer w the shotgun was definitely an unused character design that he somehow caught a liking to
No matter how long your videos are, they’re always really fun to watch because I always learn things that I probably wouldn’t know without you. These analysis videos have taught me a lot about Toriyama and other mangaka and animators’ styles to the point where I decided to start a project where I redraw frames from DBS, so I can thank you for inspiring me to do things such as that.
That's awesome man and no problem :)
I wonder, why didn't he just remove the spots from Cell, after he achieved Perfection?
Maybe he thought it was too much of a difference? Or liked how the spots looked but didn't like having to constantly redraw them?
He might of had frustrations with the spots, much later in the Cell Saga, after he designed Perfect Cell.
It's always interesting even though I'm not an artist to hear people's design philosophies
Heard from a lot of artists that makes sense that he starts with the face because they bring up that the eyes are usually the most important part of a face and a design in general. The less is more approach certainly interesting and sometimes this the smaller character is usually the more powerful they are, not that you can't have big and imposing characters like King piccolo but a lot of his buildings would be especially in their final forms would be shorter than the protagonist: Vegeta, Frieza, kid Buu being examples. So when he makes them tall like Cell it makes a point like cell vs gohan
This video was awesome! I love how you feature artists, good on you mate. Can't wait for more of your content. Can I get a shout out as well?
If you tag me on insta it will make it easier sorting through everyone and thank you :)
I love how we certainly discovered so many aspect of Toriyama as an hommage its beautiful
So he followed extremely elementary design principles.... Well no fucking shit.
Therapist: Buures isn’t real, he can’t hurt you
Buures: 1:25
Fat frieza on the thumbnail.
He looks like he fused with dodoria
I really enjoy these Toriyama vids.
nice clickbait
I will tell you the secret to good character design.
Make the character easily identifiable.
Make the character cool.
Make the character something that once you see it, you can never forget it
Give the character some personality.
Sit down with the character and really try and bring this character to life, such that, you can predict how the character will act in certain situations. This makes the story telling so much easier and convincing.
“It’s no good if you can’t tell who is who.”
One piece, jujutsu kaisen, MHA, demon slayer, please take some note.
Eh One piece is okay...But recent JJKs chapter is a nightmare to read, I honestly don't really see how the movement of whoever fighting Sukuna now..
(And it also doesn't help that the author is actually sick or not in good condition, his art literally drop during scarred female versus her family due to his poor health condition)
Thank you for this analysis
Ok but why did Frieza became a Discord mod
Why does fat frizea looks like dedoria and him mated!?😳
Hot
@@danielthewalrus420 😳
I felt the impatience in my legs imagining drawing all that over and over
I wish I can draw like Akira Toriyama
Great video as usual man!
Appreciate it!
I think the beauty of his design is that he doesn’t try to design anyone to look “cool”
Yea I wish he did more stuff for DB. Nowadays characters are designed for people who don't watch the series and think that every character is supposed to have the badass, angry looking eyes that the Saiyans have
@@xenogen372 i like grenola's charcter design but he is designed by toyitaro
Toriyama will sometimes swipe elements from his other designs, too. The most obvious example is Broly resembling Super Trunks, though that was on purpose. Other times, it's less noticeable. For instance, someone pointed out that Gohan's superhero costume has the same colors as Cell's first form. I doubt it means anything, rather, Toriyama probably needed a color scheme and decided on that. But those small details make his character designs even more interesting, like Easter eggs.
i went back in time to 2011 when flashing pictures in the screen was funny
Fat freezer = Refrigerator
Thank god your vid is short otherwise i wouldn't click on it
Great video, as always. Saludos from Argentina!
I'm glad I'm not the only artist who starts with the face first.
a 4 min video that will helps lots of people who are trying to come up with characters.. my friend, this is like finding a diamond in the desert
0:11 says "please help7" if you're wondering
My only complain with Toriyama is that he made to many gokus... Every time he do a new character...
By too many you mean only 2?
@@riqopowpow im not referring to the manga/anime i say his characters in video games and other medias all have the goku face, i know thats how he do it but dont difer a lot through characters, like the creator of Saint Seiya all his protagonist look like Seiya
@@atomiccandyboy5756 oh right
chrono is like goku but with trunks hair lmao
Chrono trigger dragon quest, some colab he do are others character goku face with another hair style, i like Toriyama work... But that is my only complaint
It could be to avoid doing to many references
Please polish my bald head
Alot of similarities between villains . Ears eye brows . Majin buu, freiza , cell., at one point I was thinking like ok it's characters are losing uniqueness to a certain point. Aswell as he got tired if running through black ink fir saying hair resulting in ssj hair color to be yellow.
Lol now so Araki
0:12 Please Help 7
I like how you intersperse meme images to make fun of what you're saying, but in actuality you have reverence for the art work and the artists and all the effort they put. Funny. :)
The first concept frieza is the fusion of king cold and dodoria
0:07
give us this frieza back 😤😤💯
big facts
I really hope that you will post more often because I really enjoy your videos,keep it up man we will always support you
I do this part time and getting one video out a week is hard enough haha so sorry about the lack of content and thanks also for your support :)
Some of his designs look down right alien and scary.
'Character designs he hasnt done before'
*contines sketching Goku Black*
Who's taken over Goku's body.
@jasonone8726 good point *continues watching tree of might*
@kpimkpim349 Did he design Turles? I know Toriyama designed most of the movie characters, but I'm not aware of this one.
@jasonone8726 if he designed Goku he designed him too lol but I could be wrong
@kpimkpim349 Not every character in DB was designed by Toriyama.
Genius
Was that "Toriyama" picture a jab at eyepatch wolf? Lmao
SAME, I knew about Frieza and Dragon Ball (Z Kai) before I even knew it was anime! I just thought it was another cartoon on Nicktoons Primetime!
I remember seeing an episode of dragonball when I was like 8 and the only character I remembered was piccolo and then when I was 12 I got into Dragonball more
I heard one time that final form frieza is what Toriyama thought aliens looked like
Yeah I kinda remember hearing that although I know for certain that he based frieza's design of a queen so I'm unsure how accurate that is
@@forgottenrelics1197 maybe it's just the final form with the round head, it looks alienish to me
Frieza's third form is a definite reference to Alien
@@roccygnus2570 that much is clear
Oh god was Frieza originally supposed to be like dodoria I’m glad we have the current frieza instead of the one in the thumbnail
Harris Betty Lee Daniel Robinson Frank
Therapist: Fat frieza isn't real. He can't hurt you.
Fat frieza:
Sounds like a very standard design process. Nothing wrong with that, not everyone dose character art.
This might be a couple of years late, but that photo you used?, that isn't Akira Toriyama, that is Go Nagai.
Man, Frieza lost a ton of weight.
I thought the Ginyu Force was inspired by WWE wrestling
Who wants to see Fasha and Gine dressing up as princesses an a big fat gypsy princess puffy wedding dresses because they are Saiyan princessess and the whole Saiyan race to live happily ever after on planet Vegeta?
chng.it/K5SrDqx4Zr