What is a Character Sheet?

 As part of our Narrative task we are expected to create a character sheet of our given historical woman. However what is a character sheet? Ahead of hand in and creating my final pieces of artwork I wanted to research into what is a character sheet and what is it used for during the narrative process. 

So what is a character sheet? 

A Character sheet or also may be referred to as a character board or model sheet is used within the visual arts often during a big production for creations such as animations, or video games. The idea of the character sheet is to help create an overall feel for the character using by including standard appearance, poses and even gestures which the character may be seen to use. This use of character sheet therefore helps all the artist maintain similarity throughout the production process. As well as these specific drawings annotations may be used to help note important information for example, hair length, style and maybe position of the eyes and mouth. 

A character sheet also may be used for a different process. For example when it comes to pitching and idea or narrative to a board or selection of people for example publishers,  a character sheet may be used to help communicate the idea as well as present the main character.

Above shows an example of a character sheet created by the Walt Disney Company to help communicate the character of Goofy. I chose this character sheet as i felt it was a good example of showing a range of different gestures as well as angles to help capture unity within the character during animation process. I also particularly like the details of this character sheet as it includes elements such as shoe detail and even height comparison. This use of height comparison is an important detail during the animation process as it shows their stance and look compared to the other character’s that surround them. As well as the varied 

drawings this particular character sheet also includes detailed annotations with reasonings behind different looks. 

When thinking about my own character sheet I feel this was a good example as it allows me to look at a professional example with ideas of what needs to be included. For example in my piece i would like to include these detailed annotations as i really want to insure that all details about Valentina Tereshkova are told.