My Secret Ingredient for Realistic Character Design

"Tank Boy" here on the right, is a character I designed for a personal project to explore personality in sci-fi; by adding relatable and common motifs, such as tattoos, piercings, and other symbols, to counter-weight the fantastical in science fiction and manage to ground it.

While in college, I knew someone who had ear plugs exactly like Tank Boy, and who had other piercings hooked inside the earplug hole; I had never seen anyone else sporting them like this, so this piece of a real person became part of Tank Boy; I often get comments about how my characters look and feel real, and I believe it's because they have pieces of real people I know and that I couldn't ever find on Pinterest or Google Images.

As Syd Mead used to teach on his Gnomon DVDs: "When you establish relatable elements, then you can add weird stuff, and it won't look off."

By balancing originality with reference, you'll get to a sweet spot of not too weird, and not too commercial, and it hits just right.

Yellow and red accents were used to frame the character's focal point, so the technical side is still being balanced, and not just how unique something looks. No matter how deep you go in the rabbit hole of reference, ultimately, what adds realism is the real people you know.

About the author: Miguel Nogueira is an expert Concept Artist working in Games and Film, he has contributed to Arc Raiders, Battlefield, Tom Clancy’s The Division 2, and a few others. If you need Miguel’s assistance, you can contact him and collaborate.