>>3898449
One of the key factors of character design people often overlook is storytelling and writing. Design = problem solving, a character without context just comes off a cheap and flat. Oftentimes, storytelling elements can add little details to a character design that go a long way into making them stand out and feel memorable.
For example, Harry Potter and his lightning bolt scar.
If someone were tasked with designing a boy wizard, they never would have given him such a small but significant detail. They would have gone for obvious tells of a what a WIZARD is supposed to be. This is why storytelling matters. Because you create context for all these various elements of his design to exist, which makes them significant. Ofc things like color theory, balance, and silhouette matter, but storytelling is your foundation, without it, you have nothing, just pretty decor on an empty box. Your design for a character needs to tell a story, about that person, who they are, why they have what they have. That’s what makes them interesting.