How to illustrate appealing characters ... even the baddies

We are hardwired to adore babies. Knowing which elements of appeal make us love babies helps us know how to create characters that readers adore.

Characters are the most important element of a story. They must therefore have certain elements of appeal and relatability for to the reader. This is true for both text and illustration.

In this blog I focus on visual appeal (for illustrators), and the following is based on a lecture from my Pitch-perfect Portfolio course.

If your reader is to care for your character and want your character to survive, then your reader must like the character, at least a little.

Picture book characters must therefore be as appealing as possible.

But this doesn't mean they should be as conventionally cute as possible.

Being appealing means reaching under the reader's radar and tweaking emotions they haven't felt tweaked before.

It means being original.

“To be original, you must first understand the biological fundamentals of visual appeal”

There are many ways to draw characters, but there is only one way to give your characters appeal: and that is to understand the biological underpinnings of what our brains are attracted to, and why.

In this blog I explore the key elements of biological appeal.

Lovability in a nutshell

Lovability is what helps us love a character. This sounds simplistic and obvious, but it isn't once you know the basic science of lovability.

There are four main reasons we see an individual as lovable:

  • Childlikeness

  • Trustworthiness

  • Relatability

  • Vulnerability

There is of course significant overlap between each of these elements.

For example, elements of childlikeness evoke trustworthiness and suggest vulnerability, while vulnerability suggests childlikeness and creates a sense of relatability.

Childlikeness

Research suggests that adult protective responses to the very young have co-evolved with the development of what is known as 'baby face'.

This makes sense when we consider how important it is for babies to be cared for and protected by adult members of a group.

But baby-face is appealing not only to adults. Toddlers are also attracted to baby faces, whether the faces belong to kittens, puppies, dolls or cartoon pigs.

Baby face is common across most mammals, from mice to elephants and whales. This suggests that, somewhere deep down the ancient line, baby-face made biological sense for babies.

Even baby crocodiles are cute. Photo by Amber Kipp on Unsplash

The most outstanding features of baby face are:

  • large eyes relative to the size of the head

  • large head relative to the size of the body

  • round cheeks compared to adult faces

  • small round chin compared to adult faces

  • relatively shorter distance between the plane on which the eyes sit and the plane where the mouth sits

  • a roughly equilateral triangle formed by the eyes and mouth (especially for humans, primates and some mammals)

An uncomfortable truth: research suggests adults are more likely to adopt a child that exhibits the stereotypical ‘baby face’, than a baby that does not.

While it’s easy to fall into the trap of drawing cliched 'cute' faces by employing the visual elements of childlikeness, there are ways of combining - and subverting - these elements to create unique rather than stereotypical characters.

Adult Pomeranians are bred and groomed to display the ultimate round baby face. Photo by Brandon Tran on Unsplash.

Trustworthiness

To like someone, we generally first want to trust them.

Therefore, if our readers are to like our characters, we need to help them trust our characters.

Baby-like characteristics are not only compatible with biological markers for appeal, but also for trust.

Other biological markers for trustworthiness are:

  • brown eyes

  • wide round chins

  • wide noses

  • a broad mouth with upward-pointing corners

When designing your characters, include at least a couple of the biological markers for trustworthiness.

You need to do this even for your baddies.

Vulnerability

Mammals respond positively to deliberate displays of vulnerability.

Cats (and lions), for example, respond positively to a wide yawn and a slow eye-blink. A display of sleepiness communicates a lack of aggressive intent, as well as an admission of vulnerability.

After all, we are most vulnerable when we are asleep (especially if the other person in the room is a lion).

Finding ways to make our characters appear vulnerable will make them more likable.

We tend to associate childlikeness with vulnerability, so to create a likeable character (whether it's a child, an adult or an animal), we need to portray elements of vulnerability.

For example, a character with a long and narrow face (neither of which are biological markers for trust) can be made to look more likable by giving them the appearance of large eyes (more about this later).

Other markers for both vulnerability are a potbelly, short legs or inward-facing toes (pigeon toes).

Including some of these elements in your characters will not only increase their appeal but can add interesting personality facets to even the 'baddies' in a story.

Relatability

Relatability is associated both with vulnerability and trust.

If someone reveals their vulnerability, they are showing their weak underbelly, and this helps us relate to them because we, too, have a weak underbelly somewhere in our personalities.

Perhaps not the exact same vulnerability, but shared vulnerability, as such, offers a shared point of similarity. In other words, relatability.

When we feel similar to someone, we feel safer with them, more relaxed around them, and more likely to like them.

An individual who trusts us enough to reveal their weak side inspires us to trust them in return.

The science of appeal in a nutshell

When we trust someone, it tends not to be a conscious, conceptual or deliberate act.

Although we can consciously decide to trust someone, the genuine feeling of trust won't manifest unless our biology gives us the green light.

In the case of appeal, the green light for trust is the brain chemical oxytocin (actually a neuropeptide).

Oxytocin can also generate feelings of empathy, love, affinity and rapport.

Oxytocin is often released through acts of love or kindness but acts of love and kindness are not as easy to emulate in an illustration as we might think.

The reader must therefore feel as if they are engaging in acts of love or kindness.

We can help them feel this way by stimulating feelings that have the potential to promote acts of kindness or tenderness.

So how do we do this?

We do it by designing characters with biological markers for childlikeness, trustworthiness and vulnerability.

In other words, markers that make us want to protect or help or cuddle the character.

Stressful situations have been found to reduce the level of oxytocin produced in the brain. It therefore makes sense to:

  • include biological markers known to trigger the release of oxytocin

  • exclude biological markers known to trigger stress

While this is a lightweight overview of how to generate visual appeal, it suggests how and why it’s important to understand the biological underpinnings of what makes a reader engage with a character.

The extreme vulnerability of newborns arouses powerful protective instincts that are related to the release of oxytocin in the brain. Image by esudroff from Pixabay.

If you’re interested in learning more - loads more - about the biological underpinnings of effective and memorable illustration, stay tuned for the next release of my premium course, with all whistles and bells, Pitch-perfect Portfolio (coming in September 2023)

Or have a look at my micro-course, (Re)thinking like an illustrator.

Margrete Lamond