Have you ever wondered how some cartoon characters became so famous, with hundreds or thousands of articles bearing their names and images? Take those who have animated series out of the equation, as they have a marketing medium, and you still have a handful of characters who became famous on the merit of their designs. Examples are Julius the Monkey and Emily the Stange.

This article looks at some tips for creating and selling cartoon characters.

Cute VS Cool

Are your characters cute or cool? The cute characters easily appeal to the women’s and toddler markets, two of the largest consumer markets. Character merchandise is usually cheaper and more affordable. Therefore, the profits through large sales volumes can be quite staggering.

Cool characters are more suitable as collectibles and are often more suited to the male market. As they are often more exclusive and expensive, sales volumes are rarely as impressive as cute character merchandise.

In the spirit of game development, decision makers may simply want to choose a design that is more suitable for the game concept. But as much as possible, if the game concept allows it, try to choose cute characters because they have a better chance of getting a license for merchandising.

character bible

A character bible is the foundation of every product that would be derived from an intellectual property, be it a game, an animated series, a comic, a storybook, etc. Regardless of the resulting product, everything must be referred back to the character bible. This is what the Bible is all about: a kind of blueprint for intellectual property as well as being a showcase for intellectual property.

Style guide

A style guide to showcase your characters in all their glory is an absolute must if you plan to license your characters. The average licensee is often quite unimaginative and rarely sees beyond what is shown to them. So if you show them screenshots of your gameplay, hoping they’ll see the full potential of your character designs, chances are they won’t. A style guide with multiple poses and designs of each character would help them better understand and appreciate your character designs.

Product Concept Boards

In your style guide, it would be nice to include product concept boards. These are mock product renderings with their character designs embedded. Product concept boards are great for letting potential licensees see how they can use your character designs on their products.