SNG Exploration Blog: The Greatness Of Creating Characters

Friday, September 19, 2025

The Greatness Of Creating Characters

To me, designing a cartoon character is special since it's been basically my entire hobby for a complete decade. My 3 main characters, Phillips, Szac and Dredd The Moose are my most creative accomplishments as well as making my own series.

Well, I came here today to talk about why it's so enjoyable and always fun.

When I first watched a classic cartoon, I knew that it looked so different than cartoons I've experienced throughout my childhood.

My first classic cartoons were the Tom and Jerry shorts, then it continued from there like Jones' Hunting Trilogy and Silly Symphonies.

These were the best designs of animated characters I ever seen. They were advanced but well constructed, I discovered many talented works like Preston Blair and The Nine Old Men for character inspiration.

I'm much obsessed with model sheets, since they're so amusing yet very useful. Here's some interesting Disney models.

They should've fixed Gus's personality description. Number 6 should've been "Eats Excessively".

I like the different poses and directional angles.

While I do like how animation evolved throughout the years, I do tend to prefer how the characters looked back in the 30s to about 1955. They had more simpler approaches to designing them and there was more anthropomorphic and playful personalities than what came afterward.

This model sheet below is Brave Little Tailor (1938) probably the most iconic role for Mickey Mouse.

I love this entire concept of characters portrayed as classic old fables and imaginary stories. Examples of that are The Scarlet Pumpernickel (1950).

While not my favorite cartoons, they were the best in terms of the acting, and different roles. I wouldn't binge something like this all the time but it's very useful for inspiration.

I'm also aware and careful about what's good and lively about characters. I'm not trying to make it bland or something sensory overload. I get most of my influences from Looney Tunes, Tex Avery, Spongebob, Gene Kelly and Crosby movies, the Spyro trilogy games, Garfield, pretty much anything Sherlock Holmes related, The Three Stooges, Song of The South's animated characters, Animaniacs, The Muppets and much more.

Not sure what you call it but most of these have sense of humor and straightforward premises to them.

You can tell where my leadway to creativity comes from.

Before this post is over, here's two more model sheets I really like.

Mickey Mouse must be the most modified cartoon characters ever made. What I know from the Disney model sheets made from the 50s to about the 80s was the publication date. For a while, I didn't even know when these were made and was always looking into the older model sheets for the date, but now I kinda know where it's referenced.

Somewhere on the model sheet indicates

850-8046

So I'm guessing that this was back in August of 1950. Don't know what the 8046 means. I'm going to have to look more into it.

This was from an unfinished animated short called Plight of The Bumblebee (1951), it saddens me that this film was scrapped, because I've seen moments of this film from storyboards and actual pencil drawings and it could've been the best Mickey Mouse shorts.

This is an example of an incredible model sheet from Warner Bros! Lots of drawings means more time to invest in the characters.

The model sheets from cartoons directed Chuck Jones are my favorites.