Oscar Jiménez Vargas is an art director and character designer on animation and mobile game projects. With western and eastern influences, he focuses on clear lines, simple forms and striking silhouettes.
Here we look at his character designs for shows including Love, Death & Robots and The Missing Lynx. If this inspires you, see our tips for successful character design – and the best laptops for digital art to create on.
Creating Astarte’s expression sheet
(Image credit: Oscar Jiménez Vargas)
“One of the characters from The Missing Lynx movie. Giving expression to an anthropomorphic bird was tricky, especially making the beak flexible without looking soft, so I studied classic 2D animations for guidance.”
“Designs for Netflix’s Love, Death & Robots episode The Dump. It was exciting to work on a grittier, adult project. Sometimes I use Photoshop’s Liquify tool to exaggerate initially restrained expressions.”
Lama Kung Fu Girl
(Image credit: Oscar Jiménez Vargas)
“This captures some movements from my kung fu practice. I chose pencils and markers for expressiveness, emphasising strong action lines and clear silhouettes, finishing up with watercolour brushes in Photoshop.”
Sentenza
(Image credit: Oscar Jiménez Vargas)
“I like to reinterpret live-action movie characters in an animation style, like Lee Van Cleef here. I study references first, then set them aside to let creativity flow.”
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