Animation Characters Bible – What’s in it

A character bible is the heart and soul of a cartoon series. Without a proper character bible, you can’t even begin to talk to anyone about your concept. I’ve seen plenty of character bibles from producers around the world in recent years asking for co-production collaborations. I have seen very good and absolutely terrible. Having received several questions about what is included in a character bible, I have written this post to give some insight on this subject. Below are the various ingredients that should make up a good character bible.

It is absolutely important to have a synopsis in your character’s bible. This is the foundation on which you build the entire story of him and it should be concise, but not detailed enough that it can’t be read or explained in 3 minutes or less. Try to make this one page if possible. The shorter you can make this and still keep it interesting, the better.

Include the designs of the most important characters from your character bible. Be sure to spend considerable time making them look good and make sure they do justice to your concept. A character bible should be more visual than wordy, showcasing character designs to the fullest, with various poses and expressions of the main characters. Accessories, if any, should also be on display. These are very important to show the potential of the characters in case they are animated or licensed for various reasons. People who read the character bible should be able to feel the characters for who they are and get a sense of the show through these character designs.

Ideally, character text descriptions shouldn’t be detailed, because not many people would actually read all that text. Character descriptions should summarize only the most important characteristics of the characters to keep things short and quick to read. The images must pre-sell, and the text make the sale.

It would be nice to show certain key locations and also provide illustrations or storyboards of what the world of the property looks like.

Fundamentally, it would be good to leave as little guesswork as possible to potential partners, so that brand identity and ownership values ​​are not compromised.

Lastly, for a property that is preparing for animation, you might want to include something called an “episodic synopsis,” which describes the stories that might happen in an animated series. They are usually done by a “script doctor”, who can also help restore all of the story’s background and character descriptions.