Sarah Clarity Studios

Chapter 1: Height, Mass, Proportions — Beyond One Ideal

Created by Sarah Choi (prompt writer using ChatGPT)

Height, Mass, Proportions — Beyond One Ideal for Character Concept Artists

Why Moving Beyond a Single Ideal Matters

A cast shaped around one “ideal” body collapses both story range and player identification. In practice, it also harms production: forced conformity yields awkward fits, brittle rigs, and gear that breaks at extremes. Designing for a spectrum of heights, masses, and proportions unlocks clearer silhouettes, richer animation, inclusive play, and scalable pipelines. This article frames the topic for both concept and production artists so that diversity is not an afterthought but a core system.

North Stars: Readability, Believability, Inclusivity, Repeatability

Ground your body-type strategy in four north stars. Readability means that silhouettes remain quickly classifiable at gameplay cameras. Believability means mass and proportion follow anatomical logic, including how weight sits on frames and how joints articulate. Inclusivity means bodies reflect human variety and ability—different heights, fat distribution patterns, muscularity, limb differences, neurodivergent presentations, mobility aids. Repeatability means the studio can reproduce and maintain these bodies across variants without style drift or rig debt.

Silhouette Diversity as a Design System

Treat silhouette diversity as a roster system rather than sporadic exceptions. Define silhouette families (e.g., columnar, wedge, pear, oval, hourglass, trapezoid, barrel, compact square) and map how each reads from distance. Use proportion landmarks—head height count, shoulder-to-hip ratios, limb segment lengths—to keep silhouettes distinct. Within each family, allow micro-variance: posture bias, stance width, neck length, hand size. The goal is a legible cast where players can pick a role at a glance without collapsing into stereotypes.

Height Spectrum: Camera, Cover, and Composition

Height affects both story and mechanics. Very tall characters break cover volumes or crop at marketing aspect ratios; very short characters can vanish behind props or read as children unintentionally. On concept, preview height extremes against level blockouts and UI overlays to confirm line-of-sight and framing. On production, establish a height metric table (e.g., short, average, tall, giant) tied to collision capsules, stair risers, and eye-level markers. Build gear and weapon placements as parametric offsets from these markers to avoid bespoke fits for every centimeter.

Mass Distribution: Where Weight Lives and How It Moves

Mass diversity is not just circumference; it’s distribution over time. Map fat pads (abdomen, lumbar, hips, thighs, triceps), muscular hypertrophy zones, and bone landmarks. Show how mass influences secondary motion—soft tissue lag vs. muscle tension—and the resting stance. In concept, paint stress/relax maps so animators know where deformation storytelling should happen. In production, pick skinning falloff profiles per body type and set dangle/cloth budgets that respect mass; heavier bellies and chests require strap routing that prevents clipping and avoids harmful read.

Proportion Families: Beyond the 7.5 or 8-Head Habit

Break the habit of default head-counts. Design proportion families with clear deltas: long torso/short legs, short torso/long legs, macrocephalic stylization, long forearms, short humeri, broad pelvis, narrow clavicles. Each family should come with fit logic: where belts sit, how jackets break, how boots scale. Keep hand and foot size as explicit variables; larger hands help readability and empathy beats, while smaller hands may sell delicacy or age. Commit these families to a living proportion atlas so future variants stay consistent.

Mobility and Ability: Designing for Different Movement Baselines

Mobility exists on a spectrum shaped by age, mass, strength, balance, endurance, and disability. On concept, script locomotion baselines: who is springy vs. grounded, who leans vs. stacks vertically, who uses aids. Depict mobility aids and prosthetics as integrated design, not afterthoughts—materials, grip logic, maintenance. On production, ensure rigs accommodate gait variety (step width, cadence, pelvic tilt), and create accessible traversal options that don’t demand new skeletons: cane sockets mapped to wrist IK, chair or exosuit anchors aligned to pelvis roots, alternate climb animations that maintain camera comfort.

Assistive Devices, Prosthetics, and Exos: Function First, Aesthetic Cohesion Second

Assistive tech must be dignified, functional, and stylized to your world. For canes, check height-to-wrist alignment and ground contact normals; for forearm crutches, ensure cuff clearances with biceps flexion. Wheelchairs and mobility chairs need seat height harmonized with conversation eyelines and door metrics. Upper-limb prosthetics require shoulder and elbow load paths without skin pinch; end-effectors should swap (hook, gripper, dexterous hand) via standardized mounts. Exos braces should route forces to bone landmarks. On production, assign collision proxies and articulation limits early; keep materials in the shared library so personalization occurs via decals, straps, and covers.

Muscle, Fat, and Age: Three Interacting Read Systems

Muscularity telegraphs role and training but can drift into parody. Anchor it in believable attachment points and tendon visibility under stretch. Fat distribution conveys life history and hormones; avoid the one-size “belly ring” and map pads to realistic patterns across genders and ages. Aging modifies skin elasticity, posture, and muscle tone; pair it with believable wear on hands, neck, and joints. For production, define wrinkle map intensities and normal-map swaps per age band to avoid over-sharpened elders or plastic skin on youths.

Clothing, Armor, and Gear: Fit Logic Across Bodies

Costume systems must scale with respect for body landmarks. On concept, design “fit families” per garment: where darts move on a broad chest vs. narrow, how waistbands sit on apple vs. pear shapes, how armor plates overlap across torsos of different depths. Show strap reroutes for heavy busts and bellies to avoid pressure lines; route underarm panels to preserve arm lift. On production, build pattern logic into modular pieces with blendshape companions (belt length, panel overlap, cup depth) and define a maximum stretch tolerance so cloth sims don’t mask poor fits.

Hands, Feet, and Head: The Read Triad

Face, hands, and feet carry disproportionate character signal. For inclusive design, vary hand breadth, palm/phalange proportions, nail thickness, foot arch height, toe splay, and skull shapes. Head shape diversity—jaw width, cheekbone prominence, cranial height—affects eyewear and headgear fits. Production should lock interface standards (glove sizes, boot lasts, helmet liners) against this diversity and couple them with decal-based personalization so geometry doesn’t fork.

Camera and UI: Readability at Distance and Speed

Inclusive body design must survive gameplay cameras. Test silhouettes at icon sizes and in motion blur. Avoid relying on color-only reads that fail for color-blindness; reinforce class cues with shape and value. Ensure UI target boxes and interaction prompts consider short and tall bodies equally—no off-screen head prompts or occluded reticles. Production should parameterize camera framing (headroom, shoulder crop) to avoid cutting off very tall characters in dialogue.

Metrics and Collision: Capsules, Steps, Seats, and Doors

Codify metrics that make environments and props fair to all bodies. Define collision capsules per height group and ensure doors, seats, railings, cover, and vehicles accept these ranges. Provide seat depth and armrest clearances that accommodate wider hips and varied prosthetics. For creatures and mounts, set stirrup and harness anchor ranges to support short and long legs without unsafe reads. Publish a metric sheet that UI, level design, and animation consume alongside concept packs.

Rigging, Skinning, and Performance Budgets

Diverse bodies demand thoughtful rigs, not infinite ones. Standardize a skeleton with proportional retargeting; add auxiliary bones for soft tissue in regions where diversity most affects reads (abdomen, chest, glutes). Establish skinning profiles per body family and document deformation expectations at extreme poses. Performance budgets should anticipate heavier cloth and more blendshapes for certain bodies; scale LODs to keep parity in camera quality rather than punishing larger silhouettes.

Avoiding Tropes and Harmful Visual Shortcuts

Diversity is not shorthand for joke, villain, or saint. Audit posing and camera angles: low-angle shots on large bodies can unintentionally monsterize; downward angles on short bodies can infantilize. De-sexualize by default, then add deliberate, respectful styling per character. Separate personality from body: cruelty, kindness, competence, or ineptitude can live in any silhouette. In production naming, avoid pejoratives; use neutral, descriptive labels for body families.

Culture and Research: Make the Library, then the Character

Build a visual library of real bodies across ages, ethnicities, genders, and abilities. Annotate posture, fashion, and environmental context. Conduct sensitivity reviews with advisors, especially when referencing specific cultural dress, prosthetic traditions, or body markings. Fold research into callouts so modeling, rigging, and narrative have the same ground truth.

Testing and Review Gates

Gate 1 (Concept): silhouette legibility across distances and against class silhouettes. Gate 2 (Fit): gear routing and garment patterns across body families. Gate 3 (Rig): deformation and collision checks at extreme animations; assistive device articulation. Gate 4 (Accessibility): camera framing, UI prompt placement, and control mappings that work for all heights and abilities. Gate 5 (Performance): LOD parity and cloth/dangle budgets respected. If a design fails a gate, adjust proportion parameters or fit logic rather than deleting the body type.

Live Ops and Skins: Consistency Without Erasure

Skins should not erase body diversity. Lock each character’s body family and allow skins to celebrate it: patterns that flatter different proportions, armor silhouettes that preserve landmarks, mobility aids with seasonal trims. Marketing should show the same bodies in hero shots rather than smoothing or stretching them for a poster.

Case Study Heuristics (Apply, Don’t Copy)

A heavy-set ranger reads heroic when the torso is oval with powerful forearms, straps route above the belly line to avoid pinching, and the bow grip has a larger palm swell; run cycles are grounded with shorter aerial phases. A short, long‑torso engineer stands tall in composition by using a high-contrast helmet band and a tool sling routed to pelvis anchors; camera headroom parameters prevent crop. A one‑armed duelist’s prosthetic is a modular end-effector system with a standardized wrist mount, preserving rig costs while enabling style variants.

Your Checklist in Paragraph Form

Before locking a body design, ask: does the silhouette add distinct class and roster read? Do the proportions map to believable anatomy and motion? Can garments and gear fit across this body without bespoke geometry for every variant? Are assistive devices and mobility baselines integrated with dignity and function? Do camera framing, UI, and environment metrics support this body equally? Do rigging and performance budgets hold? Have cultural and sensitivity reviews cleared harmful tropes? If yes, the body is ready to ship.

Closing: Design for Humans, Not Ideals

When we design for humans rather than ideals, our worlds open. Players find themselves—sometimes for the first time—and production benefits from clear systems instead of last‑minute exceptions. Commit to silhouette families, proportion atlases, fit logic, and accessible metrics; let story and style pour into those containers. Diversity is not a cost. Done right, it is your pipeline’s greatest efficiency and your world’s greatest truth.