It was our first meeting. The animation team from the University of Tehran sat around the table, waiting to see how I would approach designing their characters. Then came the question—the one I hear all the time:
“How do you create 10 completely different faces?”
I smiled. The answer always surprises people, but it’s the truth: It all comes down to basic shapes.
Imagine staring at a blank page, tasked with designing 10 unique faces. If you start sketching without a plan, by the fourth or fifth face, they’ll all start looking alike. But if you assign a different foundational shape to each one—round, square, triangular—you instantly get variety.
So, I grabbed my pencil and started blocking out simple shapes. A circle. A tall rectangle. A wide oval. Then I layered features on top—one with a sharp jawline, another with high cheekbones, one with a long forehead.
The team watched closely, some taking notes. And when all ten sketches were laid out side by side, I saw that familiar reaction: surprise.
One of them laughed and said, “So there’s actually a formula for this?”