If you have ever found yourself rescuing a princess from the dungeon in the middle of the night, you probably know that most players are very emotional about the game characters. The main character is crucial because people identify with this avatar and live and breathe the hero.Flawless or weird, pixel or realistic, 2D or 3D – unique characters are vital for the game’s popularity. The importance of character design for the game industry finds a solid proof in the designer’s salary. Glassdoor estimates the Junior Game Designer’s average salary of $78K per year in the United States.
At Whimsy Games, we have been making engaging game characters from scratch for more than seven years. In this article, we share our thoughts about the main factors that influence the character design cost, explain the nuances of 2D and 3D character modeling, and give some reference values of designers’ rates.
Factors Affecting Character Design Cost
Characters are the heart of the game. The plot and the locations of the game serve as a frame for the active hero. The latter often embodies the player in the game world. Therefore, we don’t advise trying to save money on that part of your game creation.
On the other hand, it’s good to know what determines the 2D and 3D model price and rationally reduce it. Not so many factors directly affect the cost of character design.
Character type: 2D or 3D
The main parameter that influences the character design cost is the number of its dimensions.
2D character design
The 2D character will cost less than a 3D model. The designer works with flat 2-dimensional images that can not be rotated 360 degrees.
In the Whimsy ART Project #5, shadows and textures create the illusion of three-dimensionality, but the dwarfs and the magic cave elements are 2D drawings. If you need several postures, such as a dwarf with a treasure chest or someone watching TV, these will be separate drawings.
Decide beforehand how many character variations you really need. Look at this pilot example: drawing her on a hang-glider, a rocket, a plane, and a turbine means paying for four distinct assets. If your gameplay only requires the rocket, ordering the other three versions will unnecessarily increase your budget.
When it comes to bringing a 2D character to life, the animation method you choose directly impacts the final cost. Traditionally, animators relied almost exclusively on sprite sheets (frame-by-frame animation), where every phase of a movement is drawn from scratch. While this approach remains popular for pixel art or retro-style games, it is highly time-consuming and expensive.
Today, the absolute industry standard for mobile and casual games is 2D skeletal animation (using tools like Spine 2D). Instead of redrawing the hero for every step, the artist draws the character once, cuts it into separate parts (head, torso, limbs), and rigs them to a virtual skeleton. This method is much more cost-effective, requires significantly less game memory, and provides incredibly smooth, dynamic movements. Your final estimate will heavily depend on which of these two animation paths your project requires.
3D character design
A three-dimensional character has width, length, and depth, requiring significantly more working hours and technical expertise in software like ZBrush, Maya, or Blender. Whether you want to create realistic humans, stylized animals, or sci-fi robots, 3D characters generally cost more than their 2D counterparts. However, understanding the production process can help you optimize your budget.
Let’s look at the core principles of 3D model development:
Polygon modeling & Sculpting In modern game development, characters are typically created using a combination of digital sculpting and polygon modeling. The surface of a 3D model is made of small connected flat shapes called polygons (or polys). The number of these polygons directly defines both the visual quality and the 3D artist’s workload.
You can significantly influence the cost of your 3D character by choosing the right level of detail:
- High poly (digital sculpting). This method involves sculpting a character, almost like digital clay (usually in ZBrush), resulting in millions of polygons. It allows for photorealistic details, pores, and micro-wrinkles, but is highly time-consuming and expensive.
- Low poly. These models use far fewer polygons, making them lightweight and perfectly optimized for mobile games or stylized PC/console projects. They require less time to build and render.
Naturally, the low-poly approach is much more budget-friendly. However, top-tier games often use a hybrid process called retopology, where a high-poly sculpt is baked onto a low-poly model, giving you the best of both worlds (stunning visuals with optimal game performance).
Character Style
The character’s technology, complexity, and price depend on your vision. You might imagine your `first player` as a realistic, cartoon, pixel, anime, minimalist, or abstract figure. The designer’s work and payment would differ in all these cases.
The main character needs more attention than the secondary. You might want to add enhanced detailing with fluttering hair or ask for advanced texture sets for eye creation. Such fine strokes make the character look alive but cost more.
Creating characters for the NFT game is slightly different from 3D modeling for traditional games. Character models should be developed by a character design agency on a blockchain basis so that players can buy and sell them.
Delivery time
A freelancer or an agency fee would differ in case you need the result for tomorrow, in three days, in a week, or anytime the designer chooses. Note that some companies might refuse to accelerate because they wouldn’t like to risk the quality.
Editing
As a rule, the character goes through several stages of alterations and additions until it complies with the client’s expectations. This might take two or three changes to the initial concept and a number of revisions in the final stage.
An adjustment that takes a few minutes, like flipping the image or swapping a single color, will not necessarily need an additional fee. But anything more complex that will require redrawing a character deserves extra payment.
Game engine specialties
Developing characters for the Unity game engine can be significantly different from modeling for Godot or Unreal Engine 5. The last one is the most professional engine and the character design services will take much longer and cost more.
Designer origin
While searching for talent on Upwork, you could have noticed the decrease in rates from west to east. The hourly rate of a UK designer costs $50, while the work of a freelancer from Europe rates $15-25, and the specialist from Pakistan would do the job for $8-25 per hour. Nevertheless, the communication difficulty and mindset diversity should also be considered.
What is Character Design? Main Stages Of Work
Character creation is a multi-stage process that implies the use of different drawing techniques and software tools. Our whimsy team shares observations about each stage of character design.
1. Vision and Brief
It all starts with the designer’s prayer for a task
What do I need to start?
I need a clear brief. What kind of character? Animal, object, or human? Give me some information about its traits, personality, or some unique feature. It will help if you tell me the context for the game character, if I have experience doing what you want, we can work it faster. Images are the most important. This way, I can understand what you have in mind.
The clear task for the game hero can become the first impulse to successful collaboration and outstanding results.
2. Research
When the genre of the game and the type of character is set, it’s time for the designer to learn the game’s setting and the plot. These parameters will affect the main character.
There are more things to explore, such as engaging game worlds of the same type, remarkable designer works, and gamers’ preferences. In the research phase, it’s better to ‘steal like an artist‘ than to reinvent the wheel.
3. Character concept
Sketching the first outlines is the next step for the video game character drawing. The artist creates several possible options to choose from and agrees on the final sketch with the client.
In this stage of conceptualization, the legend of the game character can hit the insight for figures, styles, and palettes.
This character concept sheet shows the finalized visual design of one of the game’s key heroes. The illustration presents the character from multiple angles, highlighting costume details, silhouette, color palette, and signature equipment — all shaped by the character’s role, personality, and backstory within the game world.
4. Detalisation
A 2D artist continues refining the character by creating clothing options, distinct facial expressions, and key poses. If the game uses traditional frame-by-frame animation, the artist will generate a sprite sheet. However, for modern skeletal animation (like Spine 2D), the artist must carefully slice the character into dozens of separate layers (limbs, joints, facial features) to prepare them for rigging. While the purely illustrative phase of a 2D character might end here, its technical journey continues. In contrast, a 3D character is just beginning its complex, multi-stage pipeline.
5. Character blocking
A 3D character can first consist of primitive blocks like cubes or cylinders, which stand for the future body shapes. This simple, awkward model gives an idea of what the character will look like later.
6. Character sculpting and topology
If you have ever worked with clay, you can imagine the sculpting process as finger movements to form smooth character features. The designer deepens the eye sockets, adds volume to the chin, and sculpts the cheekbones — transforming a simple base shape into a strong, character-driven warrior with clear anatomy and personality, as demonstrated in this Whimsy Art Project.
Proper character topology isn’t about creating volume; it’s about strategically structuring the flow of polygons (known as edge loops) so the character can move naturally. For facial animation, 3D artists build specific circular edge loops around the mouth, eyes, and brow. This clean, optimized wireframe structure ensures that when the character is rigged and animated to smile, blink, or show surprise, the 3D mesh deforms smoothly without tearing, stretching, or unwanted artifacts.
In another case from the Whimsy portfolio, character topology played a key role in player engagement and retention. For Bingo: Love in Montana, we crafted expressive 3D characters whose believable proportions and facial topology supported emotional storytelling and long-term gameplay appeal.
7. Model rigging and skinning
The rigging process is where a specialized Animator (Rigger) builds a functional digital skeleton with joints and controllers inside the 3D model.
Once the skeleton is built, the skinning phase begins. This is not just “connecting” the bones to the surface; it involves precisely calculating weight distribution (painting weights) across the character’s geometry. This careful setup ensures that when an animator bends an elbow or twists a torso, the 3D mesh deforms naturally, just like real muscles and skin, without clipping or unnatural sharp angles.
8. Character rendering
This is somewhat a photo session for the ready 3D figure. An artist designs a scene, adjusts the lighting and the camera’s direction, then puts the character inside this frame and makes a shot. The output 2D image is called render. It is often used for advertising and promotion.
3D character animation
This is the final step to animate the body movements and facial expressions of the model. The character starts to live and breathe.
Simple Calculations Of The Character Design Cost
When you make a rough estimation of character design cost, two factors matter:
R – the rate of the 2D or 3D modeler per hour
H – hours to create a model
A multiplication: R*H – will give us a character price.
2D character design cost
The rates of 2D character design freelancers in Europe range from $25 to $100+ per hour.
Creating the concept and the initial design of the flat character takes around 40 hours. Making additional poses, outfits, and accessories requires another 40 hours. Together, this will make 80 working hours.
Simple calculations show a price corridor for a 2D character design from $2000 to $8000.
3D character design cost
Similarly, the hourly rate of 3D artists starts from $34 in Ukraine and Poland and goes up to $150 in the U.S. 3D character modeling process needs double the time of 2D character design or more. And so the price will vary from $4000 to $20000.
| Character type | Hours | Character cost |
| 2D character concept | 8-24 | 270-850 |
| 2D realistic character | 40-60 | 1360-2100 |
| 2D stylized character | 24-50 | 800-1700 |
| 3D realistic character | 80-120 | 2700-4000 |
| 3D cartoon character | 60-100 | 2000-3400 |
How To Choose A Character Design Company?
Choosing the right partner to embody your vision of the character is not an easy task. Here are some basic recommendations to do this on the first attempt:
- Find a studio that specialises in your game character type 2D, 3D, or both.
- Explore the portfolio and see if it matches your aesthetic requirements.
- Check out previous clients’ reviews. Do they speak for the company?
- Contact the studio to ask about the work’s stages. Can they help you choose the right poses and additional elements for your hero? How many reviews are included?
- Estimate the character design cost in comparison with the other market propositions.
Your Stunning Game Character with Whimsy Team
The Statista forecast for 2025 estimates the growth of the global gaming market to be $ 268.8 bn in comparison to an annual of $178 bn in 2021. This rapid development of virtual worlds makes it hard for a new game not to get lost among hundreds of representatives of the same genre.
A well-crafted character requires time, research, skills, and technology to become the heart and soul of the new gripping game. The Whimsy team has completed over 90 game projects with 2D and 3D characters of different styles and complexity and can help you bring an outstanding and convincing hero to life.
Let’s talk about your stunning game character creation!
