Costume Design vs. Character Design in 3D and Games

As digital storytelling evolves—especially in 3D animation, CGI, and video games—the lines between character design and costume design are becoming increasingly blurred. Yet understanding the unique role each plays is essential for any production studio, designer, or director working in visual media.

The Blauw Films founding team has a background in filmmaking, so we incorporate a lot of those skills in our 3D animated work. Whether for cinematography, screen writing or character creation, there is a continuous interplay between physical and digital filmmaking techniques. The same goes for the way we create our characters. Whether we're building eerie characters for a creepy pasta horror short or crafting “realistic” sci-fi costumes, a clear understanding between character and costume design and their respective strengths helps us to guide the creative process.

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What is Character Design?

Character design is the art of creating the visual identity of a character. It’s about shaping who they are through posture, proportion, silhouette, and expression—even before a single word is spoken.

In our article, Character Design and Concept Art for ‘Apple Rot’, we explore how character design choices like exaggeration, asymmetry, and color can suggest emotion, archetype, or backstory. These visual cues are often the audience’s first point of contact with a story. 

Researchers Maarit Kalmakurki and Heli Salomaa argue that visual storytelling is “semiotic”—a system of signs and symbols that carries narrative weight. They write, “The character designer uses visual language to construct identity, intention, and presence,” allowing the viewer to intuitively understand who a character is at a glance.

The Apple Rot characters were created with their character designs in mind first. In this case, the role of the costume designer is to reverse engineer the vision into reality. We chose this workflow, because we needed the Apple Rot characters to be a rather abstract design. It was important to start the design process from pure imagination, unbothered by technical limitations, which was done through drawings and paintings. Both the character design and costume design process was led by Charlotte, who worked together with Ab Wienk to execute concept visuals.

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What is Costume Design?

Costume design focuses on what the character wears—and why. It translates character, context, and story into visual language through garments. In our blog Storytelling Through Costume Design, we share how costumes can inform the viewer about both the world and the characters in one go.

However one of the most important parts of Costume Design is how the costumes aid and enhance the actor’s performance. This is where costume and character design are especially distinct. Costume Design is traditionally grounded in fashion and textile craft, but costume design in digital media now includes 3D modeling, rigging, and simulation.

As Heli Salomaa explains in her research on virtual performance, costume design in digital environments “supports not just appearance, but performance and perception.” The costume becomes part of how the character moves, interacts, and is interpreted.

—whether it's a shimmering sci-fi suit or a minimalist tank top designed to feel grounded in realism.

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When Character and Costume Design Meet in 3D

In 3D animation, the relationship between character and costume design is tight. Garments are no longer just textures—they’re dynamic, moving with the character and interacting with the environment. They reflect internal change, social status, or symbolic meaning.

3D animation is especially interesting for both Character and Costume Designers, as it’s a medium where the two disciplines meet. It allows for both realistic and technical execution, as exaggerated or symbolic stylisation.  

In 3D, costume design can transcend the physical. Costumes can shift shape, glow, fragment, or even animate themselves. This creates opportunities to use costume as a visual effect or a metaphorical extension of a character’s psyche.

As Salomaa notes, “Digital costume design is inherently interdisciplinary—it blends fashion, motion design, narrative theory, and technology.”

In our tutorial The 3D Costume Design Beginner’s Guide, we show how clothing is rigged, simulated, and lit to work within real-time engines. Every fold and drape is intentional, shaped not just by physics but by emotion and theme.

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Character and Costume in Game Design

In games, costume and character design are even more entwined. Costumes serve both aesthetic and mechanical functions. They indicate abilities, factions, or class systems, and evolve based on player progression.

Kalmakurki and Salomaa point out that in interactive contexts, “costumes must function from all angles, in all lighting conditions, under player control.” They aren’t just clothing—they’re game assets, and every detail counts. 

Technical execution is extremely important here. Although character assets need to be optimised and “game-ready”, you don’t want them to lose fidelity. Finding the balance here is key.

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Character and Costume Design in CGI

I wanted to write some quick notes about Character and Costume Design in CGI heavy film productions. 

In this case, characters and costumes are often designed by concept artists, who work in 2D (digital) media to create a look. This look needs to be replicated in both 3D and physical form. In the final cut, the digital costume and physical costume need to seamlessly blend and match from frame to frame. 

One of the best showcases of this workflow is the work of Costume Designer Deborah L. Scott, for the Avatar franchise. There are amazing interviews with her, in which she explains the process of replicating physical material samples into digital doubles, creating to-scale Na’vi costumes for the motion capture process, and working together with the artists at Wētā Workshop. 

If you’re interested in her work, I can recommend this blog “Designing The Costumes of Pandora”  and this podcast with Filmmaker U.

Deborah talks in detail about the knowledge gap between digital character design artists and traditional costume designers, and how this gap needs to close for future artistic milestones to be realised. In this CDG Master Class she describes the challenges and obstacles she faced during this process. 

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Conclusion

Costume and character design may have found their origins in different industries—one focused on shape language, the other on wardrobe—but today, through digital filmmaking, their crafts have become increasingly intertwined. The costume is not an afterthought; it’s a living part of the character. And the character is not complete without their visual identity being fully integrated—body and clothing, psychology and symbolism, design and movement.

At Blauw Films, we believe that great digital storytelling emerges when these disciplines collaborate from day one. You can find the stories we create in our Slate Room.

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