A character bible is the heart and soul of an animated series. Without a proper character bible, you can’t even begin to talk to anyone about your concept. I’ve seen a lot of character bibles from producers around the world over the last few years asking for co-production collaborations. I’ve 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 an idea on this topic. Below are the various ingredients that should make up a bible of good character.

It is absolutely important to have a bible synopsis of your character. This is the foundation on which you build your entire story 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.

Includes the designs of the most important characters in your character bible. Make sure you spend considerable time making them look good and make sure they do your concept justice. A character bible should be more visual than verbose, showcasing character designs to their fullest, with various poses and expressions of the main characters. Accessories, if any, should also be displayed. 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 verbose, 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. Images should pre-sell, and text should 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 property values ​​are not compromised.

Lastly, for a property that is gearing up for animation, you may want to include something called an “episodic synopsis,” which outlines stories that could happen in an animated series. These are usually done by a “script doctor,” who can also help restore all of the backstory and character descriptions.