"Anthropomorphism" in the context of cartoon character design education.

Anthropomorphism, which appears as the phenomenon with the highest number of characters among the cartoon character population, is the attribution of human qualities to natural events, animals, objects, in short, non-human living or non-living beings. In this context, the stories, movies, books or games in which this phenomenon mostly resides constitute the universe in which cartoon characters come to life and have specific purposes and jobs. It is a known fact that people, especially children, who read, listen, watch or use these characters for any purpose, identify with the characters. The characters reveal a multi-dimensional structure in conveying their deep meanings and various messages. In this sense, it is necessary to follow a purpose-oriented process with character design steps. With the addition of various exaggerations in the design process, the character creates a strong visual attraction for the message to reach the receiver when human characteristics are attributed, in addition to the cute, scary or funny form structure. Taking these into consideration, the reason why characters with anthropomorphic features are often preferred is understood. Since there are different opinions and similar concepts in different fields about the concept of anthropomorphism, preliminary information about the related concepts and opinions and related concepts are provided as a summary where needed more. In addition, within the limitations of the research, the formation and steps of anthropomorphic characters are discussed in the context of character design education. Additionally, this research explains the visual structure of anthropomorphic characters, character design education elements such as form, silhouette, anatomical structure, accessories and color, which are among the steps of character design. The characteristics of the personality and appearance of the character designs are considered as a whole, and correspondingly, it is aimed to evaluate the mentality given to the character and other qualities of it in the context of anthropomorphism during the design process. In this direction, although the literature review model was used in the creation of the conceptual part of the research, character design applications with anthropomorphic features were based on the theoretical framework and the data obtained, and the features of the characters were tried to be explained with the design steps. Keywords: Anthropomorphism, Cartoon Character, Design Education.