Nov 2018
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Nov 2018
Nov 2018
Klaustasya
Nov '18

Usually my favorite and most loved Oc are characters sketched out of relax, they were nobody at the first sketch, i didn't even mean tp create them for a new story, but found myself liking them too much and made a little special world just for them :heart: right now i'm having the opposite problem:

I have the story, i know what i want to tell with the plot, but i don't like the characters, or even better, i can't produce a design that i like for me.
For me aesthetics are super important, if i don't like the visual of the character i can't create/like the personality as well. What to do in cases?
Idk it feel very forced, but in this period i don't know what to draw as well :frowning: i tried looking for pinterest reference but it didn't inspire me....also in the first place, how do you start falling in love with your oc?

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    Nov '18

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    Nov '18
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Jenny-Toons
Nov '18

Usually for me, I like to experiment with the design a bit and see how much I can play around. The first thing I start off which are dynamic poses. Would this design feel natural in those poses? Would it show the viewer more or give them ideas using those poses?

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There's also adding some colors to the designs. Does it pop when I add colors? Do I need to change said colors in a way to make it pop? And once I add colors, is it unattractive without them?
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Also, I sometimes try to do the design in different styles! It's something rare I do, but it never hurts to try and see where things go!
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DiegoPalacios
Nov '18

First i design who they are as a person, their personalities, interests, role in the story, etc.....

Of course major characters will have more characterization.

After that, i design their appearance. I draw until i get a result that satisfies me. Most of the time, the drawing end up needing an adjustment, maybe i like some thing about how the character looks but feel like something is missing, that is when i redraw. If i get stuck, i take a break and then redraw when i`m in the mood.

Sometimes is just a detail, like the clothing, shape/color of eyes, species, etc...other times bigger changes are needed.

There are also cases where a character doesn`t fit the current comic i am working. In those cases, if i like the idea, i save it for another story.

DokiDokiTsuna
Nov '18

This has happened to me recently. I've been trying to design characters that are part of a religious order, and for some reason my imagination just isn't producing like it usually does...

I've found that the best way to come up with a good design is to just keep trying. Like, get a bunch of paper, and force yourself to sit down and draw the character over and over until you come up with something you like.

Y'know how video game characters have these early design sheets that are full of just plain bad ideas, and you wonder "how could the character designer even suggest that??" For people who are used to just one-shotting lovable characters, it seems weird. But sometimes that's how the process goes. Pump out garbage until your mind and hand finally align~ ^^'

inkythoughts
Nov '18

I personally always start off with the character's function in the story. I always try to fit them into their major position, their main function if you will. This doesn't really determine any looks or character traits at first, it's basically just "I know where I want to display the canvas once I'm done with painting" and it actually helps to keep the character smaller at first, because at first they're just a mere tool.
Then, I'll try to go from what I already know, you can always spot links to other characters, kinda like "that acquaintance of a friend of a friend" - you know superficial data of them without ever meeting them, you maybe know how X feels about them and that Y got his job from them because they are related. So while you don't know what they look like, you somehow still can deduct the following questions (at least in some way)

  • are they a child/somehow related to someone already existing?
  • who are their social groups? friends? enemies?
  • any specific ethnic background(s) and culture that adds to it?

If you already have related, especially closely related, characters, it's easier to derivate their looks from them just by playing random genetics. Ethnic backgrounds can help as well, however, it's not as set as having parents or siblings already. Apart from genetics, though, culture can go a long way in how we for example dress and behave. Or why we reject certain things from our culture can tell more about our personality and character.
The thing is, if I know at least a tad of their genetic pool, I'm usually just going wild with it, kind of like the randomize button on dress-up dolls. Because that's usually how people just come to be: a wild genetics cocktail. This is why I rarely change designs of their faces from their first draft, unless their ethnical/familiar background changed as well. The rest can be adjustable through different things like clothes, mannerism, and lifestyle. This doesn't necessarily work with every art style, like very stylised cartoons probably won't work that way and go more by shapes, but I think this approach works perfectly fine with semi-realism.
The thing were aesthetics come into play is more or less the last stage where I get to know the character better and develop a feeling for them. Discovering more of their personality and thus also how they most likely would dress can take a bit longer or is immediately there - it really depends. I find it important to stress that it is an aesthetic your character likes and agrees with, or came to wear by one or another reason that makes sense for that specific character.

For the loving your own characters ... for me, it always happens when I make them out less than they end up to be. You need to discover their potetial.
One of my favourite characters in my story is Mae, who innicially should just have an appearance of three panels and just return a lost item to MC. The three panels just didn't feel really organic, so I ended up with 8 pages of her being a grumpy morning person, discovering the lost item, and not even returning it yet. Through the dynamic with her room-mates and the fact that she knew MC enough to know how important that item was, made me spun stories around her. She turned out to be one of the 4 MCs from the main series and I'm currently working on a spin-off completely dedicated to her silly teenage romance because I couldn't fit it into the main series as much as I tried.

I think as soon as you realise what person they are, what storylines could still be waiting for them, what else you still could explore with just this character, the more invested you might actually get. At least that's what is always happening to me..

SleepingPoppy
Nov '18

So one of the weirder things I do when I'm stuck is google random anime/manga stuff. My designs generally aren't overly anime-ish, but I can still get inspired just from looking at that kind of thing. Whatever gets your mind going. Similarly looking at cosplayers can be pretty inspiring? Typically I'm looking at stuff I've never seen or heard of, or only tangentially know of.

I have to say for pinterest, it can be really helpful having inspiration/reference boards for characters or stories. You just throw everything that gives you the right feel into a board and then go back and look when you need too. I was having a hard time with the fashion of two of my leads, because they're basically "jeans and white or black shirt" guys, and I wanted to a have it at least a little more visually appealing while still keeping it simple for the characters, and making a board of men's fashion helped.

Even though I'm not that into astrology, I do sometimes look at descriptions of star signs as a basis for character design. Thats a great place to start when you're stuck and need a spring board. =D

But if you're stuck, it might come down to thinking about whats appealing to you at a base level, and how you can either incorporate that into your design, OR intentionally challenge yourself to go in a direction you normally don't. Make breaking your own mold fun! Some of my favorite characters sprang out of intentionally making fashion and personality choices I don't personally like. My feelings changed and I ended up with a more interesting characters.

Typically I need to understand their goal/motivation, have some ideas about what their flaws are, and how they might grow or change throughout their story, and I need to "hook up" empathetically to them. It's hard to explain the last one, it's just.. being on the same emotional level, tapping into the thoughts and feelings of the character. If you can't be in their head space, it's harder to write them, and if they're hard to write, they're hard to fall in love with.

BobbyjoeX
Nov '18

when it comes to characters, i usually dont unless something inspired me to make a character... and then the character just manifests and i figure out story stuff after

Luminosophy
Nov '18

Similar to inkythoughts, very first concept when they're born is out of nessecity for a place in the story. That then gives a fun challenge for aesthetics because then there's a lot of problem solving going into the clothing design and colours. "How do I balance cultural elements + this person's strong sense of individualism?" "This character is very tom-boyish yet also very feminine, how do I communicate both?" I think it's healthy to do what Jennytoons mentions and EXPERIMENT. lol. There's absolutely no reason you have to stick to the first thing that comes to mind. I think I've done about 8 outfit redesigns for one now before landing on the perfect idea. And now I have a backlog of design mish-mash to give to other side characters if needed.

This is an interesting problem because to me, the visuals and personality are two sides of the same coin. Design imo should be 100% about communicating the character's personality in some way. (Not in a super obvious cliche way but you should be able to glean some basic idea of what they might be like, or even use it to subvert expectations.)

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