How do your characters sound?

[RiidDisBuk1]

I have multiple ideas, not that they would become reality.

[byelacey]

Oh! I never considered writing in a language that isn't your primary language and the disconnect that might result from that. I'm sorry that so much gets lost in translation!

[byelacey]

Interesting! At one point early on I tried incorporating zodiac sign traits into characters' personalities. It was a nice jumping off point.

[keii4ii]

It doesn't help that the characters are canonically speaking in Korean most of the time... :') (the main character speaks English, but almost no one else does)

[Carossmo]

My main character sounds like this: (2 samples for now)

[Iris-Grimoire]

I'm having a really hard time with keeping dialogue short but still trying to give most characters defining speech, but some parts of the script do feel kinda impersonal when I want the characters to have small talk and it feels forced to make their patterns appear. It's easily the hardest part of writing the script for me but hey character design is also how their presentation works. I'm also trying to distance from just getting a VA inspiration and sticking to it, because a lot of characters I like are cartoony and exaggerated and it wouldn't always fit.

Mortimer is very careful with words even at his most stressed. He avoids contractions unless he's relaxed, uses polite terminology, rarely swears - all relics of his royal upbringing. However, he'll eventually start overexplaining and extending his sentences as he loves to ramble.

Veriesin is eloquent, but that's immediately ruined by how she just throws the sentence to the wind because of her anxiety. She likes short sentences unless she's putting all her focus on saying something, speaks without thinking, starts yelling or swearing even if she isn't particularly angry.

Spinelthorn and Berylclaw learned to be people pleasers to gather information and keep disguises, but sometimes the reality of only reading books as children without proper education shines through. Spinel makes weird contractions, Beryl trails off since her brother tends to finish her sentences, and they both sometimes mispell words even if they know them (like say, they'll say senten-ces and stress the wrong syllable) when they get careless and fall into old habits of reading things as they're written.

Fangs doesn't care. He speaks with only the amount of politeness required for the situation and passive aggressive is his default, even when he's supposedly making a compliment.

However, these end up being notes, and don't always end up working on scenes I wish they could be more obvious in. Still, I've got years to get to most of the script(ah...ha..) on their pages, and there's plenty of time to reread it all over again and see what I can improve.

[Kura]

I have the same problem as Keii in the fact that they don't usually speak English in my head by default (but will switch to English for English language specific jokes? It's really weird tbh)

The language they are using is a tonal language too, so the pitches and expressions in which things are said are so very different than when I have to focus on trying to think of how they are going to say / express this in their 'English voice' counterparts.

[silacinnamon]

I write my dialogues first in my mother language and translate to English later, but when I'm just writing drafts or thinking in my mind it can change between Portuguese, English and French (it's actually a good exercise if you're learning a new language... c': ) A lot of the jokes and puns only work in Portuguese, but my friend who checks the translation also helps me to adapt some jokes (and slangs) when we can. Sometimes the opposite happens tho, I think of a joke in English but it doesn't feel natural when I try to put it in the Portuguese version...

And in general I always have an idea of who uses more formal language, who's more relaxed, who likes to use short sentences etc, but I've never thought about writing in a way that you can identify the character even without showing them I'll try doing it sometime!

[Jitsu]

I was lucky enough to have contact with some voice actors, so i asked them to help me out with some "animated" videos of my strips, and the voices they made for my characters are all i can hear when i read them now =P

[nostalgicroxas]

Actually once upon a time few years ago I made notes for my boy's names but I try to be more clear about their accents. Like Will talks softer and has a higher voice than Crow, Crow talks a bit louder and has a lower voice. Both of their father's have low voices, the king and a few of their friends (all male) have mid ranges but not soft voices, but also talk differently. Like Akiio talks precisely with as few words as possible, where Isaac has a happy fluffy way of speaking, and then Lady Mia has perpetual bitch-slap voice like she'll murder you. Maybe she's Batman.

[CAOMouse]

My character sounds like this:

[colinmooredraws]

I don't always have a set sound in mind, just cause my brain doesn't work like that. Unless a character is specifically inspired by someone, or something eventually attaches to them. For my current comic there are 2 that have a set voice.

Crawford sounds like the American male voice from Dragon Age Inquisition, if he were more casual with a vaguely Manhattan accent.

Dane sounds like a much higher energy version of the youtuber BrutalMoose.

Sadly, not the sorts of things that I can easily link to cause it's always "Kinda like this but not."

[nathanKmcwilliams]

I always say Rip sounds a lot like Rigby from Regular Show but a bit lower. Turns out, one of my favorite vocalists, Bobby 'Blitz' from Overkill represents Rip perfectly, even his high vox screams.
This video here represents his voice the best. (Watch the first 40 seconds and it's pretty much all you need)

[CatoCoyote]

Depends on who it is really. They all have a life in my head ESPECIALLY my favorites and I just know who they are? That's not necessarily true for everyone but I work them through so much in my head until they become a real person. That life is just a habit of analyzing their traits. Take Ben, my MC in my comic, whenever I present a situation to him I think: what would he say? Why would he say that? Does it fit with his other dialogue? No, so why not?

For me it's just defining a character and sticking to that definition (vocab level, accent, special interest, tics, habits, who they're speaking with.) Eventually, some kind of voice forms in my head and attaches to them.

[Larslaustsen]

Meow!!!

The Catmen Sorceress | Tapas

[Cronaj]

Man... I have considered this a lot in my fantasy comic Whispers of the Past. Technically, the language the characters are speaking is a fictional language called Sunang, even though the dialogue is written in English for the readers. So that means a lot of lilting rhythms, soft Rs, trilled Rs, and generally soft pronunciations except for rare words/phrases.

So anyway, I imagine the characters' voices very specifically.

Izrekiel would have a very precise pronunciation, distinguishing every syllable very distinctly. This an uncommon trait in Sunang, but he basically speaks a completely different dialect than most of the other characters. In regards to his vocal quality, I imagine a strong tenor, which means, not very low pitched, but not a soft voice either.

Agatha has a husky voice. Her words are slurred slightly, which is common in that region of the country: blurred consonants, softer Rs, very round pronunciations. For a woman, she has a somewhat low voice, but smooth and lovely in quality. She sings sometimes, and her tone is very pretty.

Kelan, Agatha's father, has a similar accent to her, but his voice is very low, a deep bass so low that it's sometimes hard to hear. In regards to vocal quality, his voice is slightly raspy, not airy or breathy, but a little gruff, despite the friendliness of his demeanor.

Lord Ryukou (who is introduced several chapters later) has an accent almost identical to Izrekiel, very proper, a different dialect than the others in that region. His vocal quality is very gentle, a smooth, nearly monotone voice with little fluctuation in pitch. He has a soft baritone voice, a combination of commanding, friendly, and slightly breathy.

Lady Maya has a harsh mezzo-soprano voice, which means it is somewhere between high-pitched and low-pitched.. She has a distinct accent, but not quite as distinct as Izrekiel's or Ryukou's. Her voice fluctuates in pitch a lot, and she tends to exaggerate her words frequently.

Orato, who shows up waaaay later, has an ethereal voice, soft, indistinct, an ambiguous accent, and somewhat androgynous. Their gender is hard to place, if they even have a gender.

Saa has one of my favorite voices, because it is layered with many voices and vocal qualities, and I actually already have an English voice actor for him! He is also the only character who I imagine speaking in English. You can check out a voice sample here.

Anyway, if you are interested in learning more about the language of Sunang, you can check it out on my website.

[N1ghtm4r3]

my main villain Apocolys i would sound like Mark Hamill's joker but deeper and with a ethereal or echo to it

[CMYKat]

My male lead, Theodore, has an airy and sweet yet theatrical voice. c:

Here's an example of something that both comes close to what I've been picturing, and is definitely something Theodore would say.

Clip also serves as a perfect reaction video. Sometimes I think about it in quiet rooms and it makes me snort.

[Amerietan]

I always like to pick voice actors for my characters, so I have an idea of how they sound just by comparing them to the way those VAs are known for speaking - or a role I like them speaking in. Unfortunately, the ones I have solid choices on haven't debuted in my comic yet. Ian Sinclair is a definite choice for one of them, though, because he always does a great scoundrel.

Mostly I have "that one guy" assigned to them, because heck if I can remember the names of the voices I associate with various archetypes.

[azzy-m]

I do have a list of voice headcanons listed, does that count as my characters having "sounds"?