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Moshimitsu
Aug '19

Hello there! :slight_smile:

When working on my latest page where MC was making tons of excuses for his awful behaviour I thought "Oh dude, you're making things worse for you just like me". Then I remembered problem I had for years when I started creating novels and comics: most of my MCs from different stories were extremely similar to me if not almost the same. If I were to draw them next to each other, no one would tell them apart because they all had the same hair color and hairstyle, were small (and boring as hell : V ). The two oldest ones also had almost the exact same personality. I don't know if it was just a matter that I started creating as a kid and wanted to be like some cool hero of my fantasies or it was a way to deal with pesonal problems ¯_(ツ)_/¯

The issue kinda was solved during high school when I became more conscious of the character creation process: MCs started to differ with appearance, boys became were more in spotlight, stories included both nice and more awful characters. Now it's reduced to one, maybe two personality traits, especially if ithey're negative ones cause it's fun to laugh them off.

I just wonder if it was just me being uncreative as hell as a teenager or someone did have the same issue ^^

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    Aug '19

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IndigoShirtProd
Aug '19

Almost all of my characters are just pillars of my personality. I never really had the problem of my characters looking similar(except in a few places). Most all of my characters, even upon initial creation, were starkly different from one another, whether in appearance or personality, regardless of which story they were in. Maybe this was because I made most of my oc's in late high school, so I had a good idea of how to separate each of them from one another.

yansusu
Aug '19

I don't think I ever had an MC that was exactly like me, but a few of them do share some traits with me. It was never really conscious and I was actually surprised when I thought about exactly this question a few days ago. Well, turns out one of my MCs was ace before I even knew that was a thing :no_mouth:

Moshimitsu
Aug '19

It seems it's kinda hard to avoid it completely. At least I'm not the only one :smiley:

sydneyrobbin
Aug '19

I don't think I can avoid it completely, but I try to write characters (especially main characters) as being having different personalities. It would be easy to write characters that are like myself. In order to tell good and diverse stories, I'll need to tell stories from perspectives of all different kinds of characters.

ben
Aug '19

All of my characters are definitely different aspects of myself that I like or dislike but exaggerated. A lot of times since my main character is usually a pair of characters doing things together one of them is my lowest low self and the other is my ideal version of myself so they tend to be nearly perfect opposites.

Lunar-Turtle
Aug '19

My two main characters are like two parts of my personality. The joyful and darker side. So I put a lot of my own thoughts into them, it's interesting to disect your own personality and paly with it. It is not meant to be self insert in any way, I don't like those. Rather basing character on two polar opposite sides of my own personality.

In case you want to check them out :slight_smile:

Garchompula
Aug '19

Depends. The main 4 I've made have been worked out for, at this point, years. They are almost completely separate entities from when they first started. Same goes for the main villain.
Minor villains, usually I come up with them a week or so before they're introduced, make sure they seem alright and then i add them in.

Iris-Grimoire
Aug '19

Write what you know! It's perfectly normal, just be careful and pay attention to see if you're not creating too many Yous, or if your stories don't end up having the same themes explored over and over.

As for Splitting Image1 - boy, pretty much every major character is either a piece of me or someone I know. My therapist actually asked for some brief descriptions of the characters and went on to list how much it's from my experiences, so I'm at the same time proud but disappointed at how easy it is to find :stuck_out_tongue:

Mortimer has self loathing issues(if he's not helping someone else or working towards such, it's horrible and he isn't doing it right fast enough), he constantly thinks back to old mistakes like they're still the current status, he has intrusive thoughts, he's got it in his head he has one shot at anything and shuts down if someone makes him stressed over it. So, uh, yeah.

Veriesin gets angry, gets frustrated at being angry, gets angrier, says something rash, regrets it later. Spinelthorn is overprotective and also distant because he's afraid of hurting the person. Berylclaw had a 'polite girl' image and hesitates in standing up for herself and looking rude. Elise is quiet at first, talks a lot later, regrets being so open so quickly.

I could probably go on with every character if I could remember all of them right away.

Moshimitsu
Aug '19

Oh my, I already love Veriesin, he's so relatable! ^^

I think having many characters in one story may be the most helpful way. Once I had one with 11 characters in spotlight and making every one of them unique was a challenge (especially since I still struggled with copy-pasting some traits). Now I help myself with character charts and read books or watch videos about the process to avoid the problem.

But in the end I don't think using a little bit of yourself or others is something to be disappointed. You're just taking a little bit and making a whole new persona based on that. Therapist is just cheating since he's got all the information :wink:

Shanny8
Aug '19

Almost all of my characters in some shape, form, or from a certain facet, is a piece of me.

TJSchongar
Aug '19

I put myself into my characters in as far as my view cannot help but impact the paths they take, opinions they have, consequences they endure, and rewards they receive. The general traits and struggles they have to deal with, however, are things that many humans share. :slight_smile:

AirisKiahin
Aug '19

Since there are no absolutely unique people, there are no absolutely unique characters. That's why it is common to share some features with your own creations. And that's a good thing because readers feel the characters are alive.
However, I sometimes give my characters not only my features but also my story.
For example I was in hard and kind of abusing relationship with my girlfriend. It took me years to break up with her and I did it only after I got nervous breakdown. Instead of suffering though I gave this story to my character Sheas. We also shared calm and patient personalities. As the result I am currently happy and I have a well done character with sad but realistic backstory.

At the same time most of my dumb and funny stories I give to my character Shelby. And these stories formed one of the most favourite characters for my readers.

Also because I work with my beloved partner, we often give our characters our own relationship features. For example my girlfriend calls me "Sunny" and the same way our Luka calls Sheas. We just take the brightest moments of our love and life and turn them into a story. And it seems people really like these simple silly moments

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Moshimitsu
Aug '19

I'm sorry to hear you had such an experience. But in the end you made a good use of that so that's great! Those kind of things are horrible but they make us stronger and wiser which is also good in some twisted way.

Drawing everyday situations as the one you've shown are understandable. That's why there's a trend in those comics (and why they're addicting!). I have no idea how could someone come up with so many panels like that if there wouldn't be any inspiration from real life.

Iris-Grimoire
Aug '19
Moshimitsu

Veriesin is a she - which kind of adds into even more of me, since that cycle of anxiety is exactly something I have to deal with a lot. People don't really take it seriously that a woman struggles with needing to forgive herself sometimes and that anger/indignation are normal things to experience, and with Veri, adding that on top of a violent job only makes her struggle more with the concept of going too far with it.
And it still helps with myself as much as my experiences help me writing them; using the suggestions I found in therapy makes me wonder if it'll work for them and which actions fit who, and there's already a huge important chunk of character development out of the way.

LittleMissDevil
Aug '19

I actively try to seek out variety in my characters, but of course parts of my self are reflected in them. I'm not always aware of those parts, but I think it's hard to avoid. My perspective on the world and on other people will always be reflected in my work, it's kinda inevitable. ^^

A big theme of my comic is the feeling of rejection and being ostracized - be it by individuals or society - and how the characters craft their identity around that. I personally have dealt with that in my childhood years a lot. My characters go through way more extreme things than I did, but the inherent feeling of "being wrong in the eyes of the people around you" as well as starting to identify with their role as "the other" is still similar enough. The second comic I have in mind will deal with the inner rejection of the self more so than that from the outside - also something I am familiar with.

My characters deal with those things way different then I do. One thing I love about ensemble casts is how you can show people reacting so different to the same problem. But at the core of most of my characters is a conflict that I am deeply familiar with - for better or worse.

Well and sometimes I just give the main character of my comic the same haircut and similar facial structures as me and never realize it until someone points it out. :grimacing:

tchotchkeco
Aug '19

For my characters in Detox? None really. Since the story is a bit satirical I have to write characters more exaggerated than how I normally would (I'm looking at you, Alex/Ohm).

For my novel Deadboy Party though...my main character Deadboy is pretty close to me in a lot of ways.

ZatchZ
Aug '19

It's called empathy, it what makes your character likable to the audience.
If your audience can't relate to the character, then your audience becomes disinterested very quickly.