Is your main character attractive? is it important?

[Tanako]

that's exactly why i abandoned that genre. i got fed up with the riches and beauty and then they think, making the male lead mean and a masochist it a bonus? GTFOH
yea, you wont catch me reading such rubbish. gross

[yansusu]

Bonus points if he has an ice-cold face that never melts ~ Gosh, yes, and don't get me started on the abuse and rape *rape*

[JeanGuillet]

oh dear, the freckles seem to be a huge plus for my main character... I get tons of comments like 'you had me at the freckles' 'freckles are my fetish' XD When creating the character design, I took all the stereotype villain ugly features...like, the guy's old, he's got a nose like a toucan, a lantern jaw, dead dead soulless eyes, literally bad crooked teeth with weird gaps, villainous cheekbones of doom hollow face, and freckles. and it all turns out that he ain't ugly, nope, he fine. He's tall and he's in reasonable shape for his age. Everything else is attitude and confidence, not something he's lacking in 'cause he's just too dang old to care what people think.

A lot about how a character is perceived isn't the raw physical components, it's their actions, their nature, how they come alive...their character.

[unknown_user]

Mmm... my male MC is attractive... or was attractive, when he was younger. He used it to infiltrate and mislead people. At the moment of the beginning of the comics, he doesn't care anymore! But probably he will care again at some moment... who knows.
My female MC is moderately-attractive, but it isn't very important for her.

[Toastbuster]

Ecolin! I miss that little shit lol! Hope things are going well for you @kimketli!

[kimketli]

aaaaaaaaaaaaw.
I miss that little shit too. :'<

[amortelito]

Your characters are drop dead gorgeous. All of them.

[kimketli]

[Kann]

For me my MC is kind if attractive, but it's not an important detail to the story, so does it really matter? XD He also has some features that wouldn't be considered attractive by some people. For example not anyone likes scars if we're talking about character design.

[Tanako]

I don't think Braylin is particularity unattractive physically, but certainly unconventional, and his personality is very unattractive. This being said, in my opinion, it what makes your story interesting.

I'll be honest, it's really not the type of story I usually like, and I'm not subscribed to it, but I read it from time to time because I'm intrigued by this character. I'd like to see what you have to tell us about him, I'd like to see what explanations you could give to make him more likable. To me, it's an unlikable character that I would like to be able to like, you see? To read more to understand. I really like the idea that he may appear ugly to people at first sight, but that is not actually where the real ugliness is. And how we're given the hope that, the same way that he is not physically ugly if we don't follow arbitrary social conventions, he may not have such a ugly personality if we one day understand where he is coming from.

So maybe you have a very good compromise here: a general setting and story outline that are pretty conventional for the genre and may attract the usual public, + an unconventional (on many aspects) character who may interest a different set of readers.

You are absolutely right. he isn't likeable at the moment but thats all part of the story and slowly it will all unfold with time. i like to create complex story and sometimes complex characters because in reality people are all different. Brayli's behavior is defiantly unacceptable because in reality, we aren't perfect. just because you aren't attractive dosen't mean there had to be something likable about you. you may ask whats the point? lol the point is, people also can change and thats whats going happen with braylin.

[Kura]

I wish there was an I don't know option, as it's actually not something I think about when designing characters, my mind is more 'I like to draw this so character will be this'

I'm not worried about him being attractive or not. Also really couldn't tell you if he's attractive or not? To me I feel that he really isn't, but some commentators will say otherwise.

What's important about how my characters look mostly rests on the idea of "am I willing to draw this person over 5000 times?"

[AmazementComics]

My main characters are four mutant fruit ninjas, so that should indicate to you my answer to the question.

[OttoGruenwald]

He's supposed to look "off" in a surreal way because he's an energy-being from another universe taking on the appearance of a person. God help you if you find him attractive.

The Power of Stardust | Tapas

[Zaboem]

Being attractive is not important, but attractiveness is important.

I know, I know, I'm full of it. I'll try to explain.

Attractiveness means both good-looking and bad-looking and everything in-between. It strongly influences how other characaters treat the character with attractiveness. The more shallow the other chatacters, the stronger their reactions will be. The three protagonists from my three stories each have differing degrees of attractiveness.

Alien Fiction The main character is Candide, a perfect human specimen. His attractiveness is important in that story because some of the humor is derived from it. He's a pretty dummy, and the aliens are quick to over-estimate him.

Alien Fiction: The Queen in Yellow The star of this story is Isis, an alien who can take any physical form she likes and chooses to be a small bunny. Her attractiveness is important only in that it's important to herself. She's very vain.

Soulless Saint The main character is 402, a robot. He's unattractive even by the standards of the other robots. He's small. He's dirty green. Some of his joints and pistons are visible through gaps in his armor. This has basically no baring on the story at all.

[ZatchZ]

For me, the main issue isn't that your character isn't attractive, the main issue is that your character's silhouette is boring.
I take one look at it and say to myself, whelp, I'm gonna forget this character immediately.
Whenever I draw a comic, no matter the mood, I always try to make the silhouette of the character recognizable from a glance. One of my characters is just a silhouette.

Zeta Bits | Tapas

My Darkling | Tapas

Who the Heck Made You Cpt.?! (REDUX) | Tapas

[ZombieOwl]

It might be because I'm a creator and not a reader, but I really don't think it's important. I think characters need to be appealing, but that doesn't mean they need to be conventionally attractive.

I can understand that certain genres may need more attractive characters readers can live vicariously through, though. Part of me feels like "being pretty" is in place of "charm" for your character (that sounds so shallow and stereotypical, but we've all seen characters that are pretty and nothing else).

Again, I think my opinion is because I'm a comic artist, so I like drawing different types of characters with different features. I'm not trying to make them look attractive, but I want them to be fun to watch and look at

[Reign]

I’m not sure about attractive. I hope he’s at least good looking or appealing at least. I don’t focus on attractiveness, I just want to draw what I draw. I at least aim for them not being ugly, though. Below is the main character and his rival.

Kami (Kaiser Alexander)

(Kami’s Rival)

[Tanako]

I disagree with your comment. my character is unique. i'm pretty sure you didn't read my comic so you cant say that because if you did, you will see that he is indeed unique. he is the main character and on top of that, his personality is very different from the rest of all the characters. I am not new to this. i do not create the same character or characters with the same look.

When i asked the question, i was implying your character not mine. i didn't ask you to critique my character. the question is, is it important for your main character to be attractive. not mine.

[Maps]

So, most of my characters in my novel are depicted as being pretty attractive (probably a theme I should break out of).
But I still answered “no” because there are plenty of stories with unattractive mains that are successful out there. I also think these types of stories can make the character more relatable and normalized, and not just some Greek God of a character that many stories have walking out of the woodworks.
In the end I think it really is about how engaging the character’s personalities are and how good the plot is. Also, appealing art is a plus, but style preferences differ for everyone.

[ZatchZ]

I read the first few pages, I wasn't interested; it's not targeted towards my interest.