Looks to fit a personality or intentional dichotomy's? How do you prefer to design your characters?

[beebutterbee]

@Leyelle thank youu!! lol yes the award show nerves ARE real

[Leyelle]

if you can manage it, just get em out now, or save em for one specific day, no use being nervous all the way until august, that is a very long time XD. Just what ever you do, don't do it by manifesting that you'll do awfully so that you'll be pleasantly surprised if it goes well. That's probably not a good way to do it lol

[beebutterbee]

Very good advice lol like I am nervous but also very excited! I'm considering it like my first real gallery show i'll be part of, but even the small gallery is cool too. I'm gonna be teaching summer classes there... so I guess maybe I am a professional artist? Maybe I should believe in myself more.

[Zhengo]

I like to make the design fit the personality but contrast their abilities. Like Fiyo here has a short stature and I used a soft shape language to communicate his reserved personality and softer tendencies but it contrasts with his abilities and fighting style which is mostly close combat and uses a variation of super strength

[Leyelle]

definitely, teaching art classes is a big deal!

[Leyelle]

Even in another webcomic idea I have one of the central characters is Dominican, her name is Candace

Is the plot of this girl's story a secret or what is it about?

[beebutterbee]

Oh sorry I just saw this it does actually have a plot I just haven’t done it yet, but I want to make the story as a webcomic eventually. But I have written the outline so I just need to find time to start it. Candace is actually a high school student lol but her dad owns a bookstore (He’s Dominican) and her mom was a traditional dancer (she’s Indian) but now she also just runs the bookstore with him.

There is something verrrry wrong about the creepy Catholic school she goes to, and her two friends are trying to figure it out with her. It might be connected to a cult And there might be faeries in it too but I don’t want to spoil too much lol. Candace just wants to learn dance and write poetry tho but she gets wrapped up in a lot of nonsense.

[Leyelle]

XDDD, run for the hills Candace.

[Leyelle]

I think my leads from "Rigamarole" basically look like what people would expect from them, but it only makes sense for teenagers who don't care a lot about their clothes. they just wear hoodies, tee shirts, jeans and sneakers all the time. However there are a few subtleties that hint at more detail of their characters.

The FL (Leia) doesn't wear makeup most of the time because she's too tired to put in the effort, however her hair is dyed black because it used to be pink, but she got too busy and exhausted to want to keep bleaching the roots. Meanwhile her little brother dresses almost the same way as her, but his nails are usually painted and he wears eyeliner everyday, making him kind of a visual combination of how little he takes care of himself but he also wants to look nice, because he's tired of feeling and being called ugly.

[Leyelle]

The more I write "Rigamarole" the more I realize that her appearance, while not being dichotomous, only scratches the surface of her actual personality. someone who saw her would probably assume she's masculine or doesn't like girl things, when in reality, she Unironically keeps Barbie dolls and comic books around her room. She has a cat named Lord Licorice and she absolutely babies it. She's not just "hard" but she's also not "just girly" all of these traits are natural to her without me having to sit down and write things to "balance" her out. She's just herself, and more complex than the people in her world would guess by looking at a kind of lazy- emo looking teenage girl.

(this is available for free for everyone to read on my Patreon public posts

Rigamarole: Section 1: Aite | Leyelle

[Leyelle]

With my newest female lead "A Dozen Morning Glories" I feel like it would be hard to determine anything about her just by looking at her visual design, and that kind of works really well for the characters, since she's so impossible for everyone to read, and even fundamentally unclear to herself. Looking at her you could try to pick out her hobbies and tastes and you would almost certainly be wrong every time.

Still, she does have a few consistencies in the way she dresses. She usually wears dark shades of blue and purple, and she usually shorter skirts over long ones, when she's not at work. She wears a lot of sweetheart necklines as well.

[Leyelle]

I don't think my male lead's looks really tell you anything about him either. This is easier with slice of life stories I think, especially with people working normal 9 to 5s because it's not likely their appearances will be too "out there." That said, while you could tell that Dominic is a very cheerful and light-hearted, positive person by the smile he usually wears, not much else about him could be divined. I didn't design him so much with his own personality in mind but more with a contrast to the female lead in mind. Neither of them are designed to represent their personalities in their aesthetics.

Read A Dozen Morning Glories :: Strawberry Jam:"Damsel in the Red Dress" x "A...

[Leyelle]

I think the characters who look the most like their personalities would probably be Kattar and Alicia from "Damsel in the Red Dress."

Kattar is stylish and extremely beautiful, which is kind of what you'd expect from a pampered rich boy raised by a mother as beautiful as his mother is. Meanwhile Alicia is considered to look like a curvy doll, which also suits her shy, and extremely delicate nature.

Little details of their personalities of course still come up that don't seem to match their outside appearances, like Alicia's love for weird animals, drinking problem, and Kattar's love for action movies (including some pretty violent ones.) And there are also little details in Alicia's physical appearances that break away from the first level of assumptions people might make about her too, because despite looking dollish, she is on the chunkier side, extremely curvy, and she has very thick eyebrows, all things that stray her away from a cliche and make her into an individual.

[Leyelle]

I think people could get a pretty good gist of Cocoa from seeing her. She looks like Dora lol. Kind of cute, round, and sweet. She's an almost childlike and pretty quiet person most of the time, and I think her round face and kind of pouty lips give off this vibe. She's also closest to Dominic out of all of his siblings, and this feels sort of visually represented by the fact that they look most alike out of all of the members of their family.

[Leyelle]

These are the leads to my new comic I'm planning to debut this year, and I think their appearances really represent them well. Chili's red hair and sharp teeth really showcase his loud, sort of chaotic personality, while Texas's blue hair makes her look moodier, as does her fair complexion which gives me emo vibes lol

Read Sketchy Business | Tapas Web Community

[Leyelle]

I can't say that Mora's look fits any personality, but it does affect her personality. Because of her uncommon appearance, she spends a lot of time doing things to try to avoid attention, because standing out so much makes it way too easy to be stalked. This kind of forms it's own sort of insecurity, that's it's not good to be herself.

Read Crystal Blue :: The Actaeon | Tapas Community

[Leyelle]

In most ways Christopher George looks the beau ideal who would be super popular in a drama, but that's just not the case with him. While I wouldn't say his looks are dichotomous with his personality, his personality is something no one would expect from most people. He rarely looks people in the eye, even when he's talking to them, with a habit of just turning his head in their general direction if he's listening. His mannerisms lead some people to think he's weird or slow, but he's far from either, he's just different.

Read Crystal Blue :: How to Shatter a Body | Tapas Community

[krazycafetales262]

A mixed of references and feeling. There's usually a vibe I want my character to have, so I design around that. I also look up pictures that describe the personality, culture, or setting my characters are in and use that to help me.

I'm also learning to love color coordinating my cast. I'll pick a color and have the group designed around it. Also helps when I want my MC to really stand out!

[Leyelle]

This might count as a dichotomy, Therese's role is to be a very motherly, ideal housewife-type character, but she has a habit of being sly or teasing that makes her eyes get squinty and foxish. Most people don't associate the ideal mother with being sly, but I think it makes her character fuller and more unique.

It shows a bit in her smile in this expression

Read Crystal Blue :: Walking Graffiti | Tapas Community

[Leyelle]

Alicia's apparent delicacy and feminity


Belies how tough she has had to be in the past, and there is more anti-damsel coming soon.

Read Damsel in the Red Dress :: Candy | Tapas Community