Same Face Syndrome

[joannekwan]

Thought I'd start a general discussion on the subject. Feel free to share your thoughts or any tips on how to avoid it!

So who here's bothered by it? haha
I've noticed a lot of series kinda suffer from this (popular and otherwise), however I'll give a pass to gag-a-days/comedy, "chibi" styles and styles like Adventure Time where they're not even trying to distinguish humanoid faces really (there is most certainly a charm to styles where a face is just a mouth and dots for eyes). Here I'm talking about story driven material where character distinction is important. I know characters can be distinguished by their hair, skin tone, and outfits, but I personally like to be able to tell people apart even when they're stripped down, bald, and just drawn in outlines. I also find it disappointing when you know the artist is definitely capable, they are technically sound and can draw some pretty awesome things, but all their people look the same. It's hard to connect with the characters unless they're written very well, at least in my experience. -_-

I know it can be hard to break out of your usual style, but you can't improve unless you try new things I say.

I'll admit, sometimes I myself worry if I draw a person and they look too similar to another character I've already established.

[AnnaLandin]

It happens to me sometimes, yeah. It's been brought up by my readers, and I will be addressing it specifically in my Q&A-special on Wednesday, but the long and the short of it is that I have a weird kind of partial face-blindness. I can recognise people without trouble, but if they aren't there (or I don't have a picture of them in front of me), my brain scrambles their facial features, which means that when it's time to draw a face, I have to put all those facial features back together into an actual face - and sometimes, by brain gets it wrong.

It's not an excuse - but it's a reason. I know I have to work harder than a lot of other people, but that's just how it is. :T

There's this one guy in the current chapter who is a very minor background character - and he happens to look quite a bit like my main character, and I honestly could not see it properly until it was pointed out to me. >.<

[kkitty]

I've never really thought about it because to be frank my entire style seems to change when I draw different characters.

But uh, if you want something to laugh at, my friend sent me this yesterday. https://vndb.org/v414/chars#chars

It just looks like they copypasted.

[joannekwan]

I can totally tell slight differences in your faces! Like Kazue's is a little longer and more triangular, and Chouko's is fuller!

[joannekwan]

Yeah, a lot of anime/manga is definitely guilty of this unless the character is much older or "uglier" than the main cast. Or if they're a quirky side character. x/

[Pandastrophic]

I try to do my best to distinguish faces for my characters, especially if some characters are meant to look more attractive than others, since this always bothered me in manga, like two characters looking exactly the same but one is considered prettier??.
I try to change a lot of things, eyes, chin, lips,etc but I've always had a hard time drawing different noses, I'm still trying to work on that.

[VermillionWorks]

I'm not really one to talk about this because I still tend to have this problem, my female characters especially tend to look alike, and it bugs me. XP

The only bit of advice I can give is that even subtle changes to a face can make a world of difference. Consider little things you may not immediately think about like lip shape/thickness, eyebrows, nostril shape, ect.

[joannekwan]

Aw yeah, I have trouble with my girls too! > <

[Mane]

It's a common point of criticism when it comes to anime style, which I'm very fond of, so I'm kind of guilty of this as well. Everyone has that one face type that's easiest for them to draw so they end up using it a lot. I honestly don't mind the same face , being expressive is what I care about the most.

[demthorshie]

I used to do this a lot but when I started experimenting with different facial structures and features, it doesn't seem to happen as much as it used to. All of my girl characters used to look almost identical in the face and the same went for my males, haha! But I noticed that with just some subtle changes to a character's face such as nose shape, lip size, facial structure (square, round, oval etc.) can make a huge difference. :3

It's not really something I consciously notice or look for in other comics I read and it doesn't really bother me that much when I do notice it.

[shazzbaa]

If this is something you wanna examine in your own characters I recommend the Character Variety Meme as a fun exploration tool!! It's set up to do for 2 characters but back when I did it I just threw everyone together in one big batch. It's fun!! and it'll also make it really clear if there are features you're not really thinking about or if there are a couple of characters who have too many similar features!

The hardest thing for me is when I'm developing a character that falls into a particular archetype I'm fond of, since I'll have, like, 6 other examples of that look and somehow have to make this guy/gal distinct, and not just look like I'm Tim Burton hiring the same actor in different teeth to play literally all my protagonists. xD

[joannekwan]

Yesss I have a "bank" of different eye, cheek, nose, jaw, lip, and eyebrow shapes that I combine and rearrange for characters. Here's an old pic comparing some of my male characters minus their facial hair.

I really should do one for my girls when I have the time...

[Vikiro_Hop]

Ah this might be a bit of a long post this is something I've thought about a lot.

First of all anime and anime inspired work is definitely the main offender. Not just in comics, but all kinds of illustrators across all levels. It can be kina frustrating when you notice the same face popping up again and again in a an otherwise fantastic artists work. This actually part of the reason I read a bit less manga now and have sorta started hunting for indy western comics. It can get ridiculous especially in black and white when the only differences are hairstyles.

I think a huge amount of it is when an artist is finally developing a style they strive for uniqueness and consistency and perhaps get stuck. It becomes a matter of "Oh that is a cool way to draw a face I like that so that's how I draw faces now and that is my style." And a surprising amount of people just go along with that and never get corrected.

Developing my style was really tough for this reason, especially since I wanted a more minimalist approach. I think I have found a good balance at the moment, but I can definitely see how easy it is to fall into traps that would lead to the dreaded same face syndrome. Hell I was listening to a podcast where one of my biggest inspirations was accused of all his characters having the same face. While I disagreed it still made me look at my art a bit closer.

Eh I could go on, but yeah same face can be a big turn off for me especially with story driven content.

[heterodont]

It's a given same face would be an issue with story-driven content :p! Mainly because it can become disorienting for the reader, especially if there aren't additional markers to separate characters (like colors, maybe people can get away with tones)

I think another thing that can bring up same face is also just not understanding how facial anatomy works - and when you don't know how something works, how can you break the rules?

Anyway, I always fret with whether or not I'm having issues with same face. I know I have a tendency to draw noses in a certain way because I like the way it looks when it's drawn that way. Most of the time I'm also lazy with drawing the minute differences when I really shouldn't be.,,, whoops

another test for fun is something someone from tumblr made up, the 'Babs and Kara Test' - which is essentially just drawing your characters in bathrobes with their hair wrapped up in a towel and seeing if they're different enough to be identifiable

[williamjbowles]

I know what you mean.
In real life, people have all sorts of facial features, from eye shape to mouth size to cheek bones, etc. So I always like to try to give my characters distinct faces (as well as different body types, etc, but that's a bit off topic). Especially noses.
For example, in Outcast Kingdom, Olwyn has a round-ish face and a little button nose. Ivan has angular features, pointed ears, a long nose, and deep-set eyes. Hilda has somewhat stronger features and a prominent, straight-bridged nose. Gunther is most prominent as he has no head at all.
I'm not very technically skilled at drawing, but I like to think I make up for it somewhat with interesting design.

[mariusthered]

this is not such a problem for me ( because as most people know i use digital base models) four of my teen girls are the same base figure but the features have been changed.

as for drawing well my advice is think about the shapes the faces are built up from. I have noticed that most manga character have the same shape skull. if you try different shapes to make your head you will find the results can give you lots more options. ( e.g dont just use an egg shape and a circle, try using a cube for the top of the head, a triangle for the face mix it up)

[joannekwan]

Great advice everybody! Hopefully some creators will get use out of these tips.

[joannekwan]

It can get ridiculous especially in black and white when the only differences are hairstyles.

What's worse is if those hairstyles are only slightly different. OMG
I've seen a lot of series do this (cough-bunchaBL-cough)

[Kura]

To be fair, I really didn't care for the opposite when I was a kid. Where everyone looked so different from one another cartoon characters didn't look human, just like noticeable shapes. Which was fine in theory, but a lot of character had the same characteristic features to a social archetype, main character had the more ideal form in the series, then you got the lanky nerdy girl or guy with glasses, bully with a missing tooth backwards cap and big arms, jock with huge build and expression on his face that matched his IQ (cause the sporty jock guys were always dumb) and THEN it gets into the a racial stereo types.

When anime came along a lot of character had similar features it didn't register to me as "everyone looks the same because it's the ideal look for the artist or artist is lazy" it was 'everyone looks like everyone and their character archetype and quirks are not something easily guess by how they look.' and 'everyone is allowed to be as normal looking as the main character... that's amazing..."

So in that regard I'm actually not bothered by same face syndrome unless it's REALLY obviously and glaring noticeable and bad.

[shazzbaa]

First of all anime and anime inspired work is definitely the main offender.

welllllllllllll......

I dunno................

besides, anime styles have their roots in being inspired by Disney, and uh

Some anime/manga styles do particularly struggle with this since they omit/simplify a lot of features that would distinguish a character... but I think a bigger part of it is that we legit don't see a lot of variation in our media at all, especially in America. Like, heck, I'd suspect a lot of our TV and movie stars wouldn't pass a character variety test if you put them all beside each other.

And I think that's where sameface comes from a lot of times. Since we're only shown one or two shapes over and over again as being appealing, then when you sit down to draw an appealing character, it's a lot of extra work for your brain to invent a new flavour of appealing -- no matter what style you draw in.