What is your character design pet peevee?

[Zanreo]

Also really dislike it when girls and boys (like 16/17 years) are made to look like 30?? What's with that?? If you have a character who looks like an adult and behaves like a bratty child it's extremely confusing.

I don't see much of this really, I see way more 30+ characters looking like late teens or early 20s at most (and in those cases it can often be blamed on the overall artstyle and not just that specific design) Seen quite a few anime moms who don't look much older than their high-school aged kids when they logically would be at LEAST in their late 30s, especially in series with a more cutesy style

[Michelle]

Same, I notice a lot more artists who seem incapable of drawing characters over 30.

My favourite is when a parent looks the same age as their kid but they put thin lines on the sides of their mouth/under their eyes to denote they're older eue;;

[J.Z.Castillo]

JUST PLEASE MAKE ME AWARE that her hair colour has a cause, and maybe even include it in the plot.

This made me a bit nervous haha because my MC has a weird hair color, BUT I HAVE A REASON! The solar radiation on Earth is way lower than the solar radiation somewhere else so his hair color and eye color darkened. There! But this explanation doesn't come until well into the series lol, well, ¯\ _ (ツ) _ /¯

[J.Z.Castillo]

I thought of this one on the subway to work a couple of days ago. Characters with vitiligo... this is just like heterochromia, PLAYED OUT! It can be done, sure, but most of the time is to make a character feel more special and different from the rest. I'm tired of seeing them in almost every tumblr artist's repertoire.

[SirGutsalot]

Well everyone in my comic is naked so I don't have to worry about clothing for a starter...

[joannekwan]

I agree!
It's like a new wave of "my super special OC pls don't steal".
Sure people have vitiligo, my dad's friend does and it's fairly noticeable on his hands, but only 1% of the world's population has it.

[J.Z.Castillo]

My roommate in college also had it on his feet and his back, so when I saw the first vitiligo character I was like "oh cool! Evan, look at this!" but after the 100th time you see it in one day it starts to get boring.

[bakasama25]

I do notice vitiligo trend. It feels like cheap way to make a character unique and notice almost all them are black characters with that skin condition.

[joannekwan]

Yeah, and my dad's friend who has it isn't even black. He's Iranian.

[inkythoughts]

Well, you have a reason then! If it's something "oh you're from Earth" "you are from Mars", then this is actually enough for me. This also kind of hints that - if you lived on Earth instead of Somewhere Else - you could have the same hair colour, and that there probably are other people who are nothing more than background characters who (could) have it too. If your character isn't the last human from Earth, then let those others show up at some point.
(Also I just checked your comic, it doesn't actually look weird? I wouldn't categorize it as a weird colour, at least. Sometimes people have a cooler brown/alsmost purple-looking brown as their natural hair)

What annoys me is mainly this "it's the main character so they need to have a fancy hair colour" while nobody else (except maybe The Love Interest or The Best Friend(s)) is allowed to also have fancy hair. I see it mostly in anime where the main cast has fancy hair/eye colours but the background characters/crowd never sports such colours even once, for literally no reason (they just have brown/black hair).

[spadesart]

oh boy get ready im about to go full complain here

• generic seme+uke type characters. like im talking tall generic traditionally handsome guy and small girly stereotypically feminine short guy kinda dealie. bonus points for hugeass eyes with tons of sparkles..........
• boob armor BOOB TIDDY ARMOR
• robot tiddies
• cat girls with 4 ears.............like human ears AND cat ears
• girls that are sexualized where they dont need to be (honestly? they never need to be)
• characters that are meant to be the token "non white" character so the comic isnt entirely a sea of mayo but their skin is still pretty pale
• that weird thing where someones wearing a tight shirt and their boobs are popping out way more than they should but there is no nipnop in sight..............like this thing this horrible thing
  
• characters that are VERY OBVIOUSLY drawn to look like little girls and are constantly drawn/portrayed in a sexual manner
• like super neon annoying colors and a checkered pattern somewhere over the design with nothing to offset the brightness of the colors. like rainbow neon colors can look really really good if there's enough dark color to offset it. checker patterns are usually just annoying in general.............

[Jewe11s]

whisper: I like 'V-bangs'
thread boos, hisses and throws tomatoes

Haha oh man, I'm guilty of a few of these things. (Sauske hair, poor colour schemes, can't make characters look over 20 yrs old.... danggit!!!!) I chalk it up to either inexperience or falling for a trend... d-oh!

Multiple bangs have always bothered me. When a character has, for example: straight bangs over their forehead and then another, usually pointy (or otherwise physics-defying) layer on top and slightly behind them, I have to wonder.... How?! Why??

[J.Z.Castillo]

lol I thought it was pretty weird. But yeah, I wanted to give him a "oh look at that" type of feel but still make him feel real. I guess what you are talking about most is crazy ass colors lol. I get you

[heterodont]

Flower crowns are a prime example. Oh how do I hate flower crowns.

What sucks is that I love flower crowns but they're so over done and have such a bad association with certain tumblr crowds. I'm suffering. ;_;

I do notice vitiligo trend. It feels like cheap way to make a character unique and notice almost all them are black characters with that skin condition.

To be fair, Vitiligo is something attacking the cells that create melanin or the cells producing melanin up and die. Anyone who isn't white has more melanin in their skin, which is why it's way more noticeable than say if a white person had vitiligo - they don't have much melanin in the first place.

I guess to stay on topic, I hate character designs with anatomical errors - such as ''spiky'' feathered wings or bat wings that clearly wouldn't be able to support flight

glances at spyro

I guess I also dislike really busy character designs with no cohesion what so ever...rather thats the best way I can describe it. I really hate Star's design from star vs the forces of evil and it's whats stopping me from watching the rest of the show. I GET why her design looks the way it does but I swear it could've been done way better.

also ''diverse'' characters for the sake of garnering attention and little to no regards to the actual culture or attributes said characters are supposedly from/have - or if there is, it's usually a stereotypical view on the culture. Obviously I don't mind when I see people trying to make their casts more diverse, in fact good for them, but there is only so many times where I can see, for example, trans labels tacked onto characters with nothing else to speak of besides that. my reaction is often just "oh! what a nice looking character. let me read the description the person has for th- they're trans...okay. n-nothing else? just trans? okay..." . honestly every 5 posts on the oc tag for tumblr has some sort of label :Y

[joannekwan]

"oh! what a nice looking character. let me read the description the person has for th- they're trans...okay. n-nothing else? just trans? okay..."

Yeah, it's pretty much tokenism.
I get sometimes though that some artists put those out there to go "hey, yeah, I'm inclusive" but don't want to reveal much more about their characters until their story or whatever is ready.

[J.Z.Castillo]

That's a problem I have to deal with. I don't know how to make a character not feel like a token... because if we are going to be completely inclusive those characters should be treated like people, right? How many times in life do you meet people and they say, "Oh, hai, I am Jacinth, and I am gay. How are you?" the moment you first meet them? I personally don't feel comfortable revealing my characters sexual orientations/gender preferences because I feel that makes it feel inorganic, and ultimately, token-y. Is that just me? How should that be handled? Should it be revealed to the audience ahead of time or as the story goes and not give explanations unless it's required? I just don't want my OCs to feel like super-mega-original-OC-don't-steal-pls types.

[joannekwan]

Yeah, I'm in the reveal it naturally camp.
Like for one of my characters in Demon House, she's trans, but I don't introduce that right off the bat when you meet her. You find out with Tula when she spots an old photo of her in her room. Even then I still don't explicitly say she's trans.

I have another trans character, but you wouldn't know it unless you notice his chest scars on the off-chance he has his shirt off. I've posted sketches of him on my tumblr but I never mention that he's trans, since that's not all he is.

[heterodont]

IMO I think if it has relevancy to your story, you can try to mention it within the story either through small hints dropped or etc. For example, one of the characters in my current story is gay - but it has little to no relevancy to the plot itself so it's nothing more than a nice tidbit for readers to learn about. IRL there are people who do say that they're whatever because they feel pride in it - but again it depends on your character's personality. If they were shy - it wouldn't really make sense for them to reveal that they're gay/lesbian/etc. both directly and right off the bat.

It also helps if it's not something that DEFINES them entirely - so if you can describe your character as something other than LGBT, it's not going to come off as inorganic - which was the issue I pointed out in my post with characters that are only labeled as being trans but nothing else to speak of regarding personality.

[J.Z.Castillo]

@joannekwan yes!! I actually love how that was handled! Tula was like "oh, alright, so anyway, back to what I was saying." They didn't make a huge fuss over it.

@heterodont you're right. My MC in BH is queer but that has nothing to do with the story. I get what you're saying, though, I just find it weird when people immediately introduce their characters with their sexuality/non-binary genders up front. I just feel it has to fit the narrative better rather than "hey, btw, just so you know, I'm not cisgender heterosexual, 'kay?"

[maximumthemokona]

You know what I don't like? That stupid red/pink glow + shininess that some people paint on noses, shoulders, knees etc. It makes everyone look like they're drunk or aroused. xD
I get it, a little blush can make skin look youthful and fresh, but just like with makeup, if you overdo it it just looks tacky.