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) _ /¯
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.
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.
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.
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.
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).
oh boy get ready im about to go full complain here
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??
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 
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. ;_;
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
@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?"
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.
ahaha I am honestly fond of a few of these design cliches lol
like, undercuts YES PLEASE
pink hair protag IT'S CUTE I LIKE IT
vitiligo? yeah! IT'S GOOD! but yes definitely true that it is often used as a way to make an OC "special." but i have no doubts that people with vitiligo get bullied about their skin so that's why I like seeing it portrayed in a positive light. but it's def cheap to just give a character vitiligo just because it's "unique," like cmon, that isn't fair to people who have the condition either
also, about tumblr styles...tbh it's not so much the actual styles I'm opposed to, because more often than not they're actually really cute! it's more like I know that a "tumblr style" often signifies other cliches in stories that are really annoying I guess? which is why I sometimes avoid comics with so-called tumblr style.
but in the same way, I might avoid a manga style that looks inbred in a way (like it's based completely off other manga styles without much understanding of realism), because then I can guess that the author is full of common manga tropes and doesn't do much to put a twist to them or write with depth and meaning, beyond gimmicky premises. or a more western superhero comic style, complete with horrible awful physics-defying boobs and costumes so tight u might as well just paint a naked body. any particular "type" of style usually comes with its own set of cliches and problems. that's one reason why I don't think that artists should go looking for any particular style, but let the art fit the needs of the moment and let your personality shine through.
anyway this is getting off track. I guess basically...I don't mind the design cliches like undercuts or pastel hair, but I do mind it when it's used only as a way to make a character Cool and Special or to signify "i'm the protag!!!!!" Do it if it fits their personality I guess, or if it harmonizes their overall design
