A note about people that put long bios with their character art for "no reason" is that sometimes it's used for roleplaying, so in that sense it does have a use.
@@ramu-silly You make a valid point. I agree not all bios are bad news, in fact I think sharing some information is necessary. But not all execute a basic bio in a way that is not a little grueling to read or discourages others from interacting. But what you are saying I think is that the quality of the bio itself can help you gauge your expectations about the person you will be roleplaying with just as much as with the character itself. 🤔
@@ramu-silly I think a bio should be only as long as it needs to be to convey what the other person needs to know about the character's motivations and lifestyle. At least the most easily accessable bio that you would find in or under the referance image. If the person wants to know more about the character the creator could write a more in depth bio somewhere else. But if the person is just looking over the character for a quick idea of who it is, I think the bio should be succinct and not include many useless details that are not vital to the character as a person
Overdesigning is a huge problem on the internet. Heck, it's a problem in general. Your toaster doesn't need wifi. And your character doesn't need 4 tattoos, 15 piercings, 2 different eye colours and wings... I'd love to design the mascot of my band in the future and your videos are really helpful.
BUT WHAT IF IT DOES Now seriously, I have a character I specifically made to be a parody of the OC parodies of the internet, and I hate drawing her full body because it's too much for my liking, but I really love how weird she looks and I can't bring myself to change her now 😂
5:47 Okay, so lemme tell you something: there was this girl I knew who was in love with her "OC" ("original" character). Found a way to work her into all most any conversation. One day I made the mistake of asking about the character. Found out, and I kid you not, this character was Harry Potter's long lost twin sister who Dumbledore took to Japan, has had many voyages aboard the Starship Enterprise, and is best friends with Slenderman. I told her that her character wasn't very original, and she lost her freakin' mind. She would probably lose her mind watching this video. But this video is very informative, so maybe she should watch it. All novice character creators should! You explain things very plainly and are very easy to understand.
Nope. This was freshman or sophomore year of high school. She was older than me, so she would've been about 16. I just hope she's better at handling criticism now, that's what bugged me more than the character. We all have made bad characters, it's just when a person can't take criticism that we truly have a problem.
1:54 batman is basically zorro, lion king is hamlet w/ animals, west side story is romeo and juliet set in the 50s, don't get too hung up on 100% originality just add what you can to a story
I do think the best way to design and develop characters is to use them in stories. My characters always get the best results when I show them talking, interacting with other characters, and solving problems. That said, sometimes you just gotta draw a character just to get him out there and give you some context to work with. And in those times adding a simple character description is about all you can do for the moment.
I mean, I made a doodle of a tree on my math homework and I liked it so much I cut it out and put it in my keep folder. Your true love(s) can can crawl out of the strangest wormholes, smack you in the face, call you stupid, and run off merrily into the distance and you'd thank them for it. Or appear on your math homework. Or anything really. Point being, they can come from weird places and surprise you.
I really struggle with telling story with characters. The idea of making a comic, animation, or game seem so daunting to the point I've repeatedly just decided to start from scratch and design new characters, get discouraged or distracted and start again.
This is a very relatable comment.... Since you wrote this 3 years ago, I hope you are in a better place creatively now, but I am looking to overcome some of these same challenges.
So I am currently writing a novel with characters I have created myself and I think they are pretty original overall however when I take a look at other own stories and their characters I feel like originality is something which is hard to achieve in a short time. Building a character is not that hard what is hard is going through all the stages of recreation and adjustment until he/she is original. What do you think?
Hey there, hope you don't mind me giving a little advice! Like he said in the video, sometimes you have to move away from trying to make your character original, and just try to make them believable. How do they fit into the world you created, and what traits do they have related to it? Build upon their personality and their backstory leading up to the story. Don't compare your characters to other people's characters, but compare them to your own and try to make a diverse cast; sometimes coming up with how to make one of your characters different from another can lead to more original and interesting ideas. And if you really want to avoid using overused tropes and traits that are often seen in original characters, look into that a bit. There's lists of character tropes that people tend to find overdone or boring, and while you may want to just avoid them, you can also put your own spin on these tropes to make them more original and give your characters life. In the end, everything is up to you-- pretty much every idea has been thought up at least once, but it's up to you how you want to make those ideas stand out and work for you!
Luna Raydue don't get me wrong when I said original I actually meant it in the way that the creator avoids these tropes and the character fits in its world. You can always get inspiration from other sources I did got inspired by many things too but there is a small gap between inspiration adaptation.
Jenna Moreci has a few videos on how to create original characters, if you want to take a quick look at them! I think the absolute longest one is around 15 minutes.
I created a lot (way too many imo) characters for a project I'm not currently really serious about, and in the story there's a group of main characters around the protagonist being his friends. Now, they were the first to ever be created, and I thought of them to be completely original even in their names, so I picked up pieces of names or nouns that sounded cool and "unused" somehow and glued them all together. It was back in 2017, the very first steps of this "project", and the result was a disaster. They really sucked. There is a point where you go to an acceptance that no matter what it is impossible to create something perfectly original (this acceptance is often spontaneous and not so damaging for your creativity). So without even realizing I changed almost every name, one of them being changed into Vectorblade, for example. I'm pretty sure I can find thousands of OCs around the world with this name, even characters from shows, but I don't care anymore. I just pictured the image of his blades on his arms and the energy and direction he puts into things, leading to choosing the vector. I think the same goes for designs. To me, the approach is usually to brainstorm what you want on your character, then selectively fall and only choose what conveys the emotions and objectives your character has. It is possible that their objectives are forming and molding all along your creation of it and perfecting it, this will help you calibrate details and maybe even the color scheme. Constantly trying to search a balance. This is all my self personal experience. I'm not a professionist or an art student (I in fact study agriculture), I just like to create characters and I'm really happy with this story in my head. Idk if this can help you anyways
I can definitely agree with the "context part" I've had people seen me draw comics, and then we'd share interests, and I've definitely had people chat on about their story low key, I'm more annoyed at them just ranting on when they do so, because, yes, the character is interesting, but I don't want to listen to their character, I want to watch their character, or at least read what are they doing rather than "what they did" when people come up to me with their OCs, I try to push them to make it into something... either that, or I show them one of your videos, either way is good
That's like every fangirl/fanboy story pitfalls you have there and that's so accurate. You might have forgotten about the "invincible character" syndrome though, but I might be wrong.
When I was younger I made an "OC Donut steel" based on an anime I really liked... as I grew up, I took that character away from that and now I have him split into two characters in two completely separate worlds that I thought up myself... Those two characters are completely divorced from the "OC" I made years ago and I want to actually develop the stories more. I am not proud of that "OC" but I am proud of my current characters and the worlds I have built around them.
Lucky Bebop 😂 haha thank you I always felt so formal in videos, have been trying to be more natural/how I am in everyday life lately. Appreciate that 😄
This was interesting because it kind of explains my growth as a writer from a different POV. Almost every young role player that RPs in written story form starts out with that "unique" phase where their character looks like a mixture of rainbows, teenage angst, and unicorn farts. My characters are a lot more "boiled down" now. They're less likely to have unnaturally colored physical features (and other clichés) unless it really fits their character. My characters still aren't top quality because they're made for an audience of just 2 (me and my friend), but they definitely are much better. So yeah, it was cool to see someone actually articulate the growing process that I went through over the years with my characters.
I used to do it as well except with a healthy dosage of “crawling iiiiin my skiiiiiin” XD Ive gotten better over the years too, although there are likely many aspects in which I can improve on if you or I were to go professional.
For some reason i feel like the 3 different colors in the hair is the one part that would make this very hard to accomplish and work with the rest of the design.
Sorry that I don't have anything constructive to say, I just want to express my appriciation for the time and effort you put into your incredible videos. I feel like I'm a mildly mentally ill explosive mess, but you sir have inspired and grounded me. Thank you.
Also, we've all got something going on mentally, so you aren't alone, but I'm really glad the way I walk through things has been helpful for you. Thanks so much!
+Purple Insect I agree. I also think, it kind of kills the joy of creating characters. Because you'll never achieve a character that has never been done before... the same goes for Plots ... and a little bit about some settings. There are so many books and movies and comics and and dramas or operas out there that nearly everything has been done before. and it just kills the joy of creating your own characters and worlds and writing your own story, if you start panicking every time you watch a new movie or read a new book and end up thinking "Oh shit, that guy is just like my character."
Ari33sa yep, it's all about if you did the concept (which has been done before) well, better, or worse, or even differently There's nothing wrong about trying to do something different, but doing something different is way out of the field of originality Trying to be something original would be like: this is my half-fox character, who doesn't have a tragic backstory, and uses flies a spaceship and is a coolheaded fighter pilot While doing something different is like: This is a story about a demon being the main character, and where heaven is evil and hell is good It's not original, demons vs angels story has definitely been milked to death, but the concept was taken to a different direction It's all about the execution
Tanks Explosions Anime actually, that's basically what most people artists do, but they also take a lot from politics, history, mythology, theoretical ideas, real life struggles and people. It's when you combine all the elements in a way that no one has ever thought of before, yet makes complete sense, does art form.
Dear Diary,Baby Boy Tommy has already accomplished more than I could ever dream of. That kid is going places. -Sincerely, Depressed Seriously that was hilarious😂😂👏🏼 And i totally agree you should sell T shirts, that would be amazing. Also aside from Baby Boy genius, you made excellent points about creating a story with your character to chizzle away extra features and hone in on a unique identity. Another awesome video👏🏼👍🏼
3:53 if theres ANYTHING in media that i think basically proves this point, it would be spirits in super smash bros ultimate. the previous super smash bros games had trophies, which were basically collectable 3D models that had a description of characters and items from some various video game series. what i loved about them was how the descriptions gave you a bit of context to what the character or item's role and function in their base series is, and it got me interested enough to try out quite a few series just to see how these described characters looked in practice. even if some of it was spoilers. it made me interested enough in the base series that i'd never heard of to play games like earthbound, xenoblade, punch out, etc in smash ultimate, the replacement system (spirits) have no descriptions, and barely even tell you which series they are from (i think its like, buried in menus). their only indications for character roles, personality, abilities, motives, etc are only done through crappy battles that sorta have resemblance to base material, and slight status effects or buffs when equipped as an item. the aspect that trophy descriptions had, where they gave you a bit of context into the original series, is gone entirely. the clever references and jokes dont mean ANYTHING to people unfamiliar with the base material, and that gives newcomers nothing to care about. spirits still showed aspects of games id never heard of, yet i have never heard anybody check out a series just because smash bros showed them a PNG of the game's main character. its a perfect example of the difference a description can make in getting people to get a bit intrigued about a character, since i found trophies to be a lot more effective just by having a description. its the perfect comparison just from a replacement system from the same series especially seeing as this video was made before ultimate was revealed, it goes to show that the point with tommy carries weight, and thats cool
Some really good advice in the video, especially for me who does a lot of Original characters, but that brings me to something i might ought to note out! As far as am concerned, Original characters does not need to be a self-insert, though that is a common thing to do. Even though all of your OC's always hold some part of you (due to them being made up from your ideas), they don't need to be a peticular reflection of your, or something alike. A lot of Original characters, are simply normally created character with perhap the purpose of entertaining the creator, that be in their own written universe or alike. The ones put into another existing fictional work (such as fanfiction) Is something one would classify as a fan-character :-) I really enjoy your videos by the way, super entertaining and usefull content!
Aimi Freja Trang Lindshouw yep, that's what I meant about them sometimes being a self insert. The main point of this video is that these characters usually are only meant for their creator, like you said.
Ah, Alright - I misunderstood it then i believe :-) Self-Insert is to my understanding often used to describe a character, which is pretty much a 'copy-paste' og idolized version of the creator :-)
I think he may have meant a way of inserting your own self made character into a preexisting subject. Eg, a completely original star trek character would still be self inserted, as he is not canon.
People have to apologize in their own videos for voicing their opinion to avoid offending the fragile feelings of some who are not satisfied with their lives... this is the world we live in.
+Ali Reyes ive made enough videos to know it takes literally nothing to offend some folks, unfortunately. Went overkill in this one to at least attempt to cover my bases. Wholly agree with you, though!
hey i need advice on a story I'm thinking of writing. I think it might be to complicated and farfetched but I still just love the consept. so basically a long time ago there was a black whole ready to destroy the universe, but nine heros sacrificed them self for the sake of existence and in a catostophic event, the universe was rewritten. (just saying, I'm still working on this part.) and now planets, and stars, constellations, etc have human counterparts. well not really humans. its like the planets and stars but made into a human like creatures. they rule over their planet and protect it. yes they had magical like abilities. if a planet orbits a star then that star rules over that planet. also zodiac constellations such as sagittarius, gemini, etc are all actual beings who are like divine beings. gods basically. the other constilations are like warriors in a way. the protect the stars. stars are alot like the planets but they actually age in a star way, and all of the stars in our galaxy are sorted into different houses. like there's the house of sagittarius and house of Gemini. with the stars it's a bit like a dystopia because all of the stars in one house basically act the same and dress the same and there's only minor differences between them. also all houses of the stars are very secluded, like they don't communicate much. especially not with planets. stars don't know planets or constelations and planets don't know stars or constlations sorry if this is super complicated or just a bit confusing, but you have to under stand, im trying to find order in space. and this isn't even getting into the main story. Which I might get tell you about in a reply commet to this one
The point about context is an enriching one. True characters react with their environment, too such an extent that when you first look at it you expect a certain plot point to occur. Like a cop and a robber (you expect a chase). These expectations that you insinuate at is how the audience connects with the characters and the story. But the thing is, too hold their attention you have too offer an expectation that is juicy. So if you show batman fighting killer croc, (the audience will think batman escapes) but what if you go against this expectation and show batman bruised, no tool belt and killer croc is looming over him like a giant. They still expect batman to escape but they see a whole kaleidoscope of an action scene before he does so, Juicy!
I have four primary Roleplay and Original characters I use very often, each one with their own quirks and aspects(These are EXTREMELY dumbed down versions of them): 1. Silver Gen Witcher, he wears mostly white and light grey clothing(and has a signature grey scarf that usually masks his face). He is the oldest of my characters. He's very easy to get passive-aggressive, and is usually sarcastic. He also has, as you could guess, silver hair and eyes. 2. Michael, my only character without a defined last name, but by far the most intricate. His clothing array is vast, and you never really see him wearing the same thing. His hair is jet black, eyes a light blue. Very flirtatious, outgoing, and most often his actions are governed by his whim. 3. Ryan(or "en" as opposed to "an") Furn, a red-haired, green eyed genius who is very well-versed in problem solving. He tends to keep to himself and is generally awkward and finicky. His clothing also varies, but he typically wears hoodies and jeans that give him a very "delinquent"ish vibe. He is the youngest of my characters. 4. Jack Legend(or Legion depending on his iteration) is the tallest, blonde and has abnormally purple eyes. He's usually wearing strictly formal clothing. His personality can be reflected as "chivalrous" and overall kind, but this also makes him somewhat naive. Again, INSANELY dumbed down characters.
This is something I've had to come to grips with over the years as a Sonic The Hedgehog fan writer with a stable of original characters. Once you get past that "Ebony Dark'ness Dementia Raven Way" phase, it gets really fun trying to come up with new characters and scenarios to put within a world. If I could offer some advice it would be this: You can make fan characters for a series without having them be related to the original characters from the series. If they know or are related to the original cast in some way then more power to you if you can make it work, but there's no rule saying they HAVE to know each other or that they HAVE to interact. You can make up your own ensemble of characters and your own rouge's gallery and STILL have it take place within the established world. Once I realized that, I really began to grow and have fun as a writer.
It's hard to be "original" anymore. I accidentally made a story whose outline was the exact same as the Shatter Me series when I strip them down to the bones. I didn't even know that series existed. So, with my OCs, I learned not to get too fussy about "originality", it's a character. I love them as if they were my own kids but there must be a distance between your actual life and your creations.
I think you did a very good job of providing very constructive advice without being abrasive. Your channel is a HUGE help! I really like the part about how giving a "bio" may be useful for yourself, but to publish it for others to view, it's pretty weak, and story context provides a much more organic, interesting format for someone to become invested in. It reminds me of reading the back of a novel, it doesn't just give you bullet points on why you should be interested, but it offers a premise that is (hopefully) well-written in itself.
...I get a healing vibe from listening to you in every of your videos. Like a surge of confidence. Thank you. And I'd love to participate in your game character design course. It sounds awesome.
As a self-proclaimed character artist, I have a ton of original characters. Although, a lot of what you've highlighted here I've learned over the years of drawing. And I've had to learn that sometimes I will be the only person who cares about my characters, and that's ok.
Is that background music Cosmic Cove from Mario Galaxy 2? EDIT: Hot dang, it is. I used to play that map all the time. Skating around is just so relaxing.
5:37 I want T-shirts of them. I love their design because each character has their own personality and looks as if they have a story to them that makes them interesting in so many ways I can't explain without going into detail as of why but I'll tell you this; first impressions can make you care as in presentation is often more important than representation.
My original character started out as a character I made for roleplay purposes on a game called Furcadia back in 1996. At the time, he was a generic prince, an anthropomorphic wolf. Over time, I began building on that, as the roleplays I got into with him were the most entertaining compared to other of my characters. I began pulling elements from some of my favorite things: Egyptian mythology, the 8 Virtues and medieval settings of the Ultima series, angels and demons, and from there I began creating a much more in depth character. I began building out, creating the characters he associated with, a brother, a lover, childhood friends, protectors, parents. Form there I created the land he lived on and have been crafting the story that centers around him, followed by ideas of a sequel that focuses on his children, and a prequel history that explains the importance of the Silvermyst royal bloodline, the 'Age of Unity' that brought the many tribes under one banner. And that original character over time has become my fursona, an anthropomorphic representation of myself in a medieval-fantasy setting. At present I'm trying to take all of my ideas and story and translate it into a novel or series of novels, though trying to come up with enough material to make it a good and lengthy read is proving a bit difficult.
This was very helpful! I'm working on designing characters for future projects, but I do also have characters I use for things like D&D, costume design, and illustration. Oh, and I love your new OC!
That's why I do not have "OC"s. They are just characters, they have their flaws and goods. They are based in concepts that have been done before. Adding my own spice to the mix, and trying to imagine how is their personality. What do they like, what do they dislike, fav food, what music they listen, how are their relatives, what relashonships do they have, how do they treat other people. Creating Characters is sooooo fun!!!
Hi Brookes, This may be a question easily answered with a quick search, but I'd love to see a video done by you on finding outlets for "publishing." For example, what are the various ways of publishing comics? I know there are blog sites and portfolio sites, but you can also explore the pros and cons of each. I've been wanting to publish a few comic strips just to get myself started, but don't which sites to sign up with.
I love my characters so much, and ever since I started posting about their stories online, people actually care about them??? And it makes me so happy, I can't wait till I start posting their actual comic!!
Overdesigning your character is a big problem in the oc community, if you're making an oc for a show, anime, or franchise then you should make your character seem just as designed as the others. Simplicity is key, and i really appreciate you making this video. I always see overdesigned oc's and sometime's it can be annoying, because they're more likely to be a mary sue's. It's important for your oc to have flaws, weaknesses and bad habits. One thing i've found that can help is to draw your oc into the actual show you' ve based it off of, if it looks natural then you should be good.
I've been susbcribed for about 20 minutes, and I honestly do want a Parcel T-shirt, she's freaking adorable, and her little story you shared in the character clothing video made me like her even more.
I have a big problem with 5:44: my characters in my fan comic may be based on characters in an existing universe. Obviously, it's a fanfic written as a comic (a fan comic), but all of the characters are new and based off of different races within the universe (with adjustments to help distinguish between them if they are the same race). However, while these characters, along with a couple of subplots and world concepts, may have SOME connection to previously existing characters, such a connection hardly contributes to the plot. Afterall, my comic is pretty much an entirely new story arc that is meant to continue events in the universe, set years after the last arc has occurred, and mentions the past storylines as "historical events." Because of all this, are my characters and/or fancomic subject to a pitfall because all I am doing is just copy and pasting an existing universe even though I have my own spin on the entire arc and on the events that occur within the universe?
I'm practicing my skills for when I do Overwatch alternative universe comics but I want the animation to be high quality. My main OC is Travis here is his biography and a link to a drawing: When he was 5 he was amazed by skaters at Pedlow. However, gangs of omnics are a looming threat in the region as humans being racist reinforce and confirm that humans are their enemies. When he was 10 he read about a 12 year old Haitian skating prodigy Miguel who would go on to win gold in the Olympics in freestyle skateboarding at the ages of 12 and 16. When Travis finally meets him in the 2070's at the age of 18 and Miguel is 20. Miguel is stuck up to him and looks down upon him. Travis however narrowly defeats Miguel taking Gold and then steals all of Miguel's sponsors leaving him behind as a washed up has been. The gap between winning skateboarding Olympic Gold and joining an international peace force (Overwatch) is a big one. Travis's story also ties in with The Waffler (who was a child prodigy whose class was killed during a raid on a waffle house by omnics and is now a 22 year old waffle themed superhero whose theme was inspired by a war vet waffle cook who saved his life) and Brittany who is an environmentalist from Sherman Oaks whose parents were killed by an omnic that was a family friend they trusted but he was hacked by an organization that was being investigated by her parents they were killed in Joshua Tree National Park which would be an awesome Overwatch map. So he might join Overwatch through them. The Waffler's transition into the group seems the least forced due to Overwatch talent scouts seeing his college record (he graduated at 15) and how his weaponized waffles and batter can be a huge asset to their cause from healing to a few seconds of speed boost to stunning an enemy making nearby enemies slower for 2 seconds.
I know links need to be approved so I'm linking the pictures now. One is with lineart and the other without: imgur.com/a/NvZsR Sorry if the Miguel rivalry doesn't sound clear in the picture I'm updating it so the structure and timeline is clearer I know I want Travis to be 20 during the main timeline, Miguel 2 years older than him, and know that the Olympics is every 4 years so I need to change some dates to be more in line with the main Overwatch timeline. Wait: -Miguel wins at 12 then wins again at 16 -Miguel faces Travis when he's 20 making Travis 18 -Travis wins Gold in freestyle skateboarding at 18. This will give a two year transition between winning Olympic gold and joining Overwatch at 20.
very interesting. I usually label myself as a "dragonball" artist but at the same time i understood that these characters that i love so much that i worked super hard on, and establishing a story around them, wouldn't go very far because they're rooted not only in their design, but also they're insporation in something that has already been done. it's a real shame too. I love drawing in that dragonball style and even though i could leave my own signature or artist fingerprint, it's still (at its basis) someone else's style. its pretty hard to branch off and run my way into doing something truly original simply because i have decide whether or not i try to make something cool and new or continue to do something i love and enjoy. Its a struggle that's for sure.
4:56 A middle option before an animation, story or comic for the OC is to remember to include *context* in your original character picture. "Tommy" is just standing there so we don't know anything about him beyond his appearance. Even a single illustration can tell us a lot about a character if you *show* us Tommy juggling icecream. Even basic things like *put them in a character-appropriate pose* make a big difference.
Your sweet, precious baby boy Tommy is so much more of a compelling, well-rendered design than it's inspiration. XD It's has so much more personality LMAO.
Many drawing OC intend it to be stand alone. And understandably that makes them hard to connect with since there is no story behind them. I try to minimize this problem with the use of background to tell more of a story without going in to a animation or comic. What's your opinion on this?
I enjoy making characters that kind of blend in more actually. Like, I could make a character with some special secret, but they'd otherwise be normal where possible. Because making all your characters super special all of the time just isn't fun.
When I tell people about my character's they tend to listen for as long as they have to and then change the subject. When I sit down to draw a comic panel or write a scene with my characters, taking full advantage of my knowledge over them, the people I show those pieces to want to know more about them. There's a difference between telling people a character is x, y, z and showing them a character is x, y, z. (This can also be applied to vocal storyteling, I just have an easier time writing)
I am struggling with describing my characters I can write scenes with them and I know how they will react but I don't know how to describe them What is a good exercise to work on character descriptions ?
I struggle with that too! Although between describing and writing scenes, you have the better problem! Try writing descriptions for people you know in real life as if they were characters. Try describing your best friend first as the hero of a story, then again as the villain. Let me know how that works for you!
i have this problem where i’ll make my side character before the main character- and i only make the main character because I know that i need one, so i end up barely caring about my main character, but write a long complicated backstory for my side character😭😭
(I'm the 666th comic lol!) But seriously, I like the fact that you bring up something of a "show don't just tell" point for #3; I don't see how some people can have OC's without them being in a stiry, but that's just me. I have characters for a story, but I also struggle with graphic storytelling and I also struggle with lineart compared to digital painting, which only makes it harder to create it in an interesting way.
Thank you so much for your videos, they have helped me a lot (and my dad, who is an author, approves of your channel, and I'm quite sure you're the only TH-camr he's approved of so far)! :)
I love creating OC's. I also love creating new worlds and new stories and stuff... but let's be honest here: taking an already existig universe and story and main cast and just adding something is way easier. So I tend to write smaller FanFiction... And I even when writing my own stories tend to use two main questions before I create a character: the first thing is: What do I want to do with the character? Because after years of inventing characters I absolutely felll in love with, just to realize that I'm quite bad at coming up with a plot, I decided that the plot - not in detail but the overall idea - should come first. And then it's just... let's say even great likeable and believable characters might not get your story going. If you want your character to do something important in the plot, and you know that already you can very much create your character with that purpose in mind. If you want to create a late hero, you can make him jump to action very slowly and lazily from the very start. Then it's more believeable that he wouldn't appear at the battle field immediately. If you on the other hand make a character that is very energetic and always jumps to conlcusions early, you really have to give him some solid reason why he's not the first on the battlefield. If you're writing a love story, I always think its ridiculous when the strong, confident and mature protagonist suddenly turns into a studdering fool, or the other way round, if the shy, quiet and easily impressed maid suddenly gets all confident. If you want a love story to progress fast, it's easier to acutally start of with two characters who are more mature and confident, rather than two young, studdering fools who'd spent the first 200 pages dancing around each other. If you want it to go slow, go with the shy and inexperienced characters. so that's always the first thing I look at: What do I want my characters to do during the course of the story? Because if I don't and least consider this a factor, I regularly end up with a bunch of characters who just refuse to go the way I want them to go, because it's just not in their characters. Not everything can be easily motivated and manipulated by setting, and it's easier I think, if you don't have to fight against your own characters every time they have to make a decisio. The second is: What motivates them? And this is really the core of my characters. Unlike you, I don't take layers away from my characters, but I start from the core and then lay layer upon layer over this core. There are more straight forward and honest characters, who don't really have many layers. And then there are the more complicated ones, that have layer upon layer upon layer upon layer.... And especially with 'liars' you can easily add more layers to the character to completely desgise what's at it's core. Once I know, what the character is all about, I can work around that as much as I want, I think. And in the story, it always gives me the possibility to peel the character like an onion and one layer after the other take everything away from him until I'm back at the core and can start rearranging.
"Dear Diary, I am forlorn to discover that literally no one cares about by Baby Boy Tommy" I am literally in love with tommy that is the hardest ive laughed all day its so absurd and good and that was such a well executed joke AND example that because of that I actually seriously ADORE tommy please make more tommy content
So I agree that when making a character you do need to show the story of the character rather than just telling someone it if you want to generate interest. That said there are quite a few times I've seen really cool pictures online, I go to the description to find out what is going on, who are these people, what are these people, and there's like nothing there so I can't learn more about the picture. I think the image should be the invitation to learn more.
Hey, Brookes, I hope that you periodically look back and read comments, 'cause I have some input that I'd really like to get across: 1) Great video, salient points, thoughtful, true . . . You did the thing. 2) You needn't be so apologetic! Like I said, you make solid, thoughtful points, and we need to value criticism and education more than we do. If we get offended, it's most likely more your fault than yours. 3) A bit of context might help you understand the whole "biography introduction" deal, which sounded like something of a foreign entity to you: That pitfall (or perceived pitfall) has a stronger cultural backing than you most likely realize, for better or worse. * On one level, those little bios are basically "Johnny's first attempt at character development," ya' dig? Often enough, people who design these OCs (or, uh, "OCs," if you get my drift) aren't looking to make a novel character, but they don't want it to be just an appearance either. Those bios can sometimes be just a little bit of emotional investment on their own part, to just the same self-serving motivation as the drawing. That part seems pretty self-explanatory, but people also use bios like that as a sort of char development springboard, eventually building into something that more people would be interested in. Now, I'm not necessarily saying that they \should/, especially because people tend to dig themselves into ruts of following their checklists, patterns, and self-imposed restrictions that they feel they made when they first wrote a bio, but it is what people do, and it does sometimes work out as a fine char baseline. They do have to work beyond them, though; you're right. * On another level, they're memes. They're templates. They're copy pasta. People just do things that way because that's what all their favorite DeviantArtists do. I don't feel like I need to say much to drive that point home; you know how that goes. * On yet another level, though, those little bios can be exactly perfect and even necessary for what they intend to do, usually under the context of role-playing. Usually, in an RP, it is understood that character development should occur more through the collaborative story than your individually written backstory . . . so you don't make much of one. I mean, I don't think that a "likes this, dislikes that, personality in one word is this, here's all of \one or two/ defining character traits" template is the right way to go about it, but keeping things brief at the start is a conscious design choice in some contexts. - I don't mean to just make a shameless plug for my own site, but on Seinvocc, when you make a character, we require you to establish three things: your inventory (everything you own from the start of your adventure), your abilities (not like running, fishing, or other mundane things, but all the special, magical/metaphysical, wonky stuff, plus our own stats and parameters system that makes it easy for everyone to establish their strengths and weaknesses and maintain balance), and your bio. Even for the really combat-focused characters, you need a bio, 'cause if we don't care about your char design at all, we're not gonna' feel up to even a casual spar with ya'. Your development should occur more through gameplay than your individual writing by far, but it can't be 100% through gameplay because we don't have enough of a base from which to evaluate your decisions and mannerisms as anything more than random displays of tropes. I don't care whether your bio's a brief list of the important bits (what you are, what you look like, height, weight, and if not a local, where you're from and how you got here, and preferably some aspiration that you hold, or else you'd best figure one out in gameplay in a hurry) or a small novel-length backstory of excruciating detail, but we need something. I tell you this to make the case that the context of being in a low end of the character's developmental spectrum does give people a valid reason to have a simplistic bio . . . but also to agree with and exemplify the fact that even the brief bios should be written to give the readers \something/ to draw upon, some reason to care, some mutually understood foundation for your char development. 4) Just have to add some tips to that last point: If you're intentionally just making this OC to fit into this pre-established context and you're okay with the fact that it'll always stay that way, \know your shit/ of that context! * Portraying your character to have relationships of any kind with established characters that wouldn't make sense (girlfriend of this happily married, straight, female character, mortal enemy to your boyfriend's best friend, best friends with the villain that would totally kidnap you and use you to get to the protagonist boyfriend, a combination of the above . . .) is the easiest way to earn scorn and/or apathy. Know how to keep the internal rules of the universe consistent (Your Fallout character can't be totally immortal and passively purify all radiation in a five-mile radius. Your Final Fantasy mage can't cast all the spells for 0 MP except in the same conditions that others can. Your Sonic character can't go super at will unless you're talking about a much more limited "super" mode than the chaos-empowered kind.) and \do keep them/. It's okay to make some little exceptions, moreso in some settings than others (Explain Explosion Man in Avatar: The Last Airbender. You can't? Neither can the author! He's an intentional break from the system. That's part of why he's so scary; the laws of the universe are internally consistent and well-known, and here's some random exception out of nowhere. That's a conscious decision, and because the author made it okay for there to be an exception, it wouldn't hurt if your char had something abnormal like that too. Just don't get carried away.), but the more that you go out of your way to break the rules so that your special snowflake can work the way that you want, the more your readers are going to rightfully tell you to just work from your own damn setting. * Know the story and characters, all the characters, like the backside of your hand. If you want your OC's setting to have differences from the true canon, fine, that's okay, but \establish them/. State the differences as differences. In fact, keep an individual "Canon vs. Headcanon" document somewhere or something. Don't just state that Ramza and Delita got along at the end of the events of FFT, and you're the son of Delita and godson of Ramza, so blah blah \you/ stuff; state before anyone has the chance to read that stuff that you're intentionally deviating from the established canon, and here are the differences in as nice and neat a format as you can manage, so \then/, with that out of the way, here's your OC and how he fits into this new paradigm. You can really have a lot of fun with this as long as you do it right. It starts with understanding the scope of your project (Again, it's never going to stop being a part of something that you don't own. You would have to pretty much totally rewrite it just to use it as a sort of spin-off base.), moves to establishing any canon differences, and then just making sense so that people aren't completely alienated.
ivaldi13 Brilliant! Personally, I am a roleplayer, and on our site we make excruciatingly in-depth pages for our characters. Absolutely anything you could possibly want to know is on their page, and that includes their personality, appearance, powers (should they have any), backstory, and more. I personally am a fan of bios for the reason that first they can be updated as you develop and roleplay with your character as they change.
Your videos are great as always. Is there any good way to begin making a character? I keep getting stuck at the art, and if I don't like it, I don't go through with any personality or giving the character any motivations or anything like that. I have more ideas when working with others but I want to try making my own. Can someone help me break this cycle and find a better place to start?
I will spend a few minutes coming up with a short original character. His name is Jack. He is sixteen and works in a Game stop. He is a villain character though is very good at hiding it. He likes to scratch up gaming disks when no one is looking. He is also responsible for merchandise being behind the counter out of sight instead of visible. :D
The people at Team Ninja could've used this advice when coming out with new characters for DOA5 Honoka and Marie Rose..... I have no idea who the hell they are, what their story is, why they're fighting, etc...... and the result is I don't care about them, and so I rarely pick them... and other people say, "Yeah, but they're hot, what else do you need?" PERSONALITY!
A complex backstory helps you make informed decisions about your characters personality, their personal demons or skeletons in their closet, how they might react to any given situation etc, but unless you’re actually going to tell that backstory as a story in its own right then it’s best left in your series bible.
I have a lot of OCs, but I use them to make different types of AUs (alternate universe). All of them used to be fan characters, but once I grew older and learned a lot more things, I fixed them up and gave them more attention (they're no longer cringy fan characters .-.). I also consider them as my secondary family.
If you want to pursue a career in character design, don't feel deterred from creating characters that are connected to pre-established universes in your free time. This video seems to suggest that this is counterproductive but I say follow the things that inspire you. It'll at least be an avenue for improvement and decent works can be included in portfolios etc
+Alannah Nothing wrong with doing it for fun, but I will interject that including “fan character from the Star Wars Universe/Sonic Universe/Voltron Universe” will absolutely hit a weird spot with recruiters if they’re included in a portfolio. It’s an awkward spot between original idea and rendering of an existing idea. I don’t think it would get as much traction as either of those, and has a good chance to deter some interested in hiring you. YMMV.
Alannah The quality isn’t really the hinging factor in what I’m saying, though. OCs based in existing IPs just aren’t going to get you the same traction and will repel people looking to hire you. I mention this because you’re challenging the message and point of the video from a viewpoint that’s problematic. At no point did I say you shouldn’t make whatever you want, but if you want an artistic career doing this, there are dos and donts for presenting yourself professionally.
I'm not challenging the point of the video. I'm encouraging the pursuit of inspiration. There's no need to get defensive. I received an impression from what you've stated here and attempted to reassure anyone that had received a similar impression. If I were a novice in the industry I'd feel somewhat ashamed of the fan content that I had created and would consequently cease displaying them to others. However, I happen to know better than to be ashamed and thus saw it as my duty to point out that the stigma against such works is often misguided.
+Alannah Not defensive, just wary of keeping “actually” style comments under videos that spread misinformation and possibly cancel out or undercut the point of a video. Pursuit of inspiration and what’s included in a portfolio are separate realms.
This video reminds me of this one time I stumbled across an art account on Instagram who made ocs and all they literally did was recolor steven universe characters on paper and say it was based off that character and they were a lighting element or whatever.
I've made a couple of characters for a personal project, but sometimes, I feel like I need some feedback to see if they're OK or I should improve something about them, the design or backstory. My friends like the concepts but some external check might be OK. Is there a place where I can share it?
“OC” described through how they react in situations. Yes! Take that to the next step. How do you get that description into a story faster so the audience wants to invest more time with it?
I have an oc when he was a kid his parents were murdered and he got all their money except he was the one that killed his parents and became a psychopath so he obviously doesn't want to be a psycho so he does whatever he can to be normal. is that original enough?
When making an OC, I make sure to not involve them with the main characters. No long lost family members or anything like that. I make their story only intersect with the main story if it means my characters won't have to interact with the main characters. It makes it feel as though the characters could exist in the world, but the story doesn't focus on them, so we never see them. I'll only make them weird withing the confines that it is physically possible due to context clues that can be found, but even then I avoid it. Otherwise, they are normal in the way that they don't have any off the wall physical traits. If they have powers, there is a counter balance to make them a balanced fighter. Most of their originality comes from their back stories, because guess what... and this is a secret... Not Everyone's Parents Have TO Die. Seriously. Every single one. I mean, you can make the parents abusive and/or heartless. You could even make them ditch their kid on the side of the road, but saying that the parents died at two doesn't make an emotional connection. Even writing that they never knew their parents, and that they never knew why is an acceptable excuse, just make what actually happened in their life, happen in some realistic or reasonable way. Clothing fits the environment they live in, and is bound to change, because while someone can have an iconic outfit, people do change clothes. In Percy Jackson, they have a standard orange Camp Half-Blood t-shirt that is excusable, because they sell them in the camp store in bulk. It's excusable when they are on a long journey and don't have a change of clothes, but at least give them the sense to wash them. I avoid edgy characters. They can be annoying and awkward to read about, because they act either so much better than everyone else, or just jerks in general. Or they act all aloof and unaware of how much they are doing wrong to push people away. Give them a personality. No one personality trait and that's it. That's not how people work. People can be complete robots, but at least give them an out, something that makes them seem human. Maybe a kick butt girlfriend or a family member they have to take care of. Older family members generally hide emotions away to look stronger if they feel they have to support the family.
Amazing man! I watched all of your videos and all are fabulous but i am just giving a suggestion which you can apply to your videos i am saying that if you will make your videos with some type of animation in between then your channel will grow much faster because in today's world most of the people like to learn things differently ( And the most interesting way to learn is animation ).
All of them? This is a very old video- you might want to see some of the more recent ones. Animating a weekly video on top of the rest of the work it already takes to produce them might be the least realistic suggestion for something feasible. I am an animator, but for example, the pilot for a series im working on comes out later this year. Animating every week wouldnt leave hours to sleep or eat.
@@CharacterDesignForge yaa i understand that its too difficult to animate.....................not because of it is hard but it takes a lot of time. Well , As an animator (Going to start my own new animation channel with a different channel name) i gave a suggestion that you should make a short animations (that you can edit and fix in between of your video) for examples because it will be quiet easy to understand your words clearly. Well thanks for your reply 🤗
Most of my "OCs" live in a different dimension. Like you swim to the bottom of a lake and there's a wooden latch that leads to it. I have an entire town of experiments and it has a lot of work that needs to be done with it to become more acceptable but it's getting there. Also I do have demigods and gods and it's a bit crowded but I can't help it. the only immortals OC I have is my gods and goddesses but I only have two and I don't even use one of them. I love my OCs and can't wait to make them more realistic
Is that Super Mario Galaxy music I hear in the background at about 1:05? Listen closely, I think it is. Nice touch! Very informative video! I always enjoy your videos. They are quite helpful to me. :)
IM NOT SONIC, IM MY OWN ORIGINAL CHARACTER BLONIC
Super Nintendo HOW EMBARASSING. PEOPLE REALLY NEED TO GET THEIR FACTS STRAIGHT.
Brookes Eggleston - Character Design Forge I'LL SAY
His blue is slightly edgier than boring old regular sonic.
Ugh my character sonik is better
I call him Sonix, he's faster than sonic... but not as strong"
A note about people that put long bios with their character art for "no reason" is that sometimes it's used for roleplaying, so in that sense it does have a use.
It’s sort of like a reference point. 😋
i do not need to know about what kind of shoes your original character blonic likes wearing
But when roleplaying won't the others get to know that character better through shared experience and interaction?
@@ramu-silly You make a valid point. I agree not all bios are bad news, in fact I think sharing some information is necessary. But not all execute a basic bio in a way that is not a little grueling to read or discourages others from interacting. But what you are saying I think is that the quality of the bio itself can help you gauge your expectations about the person you will be roleplaying with just as much as with the character itself.
🤔
@@ramu-silly I think a bio should be only as long as it needs to be to convey what the other person needs to know about the character's motivations and lifestyle. At least the most easily accessable bio that you would find in or under the referance image. If the person wants to know more about the character the creator could write a more in depth bio somewhere else. But if the person is just looking over the character for a quick idea of who it is, I think the bio should be succinct and not include many useless details that are not vital to the character as a person
Overdesigning is a huge problem on the internet. Heck, it's a problem in general. Your toaster doesn't need wifi. And your character doesn't need 4 tattoos, 15 piercings, 2 different eye colours and wings...
I'd love to design the mascot of my band in the future and your videos are really helpful.
Who says my toaster doesn't need wifi? I might start a new trend: pictures of my food before it's even cooked!
What about some wifi bars on a robot?
BUT WHAT IF IT DOES
Now seriously, I have a character I specifically made to be a parody of the OC parodies of the internet, and I hate drawing her full body because it's too much for my liking, but I really love how weird she looks and I can't bring myself to change her now 😂
*angry gacha tubers have joined the chat*
Hey Melva! Just checking in, have you designed the band character? If yes, can we see it?
5:47 Okay, so lemme tell you something: there was this girl I knew who was in love with her "OC" ("original" character). Found a way to work her into all most any conversation. One day I made the mistake of asking about the character. Found out, and I kid you not, this character was Harry Potter's long lost twin sister who Dumbledore took to Japan, has had many voyages aboard the Starship Enterprise, and is best friends with Slenderman. I told her that her character wasn't very original, and she lost her freakin' mind. She would probably lose her mind watching this video.
But this video is very informative, so maybe she should watch it. All novice character creators should! You explain things very plainly and are very easy to understand.
Oh jeez! I hope she realizes that it's awful.
Effeffia Gonalick good story
Effeffia Gonalick why. is she 10 or something
Sheesh...even at my worst OC creating as a teenager, I wasn't THAT bad! I feel less embarrassed now xD
Nope. This was freshman or sophomore year of high school. She was older than me, so she would've been about 16. I just hope she's better at handling criticism now, that's what bugged me more than the character. We all have made bad characters, it's just when a person can't take criticism that we truly have a problem.
1:54 batman is basically zorro, lion king is hamlet w/ animals, west side story is romeo and juliet set in the 50s, don't get too hung up on 100% originality just add what you can to a story
We need Baby Boy Tommy shirts and pants.
Combinemon youre onto something with the pants
Combinemon don't forget the hats! :P
TOMMY SOCKS
NeoJ and baby boy tommy underwear!
I draw the line at socks of another character. I won't do undies.
I do think the best way to design and develop characters is to use them in stories. My characters always get the best results when I show them talking, interacting with other characters, and solving problems.
That said, sometimes you just gotta draw a character just to get him out there and give you some context to work with. And in those times adding a simple character description is about all you can do for the moment.
Agreed!
From looking at the comments a lot of people like Tommy, that probably wasn't supposed to happen.
Kirbycat 241 it wasn't, but welcome to the internet. Never tell people what not to like 😂
He is an intriguing little doodle boy
I mean, I made a doodle of a tree on my math homework and I liked it so much I cut it out and put it in my keep folder. Your true love(s) can can crawl out of the strangest wormholes, smack you in the face, call you stupid, and run off merrily into the distance and you'd thank them for it. Or appear on your math homework. Or anything really. Point being, they can come from weird places and surprise you.
I really struggle with telling story with characters. The idea of making a comic, animation, or game seem so daunting to the point I've repeatedly just decided to start from scratch and design new characters, get discouraged or distracted and start again.
Have you tried writting? If you want to, I reccomend starting with short tales.
That happens to me all the time too. 😓
Iv'be being ranking the same character for 3 years now
This is a very relatable comment.... Since you wrote this 3 years ago, I hope you are in a better place creatively now, but I am looking to overcome some of these same challenges.
@@aiiiia9971 Oof, I'm not. I do have a lot of unfinished games now.
Tommy reminds me of a infamous Original character called Sonichu...
Tommy is the MOST ORIGINAL and INSPIRED character I have no idea what you're talking about ;)
Lol so I wasn't the only one who was reminded of Pikachu.
I LOVE THE SONICHU COMIC I BOUGHT ALL THE BODY-PILLOWS (end my life)
I thought it was a mash-up of Yoshi, Pikachu and a cockatiel...
oh NO, not **shudder** christian weston chandler
So I am currently writing a novel with characters I have created myself and I think they are pretty original overall however when I take a look at other own stories and their characters I feel like originality is something which is hard to achieve in a short time. Building a character is not that hard what is hard is going through all the stages of recreation and adjustment until he/she is original. What do you think?
Hey there, hope you don't mind me giving a little advice! Like he said in the video, sometimes you have to move away from trying to make your character original, and just try to make them believable. How do they fit into the world you created, and what traits do they have related to it? Build upon their personality and their backstory leading up to the story. Don't compare your characters to other people's characters, but compare them to your own and try to make a diverse cast; sometimes coming up with how to make one of your characters different from another can lead to more original and interesting ideas.
And if you really want to avoid using overused tropes and traits that are often seen in original characters, look into that a bit. There's lists of character tropes that people tend to find overdone or boring, and while you may want to just avoid them, you can also put your own spin on these tropes to make them more original and give your characters life. In the end, everything is up to you-- pretty much every idea has been thought up at least once, but it's up to you how you want to make those ideas stand out and work for you!
Luna Raydue don't get me wrong when I said original I actually meant it in the way that the creator avoids these tropes and the character fits in its world. You can always get inspiration from other sources I did got inspired by many things too but there is a small gap between inspiration adaptation.
Jenna Moreci has a few videos on how to create original characters, if you want to take a quick look at them! I think the absolute longest one is around 15 minutes.
I didn't continue my novel because I thought it wasn't original.. And it became clichè too after 3 chapters..
I created a lot (way too many imo) characters for a project I'm not currently really serious about, and in the story there's a group of main characters around the protagonist being his friends. Now, they were the first to ever be created, and I thought of them to be completely original even in their names, so I picked up pieces of names or nouns that sounded cool and "unused" somehow and glued them all together. It was back in 2017, the very first steps of this "project", and the result was a disaster. They really sucked.
There is a point where you go to an acceptance that no matter what it is impossible to create something perfectly original (this acceptance is often spontaneous and not so damaging for your creativity). So without even realizing I changed almost every name, one of them being changed into Vectorblade, for example. I'm pretty sure I can find thousands of OCs around the world with this name, even characters from shows, but I don't care anymore. I just pictured the image of his blades on his arms and the energy and direction he puts into things, leading to choosing the vector.
I think the same goes for designs. To me, the approach is usually to brainstorm what you want on your character, then selectively fall and only choose what conveys the emotions and objectives your character has. It is possible that their objectives are forming and molding all along your creation of it and perfecting it, this will help you calibrate details and maybe even the color scheme. Constantly trying to search a balance.
This is all my self personal experience. I'm not a professionist or an art student (I in fact study agriculture), I just like to create characters and I'm really happy with this story in my head. Idk if this can help you anyways
I can definitely agree with the "context part"
I've had people seen me draw comics, and then we'd share interests, and I've definitely had people chat on about their story
low key, I'm more annoyed at them just ranting on when they do so, because, yes, the character is interesting, but I don't want to listen to their character, I want to watch their character, or at least read what are they doing rather than "what they did"
when people come up to me with their OCs, I try to push them to make it into something...
either that, or I show them one of your videos, either way is good
That's like every fangirl/fanboy story pitfalls you have there and that's so accurate. You might have forgotten about the "invincible character" syndrome though, but I might be wrong.
True!
When I was younger I made an "OC Donut steel" based on an anime I really liked... as I grew up, I took that character away from that and now I have him split into two characters in two completely separate worlds that I thought up myself... Those two characters are completely divorced from the "OC" I made years ago and I want to actually develop the stories more. I am not proud of that "OC" but I am proud of my current characters and the worlds I have built around them.
"There's no way for you to possibly care"..........I would immediately buy a Wanderlumin hat.
Kyle Transue Youre a treasure Kyle
Brookes Eggleston - Character Design Forge actually he's a Transue
"Sonic atrocities"
About damn time someone said it.
...
I love your sense of humor man oh my god,
Lucky Bebop 😂 haha thank you I always felt so formal in videos, have been trying to be more natural/how I am in everyday life lately. Appreciate that 😄
This was interesting because it kind of explains my growth as a writer from a different POV. Almost every young role player that RPs in written story form starts out with that "unique" phase where their character looks like a mixture of rainbows, teenage angst, and unicorn farts. My characters are a lot more "boiled down" now. They're less likely to have unnaturally colored physical features (and other clichés) unless it really fits their character. My characters still aren't top quality because they're made for an audience of just 2 (me and my friend), but they definitely are much better. So yeah, it was cool to see someone actually articulate the growing process that I went through over the years with my characters.
I used to do it as well except with a healthy dosage of “crawling iiiiin my skiiiiiin” XD
Ive gotten better over the years too, although there are likely many aspects in which I can improve on if you or I were to go professional.
3:02 ... anyone else want to try to actually make that an actual character design? Like, not a terrible one?
SAME
For some reason i feel like the 3 different colors in the hair is the one part that would make this very hard to accomplish and work with the rest of the design.
Nou bikus tatks alrredi gud
I'm on it
shizz is about to get real
I need more insight into Baby Boy Tommy. This character fascinates me.
we need to show tommy some love. #heartsforTommy
Sorry that I don't have anything constructive to say, I just want to express my appriciation for the time and effort you put into your incredible videos.
I feel like I'm a mildly mentally ill explosive mess, but you sir have inspired and grounded me. Thank you.
Thank you so much, Dale! I really appreciate that!
My pleasure mate! It's the truth. You have my support, keep building your dream!
Also, we've all got something going on mentally, so you aren't alone, but I'm really glad the way I walk through things has been helpful for you. Thanks so much!
The secret is don't steal ideas from one guy, steal from all! It's all fine if no one can tell ;)
Steal art from one person, it’s plagiarism. Steal art from one hundred people, it’s research
@@warlynx5644 Super wise.
@@warlynx5644 This.
SapsDrow originality is overrated
execution is what matters
Purple Insect I love this.
Drakorphobia thenks
+Purple Insect I agree. I also think, it kind of kills the joy of creating characters. Because you'll never achieve a character that has never been done before... the same goes for Plots ... and a little bit about some settings. There are so many books and movies and comics and and dramas or operas out there that nearly everything has been done before. and it just kills the joy of creating your own characters and worlds and writing your own story, if you start panicking every time you watch a new movie or read a new book and end up thinking "Oh shit, that guy is just like my character."
Ari33sa yep, it's all about if you did the concept (which has been done before) well, better, or worse, or even differently
There's nothing wrong about trying to do something different, but doing something different is way out of the field of originality
Trying to be something original would be like: this is my half-fox character, who doesn't have a tragic backstory, and uses flies a spaceship and is a coolheaded fighter pilot
While doing something different is like: This is a story about a demon being the main character, and where heaven is evil and hell is good
It's not original, demons vs angels story has definitely been milked to death, but the concept was taken to a different direction
It's all about the execution
I would like to see an updated version of this video
copy one artist, your a thief. Copy a hundred artists, it's new and original.
Tanks Explosions Anime Somebody needs to write that down.
Take from one source, its copying. but take from multiple sources, its research
Tanks Explosions Anime actually, that's basically what most people artists do, but they also take a lot from politics, history, mythology, theoretical ideas, real life struggles and people. It's when you combine all the elements in a way that no one has ever thought of before, yet makes complete sense, does art form.
Tanks Explosions Anime Steal 1 million dollars from 1 person and everyone knows. Steal 1 dollar from 1 million people and nobody will notice.
Tanks Explosions Anime th-cam.com/video/-FdKPEA17m4/w-d-xo.html
Dear Diary,Baby Boy Tommy has already accomplished more than I could ever dream of. That kid is going places. -Sincerely, Depressed
Seriously that was hilarious😂😂👏🏼 And i totally agree you should sell T shirts, that would be amazing. Also aside from Baby Boy genius, you made excellent points about creating a story with your character to chizzle away extra features and hone in on a unique identity. Another awesome video👏🏼👍🏼
3:53 if theres ANYTHING in media that i think basically proves this point, it would be spirits in super smash bros ultimate.
the previous super smash bros games had trophies, which were basically collectable 3D models that had a description of characters and items from some various video game series. what i loved about them was how the descriptions gave you a bit of context to what the character or item's role and function in their base series is, and it got me interested enough to try out quite a few series just to see how these described characters looked in practice. even if some of it was spoilers.
it made me interested enough in the base series that i'd never heard of to play games like earthbound, xenoblade, punch out, etc
in smash ultimate, the replacement system (spirits) have no descriptions, and barely even tell you which series they are from (i think its like, buried in menus). their only indications for character roles, personality, abilities, motives, etc are only done through crappy battles that sorta have resemblance to base material, and slight status effects or buffs when equipped as an item.
the aspect that trophy descriptions had, where they gave you a bit of context into the original series, is gone entirely. the clever references
and jokes dont mean ANYTHING to people unfamiliar with the base material, and that gives newcomers nothing to care about. spirits still showed aspects of games id never heard of, yet i have never heard anybody check out a series just because smash bros showed them a PNG of the game's main character.
its a perfect example of the difference a description can make in getting people to get a bit intrigued about a character, since i found trophies to be a lot more effective just by having a description. its the perfect comparison just from a replacement system from the same series
especially seeing as this video was made before ultimate was revealed, it goes to show that the point with tommy carries weight, and thats cool
Some really good advice in the video, especially for me who does a lot of Original characters, but that brings me to something i might ought to note out!
As far as am concerned, Original characters does not need to be a self-insert, though that is a common thing to do. Even though all of your OC's always hold some part of you (due to them being made up from your ideas), they don't need to be a peticular reflection of your, or something alike. A lot of Original characters, are simply normally created character with perhap the purpose of entertaining the creator, that be in their own written universe or alike.
The ones put into another existing fictional work (such as fanfiction) Is something one would classify as a fan-character :-)
I really enjoy your videos by the way, super entertaining and usefull content!
Aimi Freja Trang Lindshouw yep, that's what I meant about them sometimes being a self insert. The main point of this video is that these characters usually are only meant for their creator, like you said.
Ah, Alright - I misunderstood it then i believe :-)
Self-Insert is to my understanding often used to describe a character, which is pretty much a 'copy-paste' og idolized version of the creator :-)
I think he may have meant a way of inserting your own self made character into a preexisting subject.
Eg, a completely original star trek character would still be self inserted, as he is not canon.
Alex Drayko mhn, I realize that too now ^^
People have to apologize in their own videos for voicing their opinion to avoid offending the fragile feelings of some who are not satisfied with their lives... this is the world we live in.
+Ali Reyes ive made enough videos to know it takes literally nothing to offend some folks, unfortunately. Went overkill in this one to at least attempt to cover my bases. Wholly agree with you, though!
Those people really annoy me. They make me facepalm.
hey i need advice on a story I'm thinking of writing. I think it might be to complicated and farfetched but I still just love the consept.
so basically a long time ago there was a black whole ready to destroy the universe, but nine heros sacrificed them self for the sake of existence and in a catostophic event, the universe was rewritten. (just saying, I'm still working on this part.)
and now planets, and stars, constellations, etc have human counterparts. well not really humans. its like the planets and stars but made into a human like creatures. they rule over their planet and protect it. yes they had magical like abilities. if a planet orbits a star then that star rules over that planet.
also zodiac constellations such as sagittarius, gemini, etc are all actual beings who are like divine beings. gods basically. the other constilations are like warriors in a way. the protect the stars.
stars are alot like the planets but they actually age in a star way, and all of the stars in our galaxy are sorted into different houses. like there's the house of sagittarius and house of Gemini. with the stars it's a bit like a dystopia because all of the stars in one house basically act the same and dress the same and there's only minor differences between them. also all houses of the stars are very secluded, like they don't communicate much. especially not with planets. stars don't know planets or constelations and planets don't know stars or constlations
sorry if this is super complicated or just a bit confusing, but you have to under stand, im trying to find order in space.
and this isn't even getting into the main story.
Which I might get tell you about in a reply commet to this one
Jasper Knight Sounds cool!
Thats actually pretty cool, i'd totally read that
The point about context is an enriching one.
True characters react with their environment, too such an extent that when you first look at it you expect a certain plot point to occur. Like a cop and a robber (you expect a chase). These expectations that you insinuate at is how the audience connects with the characters and the story.
But the thing is, too hold their attention you have too offer an expectation that is juicy.
So if you show batman fighting killer croc, (the audience will think batman escapes) but what if you go against this expectation and show batman bruised, no tool belt and killer croc is looming over him like a giant. They still expect batman to escape but they see a whole kaleidoscope of an action scene before he does so, Juicy!
I have four primary Roleplay and Original characters I use very often, each one with their own quirks and aspects(These are EXTREMELY dumbed down versions of them):
1. Silver Gen Witcher, he wears mostly white and light grey clothing(and has a signature grey scarf that usually masks his face). He is the oldest of my characters. He's very easy to get passive-aggressive, and is usually sarcastic. He also has, as you could guess, silver hair and eyes.
2. Michael, my only character without a defined last name, but by far the most intricate. His clothing array is vast, and you never really see him wearing the same thing. His hair is jet black, eyes a light blue. Very flirtatious, outgoing, and most often his actions are governed by his whim.
3. Ryan(or "en" as opposed to "an") Furn, a red-haired, green eyed genius who is very well-versed in problem solving. He tends to keep to himself and is generally awkward and finicky. His clothing also varies, but he typically wears hoodies and jeans that give him a very "delinquent"ish vibe. He is the youngest of my characters.
4. Jack Legend(or Legion depending on his iteration) is the tallest, blonde and has abnormally purple eyes. He's usually wearing strictly formal clothing. His personality can be reflected as "chivalrous" and overall kind, but this also makes him somewhat naive.
Again, INSANELY dumbed down characters.
This is something I've had to come to grips with over the years as a Sonic The Hedgehog fan writer with a stable of original characters. Once you get past that "Ebony Dark'ness Dementia Raven Way" phase, it gets really fun trying to come up with new characters and scenarios to put within a world.
If I could offer some advice it would be this: You can make fan characters for a series without having them be related to the original characters from the series. If they know or are related to the original cast in some way then more power to you if you can make it work, but there's no rule saying they HAVE to know each other or that they HAVE to interact. You can make up your own ensemble of characters and your own rouge's gallery and STILL have it take place within the established world. Once I realized that, I really began to grow and have fun as a writer.
It's hard to be "original" anymore. I accidentally made a story whose outline was the exact same as the Shatter Me series when I strip them down to the bones. I didn't even know that series existed.
So, with my OCs, I learned not to get too fussy about "originality", it's a character. I love them as if they were my own kids but there must be a distance between your actual life and your creations.
I think you did a very good job of providing very constructive advice without being abrasive. Your channel is a HUGE help! I really like the part about how giving a "bio" may be useful for yourself, but to publish it for others to view, it's pretty weak, and story context provides a much more organic, interesting format for someone to become invested in. It reminds me of reading the back of a novel, it doesn't just give you bullet points on why you should be interested, but it offers a premise that is (hopefully) well-written in itself.
"The character doesn't necessarily have very long legs."
Bold of you to assume I didn't recolor Sonic Boom Sonic.
...I get a healing vibe from listening to you in every of your videos. Like a surge of confidence. Thank you.
And I'd love to participate in your game character design course. It sounds awesome.
As a self-proclaimed character artist, I have a ton of original characters. Although, a lot of what you've highlighted here I've learned over the years of drawing. And I've had to learn that sometimes I will be the only person who cares about my characters, and that's ok.
Is that background music Cosmic Cove from Mario Galaxy 2?
EDIT: Hot dang, it is. I used to play that map all the time. Skating around is just so relaxing.
Ambiticus Mine was Nederland on Kingdom Hearts.
Ambiticus sure is!
5:37 I want T-shirts of them. I love their design because each character has their own personality and looks as if they have a story to them that makes them interesting in so many ways I can't explain without going into detail as of why but I'll tell you this; first impressions can make you care as in presentation is often more important than representation.
My original character started out as a character I made for roleplay purposes on a game called Furcadia back in 1996. At the time, he was a generic prince, an anthropomorphic wolf. Over time, I began building on that, as the roleplays I got into with him were the most entertaining compared to other of my characters. I began pulling elements from some of my favorite things: Egyptian mythology, the 8 Virtues and medieval settings of the Ultima series, angels and demons, and from there I began creating a much more in depth character. I began building out, creating the characters he associated with, a brother, a lover, childhood friends, protectors, parents. Form there I created the land he lived on and have been crafting the story that centers around him, followed by ideas of a sequel that focuses on his children, and a prequel history that explains the importance of the Silvermyst royal bloodline, the 'Age of Unity' that brought the many tribes under one banner. And that original character over time has become my fursona, an anthropomorphic representation of myself in a medieval-fantasy setting. At present I'm trying to take all of my ideas and story and translate it into a novel or series of novels, though trying to come up with enough material to make it a good and lengthy read is proving a bit difficult.
3:33
Oh dear. You're not going to go mace a Gamestop employee, are you?
WakkaSeta it is my destiny
DON'T CALL ANYBODY
This was very helpful! I'm working on designing characters for future projects, but I do also have characters I use for things like D&D, costume design, and illustration. Oh, and I love your new OC!
Thanks! I was learning programming and thinking of making a fangame of something, but I was struggling on making new characters
That's why I do not have "OC"s.
They are just characters, they have their flaws and goods. They are based in concepts that have been done before. Adding my own spice to the mix, and trying to imagine how is their personality. What do they like, what do they dislike, fav food, what music they listen, how are their relatives, what relashonships do they have, how do they treat other people.
Creating Characters is sooooo fun!!!
Hi Brookes, This may be a question easily answered with a quick search, but I'd love to see a video done by you on finding outlets for "publishing." For example, what are the various ways of publishing comics? I know there are blog sites and portfolio sites, but you can also explore the pros and cons of each. I've been wanting to publish a few comic strips just to get myself started, but don't which sites to sign up with.
Baby Boy Tommy kinda reminds me of Moster Kid from Undertale
Saaaame
I love my characters so much, and ever since I started posting about their stories online, people actually care about them??? And it makes me so happy, I can't wait till I start posting their actual comic!!
Great video and some very good advices.
yeah Brooks thanks for the advice, Also I think its sad because that you're so underrated, Anyways you deserve 100K subs.
I never knew what I wanted to do with my life, until I heard the term, "ice cream juggler".
Overdesigning your character is a big problem in the oc community, if you're making an oc for a show, anime, or franchise then you should make your character seem just as designed as the others. Simplicity is key, and i really appreciate you making this video. I always see overdesigned oc's and sometime's it can be annoying, because they're more likely to be a mary sue's. It's important for your oc to have flaws, weaknesses and bad habits. One thing i've found that can help is to draw your oc into the actual show you'
ve based it off of, if it looks natural then you should be good.
I've been susbcribed for about 20 minutes, and I honestly do want a Parcel T-shirt, she's freaking adorable, and her little story you shared in the character clothing video made me like her even more.
+Kntrytnt That's so awesome, thanks so much! I should have her first story available in the next month or so!
This guy knows the future
I want a baby boy Tommy plush toy
(Also great vid!)
*HELL YEAH!!!*
I have a big problem with 5:44: my characters in my fan comic may be based on characters in an existing universe. Obviously, it's a fanfic written as a comic (a fan comic), but all of the characters are new and based off of different races within the universe (with adjustments to help distinguish between them if they are the same race). However, while these characters, along with a couple of subplots and world concepts, may have SOME connection to previously existing characters, such a connection hardly contributes to the plot. Afterall, my comic is pretty much an entirely new story arc that is meant to continue events in the universe, set years after the last arc has occurred, and mentions the past storylines as "historical events."
Because of all this, are my characters and/or fancomic subject to a pitfall because all I am doing is just copy and pasting an existing universe even though I have my own spin on the entire arc and on the events that occur within the universe?
I'm practicing my skills for when I do Overwatch alternative universe comics but I want the animation to be high quality. My main OC is Travis here is his biography and a link to a drawing:
When he was 5 he was amazed by skaters at Pedlow. However, gangs of omnics are a looming threat in the region as humans being racist reinforce and confirm that humans are their enemies. When he was 10 he read about a 12 year old Haitian skating prodigy Miguel who would go on to win gold in the Olympics in freestyle skateboarding at the ages of 12 and 16. When Travis finally meets him in the 2070's at the age of 18 and Miguel is 20. Miguel is stuck up to him and looks down upon him. Travis however narrowly defeats Miguel taking Gold and then steals all of Miguel's sponsors leaving him behind as a washed up has been. The gap between winning skateboarding Olympic Gold and joining an international peace force (Overwatch) is a big one.
Travis's story also ties in with The Waffler (who was a child prodigy whose class was killed during a raid on a waffle house by omnics and is now a 22 year old waffle themed superhero whose theme was inspired by a war vet waffle cook who saved his life) and Brittany who is an environmentalist from Sherman Oaks whose parents were killed by an omnic that was a family friend they trusted but he was hacked by an organization that was being investigated by her parents they were killed in Joshua Tree National Park which would be an awesome Overwatch map. So he might join Overwatch through them. The Waffler's transition into the group seems the least forced due to Overwatch talent scouts seeing his college record (he graduated at 15) and how his weaponized waffles and batter can be a huge asset to their cause from healing to a few seconds of speed boost to stunning an enemy making nearby enemies slower for 2 seconds.
I know links need to be approved so I'm linking the pictures now. One is with lineart and the other without:
imgur.com/a/NvZsR
Sorry if the Miguel rivalry doesn't sound clear in the picture I'm updating it so the structure and timeline is clearer I know I want Travis to be 20 during the main timeline, Miguel 2 years older than him, and know that the Olympics is every 4 years so I need to change some dates to be more in line with the main Overwatch timeline. Wait:
-Miguel wins at 12 then wins again at 16
-Miguel faces Travis when he's 20 making Travis 18
-Travis wins Gold in freestyle skateboarding at 18. This will give a two year transition between winning Olympic gold and joining Overwatch at 20.
Also how would you approach making something like an entity not a Mary sue?
That last one, about not taking other characters, already made, made me chuckle a bit. Why? Fanfiction. Fanfiction...
very interesting. I usually label myself as a "dragonball" artist but at the same time i understood that these characters that i love so much that i worked super hard on, and establishing a story around them, wouldn't go very far because they're rooted not only in their design, but also they're insporation in something that has already been done. it's a real shame too. I love drawing in that dragonball style and even though i could leave my own signature or artist fingerprint, it's still (at its basis) someone else's style. its pretty hard to branch off and run my way into doing something truly original simply because i have decide whether or not i try to make something cool and new or continue to do something i love and enjoy. Its a struggle that's for sure.
4:56 A middle option before an animation, story or comic for the OC is to remember to include *context* in your original character picture. "Tommy" is just standing there so we don't know anything about him beyond his appearance. Even a single illustration can tell us a lot about a character if you *show* us Tommy juggling icecream. Even basic things like *put them in a character-appropriate pose* make a big difference.
So I'm trying to create 8 characters and I wanted some help. I'm glad I found this channel.
Subbed.
Your sweet, precious baby boy Tommy is so much more of a compelling, well-rendered design than it's inspiration. XD
It's has so much more personality LMAO.
I'm trying to make a cool zombie apocalypse story where there's a family trying to survive in the apocalypse and face many challenges along the way
I make characters all the time and recently decided to improve all of them and this video is really helpful for making them better
+handsome squidward That's awesome, I'm really glad!
Many drawing OC intend it to be stand alone. And understandably that makes them hard to connect with since there is no story behind them. I try to minimize this problem with the use of background to tell more of a story without going in to a animation or comic. What's your opinion on this?
When i can afford it I will definitely jump on your patreon.... you are amazing and so professional i love it... i admire your art so much
I really appreciate that, thank you!
I enjoy making characters that kind of blend in more actually. Like, I could make a character with some special secret, but they'd otherwise be normal where possible. Because making all your characters super special all of the time just isn't fun.
These were useful! I need to release my character's backstory.
When I tell people about my character's they tend to listen for as long as they have to and then change the subject.
When I sit down to draw a comic panel or write a scene with my characters, taking full advantage of my knowledge over them, the people I show those pieces to want to know more about them.
There's a difference between telling people a character is x, y, z and showing them a character is x, y, z.
(This can also be applied to vocal storyteling, I just have an easier time writing)
I am struggling with describing my characters
I can write scenes with them and I know how they will react but I don't know how to describe them
What is a good exercise to work on character descriptions ?
I struggle with that too! Although between describing and writing scenes, you have the better problem!
Try writing descriptions for people you know in real life as if they were characters. Try describing your best friend first as the hero of a story, then again as the villain. Let me know how that works for you!
i have this problem where i’ll make my side character before the main character- and i only make the main character because I know that i need one, so i end up barely caring about my main character, but write a long complicated backstory for my side character😭😭
How about writing a collection of short stories about the side characters or elevating some of the side chracters to main characters.
(I'm the 666th comic lol!) But seriously, I like the fact that you bring up something of a "show don't just tell" point for #3; I don't see how some people can have OC's without them being in a stiry, but that's just me.
I have characters for a story, but I also struggle with graphic storytelling and I also struggle with lineart compared to digital painting, which only makes it harder to create it in an interesting way.
Thank you so much for your videos, they have helped me a lot (and my dad, who is an author, approves of your channel, and I'm quite sure you're the only TH-camr he's approved of so far)! :)
Brookes: "This is Tommy"
Anybody else:
Brookes: "Look how they've slaughtered my boy."
are you making a video game?(because i think you hinted that in one of your videos) if yes ,with what programm?
Hi John! We're using Maya, zBrush, 3DCoat, and Unity for the 3D work. I'll be showing off a little more of it later this week!
Brookes Eggleston - Character Design Forge Cool! i cant wait to see your work :D
Brookes Eggleston - Character Design Forge Wow, I'm actually excited for it. Keep up the good videos, really helped with my writing.
I love creating OC's. I also love creating new worlds and new stories and stuff... but let's be honest here: taking an already existig universe and story and main cast and just adding something is way easier. So I tend to write smaller FanFiction...
And I even when writing my own stories tend to use two main questions before I create a character:
the first thing is: What do I want to do with the character?
Because after years of inventing characters I absolutely felll in love with, just to realize that I'm quite bad at coming up with a plot, I decided that the plot - not in detail but the overall idea - should come first. And then it's just... let's say even great likeable and believable characters might not get your story going. If you want your character to do something important in the plot, and you know that already you can very much create your character with that purpose in mind. If you want to create a late hero, you can make him jump to action very slowly and lazily from the very start. Then it's more believeable that he wouldn't appear at the battle field immediately. If you on the other hand make a character that is very energetic and always jumps to conlcusions early, you really have to give him some solid reason why he's not the first on the battlefield.
If you're writing a love story, I always think its ridiculous when the strong, confident and mature protagonist suddenly turns into a studdering fool, or the other way round, if the shy, quiet and easily impressed maid suddenly gets all confident. If you want a love story to progress fast, it's easier to acutally start of with two characters who are more mature and confident, rather than two young, studdering fools who'd spent the first 200 pages dancing around each other. If you want it to go slow, go with the shy and inexperienced characters.
so that's always the first thing I look at: What do I want my characters to do during the course of the story? Because if I don't and least consider this a factor, I regularly end up with a bunch of characters who just refuse to go the way I want them to go, because it's just not in their characters. Not everything can be easily motivated and manipulated by setting, and it's easier I think, if you don't have to fight against your own characters every time they have to make a decisio.
The second is: What motivates them?
And this is really the core of my characters. Unlike you, I don't take layers away from my characters, but I start from the core and then lay layer upon layer over this core. There are more straight forward and honest characters, who don't really have many layers. And then there are the more complicated ones, that have layer upon layer upon layer upon layer.... And especially with 'liars' you can easily add more layers to the character to completely desgise what's at it's core. Once I know, what the character is all about, I can work around that as much as I want, I think. And in the story, it always gives me the possibility to peel the character like an onion and one layer after the other take everything away from him until I'm back at the core and can start rearranging.
"Dear Diary, I am forlorn to discover that literally no one cares about by Baby Boy Tommy"
I am literally in love with tommy that is the hardest ive laughed all day its so absurd and good and that was such a well executed joke AND example that because of that I actually seriously ADORE tommy please make more tommy content
So I agree that when making a character you do need to show the story of the character rather than just telling someone it if you want to generate interest. That said there are quite a few times I've seen really cool pictures online, I go to the description to find out what is going on, who are these people, what are these people, and there's like nothing there so I can't learn more about the picture. I think the image should be the invitation to learn more.
Your videos are always so helpful!:)
Hey, Brookes, I hope that you periodically look back and read comments, 'cause I have some input that I'd really like to get across:
1) Great video, salient points, thoughtful, true . . . You did the thing.
2) You needn't be so apologetic! Like I said, you make solid, thoughtful points, and we need to value criticism and education more than we do. If we get offended, it's most likely more your fault than yours.
3) A bit of context might help you understand the whole "biography introduction" deal, which sounded like something of a foreign entity to you: That pitfall (or perceived pitfall) has a stronger cultural backing than you most likely realize, for better or worse.
* On one level, those little bios are basically "Johnny's first attempt at character development," ya' dig? Often enough, people who design these OCs (or, uh, "OCs," if you get my drift) aren't looking to make a novel character, but they don't want it to be just an appearance either. Those bios can sometimes be just a little bit of emotional investment on their own part, to just the same self-serving motivation as the drawing. That part seems pretty self-explanatory, but people also use bios like that as a sort of char development springboard, eventually building into something that more people would be interested in. Now, I'm not necessarily saying that they \should/, especially because people tend to dig themselves into ruts of following their checklists, patterns, and self-imposed restrictions that they feel they made when they first wrote a bio, but it is what people do, and it does sometimes work out as a fine char baseline. They do have to work beyond them, though; you're right.
* On another level, they're memes. They're templates. They're copy pasta. People just do things that way because that's what all their favorite DeviantArtists do. I don't feel like I need to say much to drive that point home; you know how that goes.
* On yet another level, though, those little bios can be exactly perfect and even necessary for what they intend to do, usually under the context of role-playing. Usually, in an RP, it is understood that character development should occur more through the collaborative story than your individually written backstory . . . so you don't make much of one. I mean, I don't think that a "likes this, dislikes that, personality in one word is this, here's all of \one or two/ defining character traits" template is the right way to go about it, but keeping things brief at the start is a conscious design choice in some contexts.
- I don't mean to just make a shameless plug for my own site, but on Seinvocc, when you make a character, we require you to establish three things: your inventory (everything you own from the start of your adventure), your abilities (not like running, fishing, or other mundane things, but all the special, magical/metaphysical, wonky stuff, plus our own stats and parameters system that makes it easy for everyone to establish their strengths and weaknesses and maintain balance), and your bio. Even for the really combat-focused characters, you need a bio, 'cause if we don't care about your char design at all, we're not gonna' feel up to even a casual spar with ya'. Your development should occur more through gameplay than your individual writing by far, but it can't be 100% through gameplay because we don't have enough of a base from which to evaluate your decisions and mannerisms as anything more than random displays of tropes. I don't care whether your bio's a brief list of the important bits (what you are, what you look like, height, weight, and if not a local, where you're from and how you got here, and preferably some aspiration that you hold, or else you'd best figure one out in gameplay in a hurry) or a small novel-length backstory of excruciating detail, but we need something. I tell you this to make the case that the context of being in a low end of the character's developmental spectrum does give people a valid reason to have a simplistic bio . . . but also to agree with and exemplify the fact that even the brief bios should be written to give the readers \something/ to draw upon, some reason to care, some mutually understood foundation for your char development.
4) Just have to add some tips to that last point: If you're intentionally just making this OC to fit into this pre-established context and you're okay with the fact that it'll always stay that way, \know your shit/ of that context!
* Portraying your character to have relationships of any kind with established characters that wouldn't make sense (girlfriend of this happily married, straight, female character, mortal enemy to your boyfriend's best friend, best friends with the villain that would totally kidnap you and use you to get to the protagonist boyfriend, a combination of the above . . .) is the easiest way to earn scorn and/or apathy. Know how to keep the internal rules of the universe consistent (Your Fallout character can't be totally immortal and passively purify all radiation in a five-mile radius. Your Final Fantasy mage can't cast all the spells for 0 MP except in the same conditions that others can. Your Sonic character can't go super at will unless you're talking about a much more limited "super" mode than the chaos-empowered kind.) and \do keep them/. It's okay to make some little exceptions, moreso in some settings than others (Explain Explosion Man in Avatar: The Last Airbender. You can't? Neither can the author! He's an intentional break from the system. That's part of why he's so scary; the laws of the universe are internally consistent and well-known, and here's some random exception out of nowhere. That's a conscious decision, and because the author made it okay for there to be an exception, it wouldn't hurt if your char had something abnormal like that too. Just don't get carried away.), but the more that you go out of your way to break the rules so that your special snowflake can work the way that you want, the more your readers are going to rightfully tell you to just work from your own damn setting.
* Know the story and characters, all the characters, like the backside of your hand. If you want your OC's setting to have differences from the true canon, fine, that's okay, but \establish them/. State the differences as differences. In fact, keep an individual "Canon vs. Headcanon" document somewhere or something. Don't just state that Ramza and Delita got along at the end of the events of FFT, and you're the son of Delita and godson of Ramza, so blah blah \you/ stuff; state before anyone has the chance to read that stuff that you're intentionally deviating from the established canon, and here are the differences in as nice and neat a format as you can manage, so \then/, with that out of the way, here's your OC and how he fits into this new paradigm.
You can really have a lot of fun with this as long as you do it right. It starts with understanding the scope of your project (Again, it's never going to stop being a part of something that you don't own. You would have to pretty much totally rewrite it just to use it as a sort of spin-off base.), moves to establishing any canon differences, and then just making sense so that people aren't completely alienated.
ivaldi13 Brilliant!
Personally, I am a roleplayer, and on our site we make excruciatingly in-depth pages for our characters. Absolutely anything you could possibly want to know is on their page, and that includes their personality, appearance, powers (should they have any), backstory, and more.
I personally am a fan of bios for the reason that first they can be updated as you develop and roleplay with your character as they change.
Your videos are great as always. Is there any good way to begin making a character? I keep getting stuck at the art, and if I don't like it, I don't go through with any personality or giving the character any motivations or anything like that. I have more ideas when working with others but I want to try making my own.
Can someone help me break this cycle and find a better place to start?
Start the other way around for a change! Dream up the personality first, then draw that!
I will spend a few minutes coming up with a short original character. His name is Jack. He is sixteen and works in a Game stop. He is a villain character though is very good at hiding it. He likes to scratch up gaming disks when no one is looking. He is also responsible for merchandise being behind the counter out of sight instead of visible. :D
Is Parcel the main character of a webcomic you are making or just a character?
Just now seeing this, sorry Alan! Her initial story will be a comic!
Thank you for all of this!! It's a really big help 😄
The people at Team Ninja could've used this advice when coming out with new characters for DOA5 Honoka and Marie Rose..... I have no idea who the hell they are, what their story is, why they're fighting, etc...... and the result is I don't care about them, and so I rarely pick them... and other people say, "Yeah, but they're hot, what else do you need?" PERSONALITY!
I was wondering, what song did you have playing during the video. It was very pretty, and soothing to listen to.
A complex backstory helps you make informed decisions about your characters personality, their personal demons or skeletons in their closet, how they might react to any given situation etc, but unless you’re actually going to tell that backstory as a story in its own right then it’s best left in your series bible.
I have a lot of OCs, but I use them to make different types of AUs (alternate universe). All of them used to be fan characters, but once I grew older and learned a lot more things, I fixed them up and gave them more attention (they're no longer cringy fan characters .-.). I also consider them as my secondary family.
When I first saw Tommy I thought it was a mix between Monster Kid and Sonic
If you want to pursue a career in character design, don't feel deterred from creating characters that are connected to pre-established universes in your free time. This video seems to suggest that this is counterproductive but I say follow the things that inspire you. It'll at least be an avenue for improvement and decent works can be included in portfolios etc
+Alannah Nothing wrong with doing it for fun, but I will interject that including “fan character from the Star Wars Universe/Sonic Universe/Voltron Universe” will absolutely hit a weird spot with recruiters if they’re included in a portfolio. It’s an awkward spot between original idea and rendering of an existing idea. I don’t think it would get as much traction as either of those, and has a good chance to deter some interested in hiring you. YMMV.
That should go without saying. Note my use of the term 'decent'. This implies that one should be sensible with what they decide to include.
Alannah The quality isn’t really the hinging factor in what I’m saying, though. OCs based in existing IPs just aren’t going to get you the same traction and will repel people looking to hire you. I mention this because you’re challenging the message and point of the video from a viewpoint that’s problematic. At no point did I say you shouldn’t make whatever you want, but if you want an artistic career doing this, there are dos and donts for presenting yourself professionally.
I'm not challenging the point of the video. I'm encouraging the pursuit of inspiration. There's no need to get defensive. I received an impression from what you've stated here and attempted to reassure anyone that had received a similar impression. If I were a novice in the industry I'd feel somewhat ashamed of the fan content that I had created and would consequently cease displaying them to others. However, I happen to know better than to be ashamed and thus saw it as my duty to point out that the stigma against such works is often misguided.
+Alannah Not defensive, just wary of keeping “actually” style comments under videos that spread misinformation and possibly cancel out or undercut the point of a video. Pursuit of inspiration and what’s included in a portfolio are separate realms.
"I'll keep original characters in quotation marks"
*Every sonic oc starts to cry*
This video reminds me of this one time I stumbled across an art account on Instagram who made ocs and all they literally did was recolor steven universe characters on paper and say it was based off that character and they were a lighting element or whatever.
I've made a couple of characters for a personal project, but sometimes, I feel like I need some feedback to see if they're OK or I should improve something about them, the design or backstory.
My friends like the concepts but some external check might be OK. Is there a place where I can share it?
“OC” described through how they react in situations. Yes! Take that to the next step. How do you get that description into a story faster so the audience wants to invest more time with it?
I introduced my oc in a roleplay and honestly just everything I hate myself but expanded to make them likable
I have an oc when he was a kid his parents were murdered and he got all their money except he was the one that killed his parents and became a psychopath so he obviously doesn't want to be a psycho so he does whatever he can to be normal. is that original enough?
by the way I plan on using my characters for a story I plan on making in the future
Oh my...
I think you should scrap that entire character and start from scratch.
When making an OC, I make sure to not involve them with the main characters. No long lost family members or anything like that. I make their story only intersect with the main story if it means my characters won't have to interact with the main characters. It makes it feel as though the characters could exist in the world, but the story doesn't focus on them, so we never see them. I'll only make them weird withing the confines that it is physically possible due to context clues that can be found, but even then I avoid it. Otherwise, they are normal in the way that they don't have any off the wall physical traits. If they have powers, there is a counter balance to make them a balanced fighter. Most of their originality comes from their back stories, because guess what... and this is a secret... Not Everyone's Parents Have TO Die. Seriously. Every single one. I mean, you can make the parents abusive and/or heartless. You could even make them ditch their kid on the side of the road, but saying that the parents died at two doesn't make an emotional connection. Even writing that they never knew their parents, and that they never knew why is an acceptable excuse, just make what actually happened in their life, happen in some realistic or reasonable way. Clothing fits the environment they live in, and is bound to change, because while someone can have an iconic outfit, people do change clothes. In Percy Jackson, they have a standard orange Camp Half-Blood t-shirt that is excusable, because they sell them in the camp store in bulk. It's excusable when they are on a long journey and don't have a change of clothes, but at least give them the sense to wash them. I avoid edgy characters. They can be annoying and awkward to read about, because they act either so much better than everyone else, or just jerks in general. Or they act all aloof and unaware of how much they are doing wrong to push people away. Give them a personality. No one personality trait and that's it. That's not how people work. People can be complete robots, but at least give them an out, something that makes them seem human. Maybe a kick butt girlfriend or a family member they have to take care of. Older family members generally hide emotions away to look stronger if they feel they have to support the family.
Amazing man! I watched all of your videos and all are fabulous but i am just giving a suggestion which you can apply to your videos i am saying that if you will make your videos with some type of animation in between then your channel will grow much faster because in today's world most of the people like to learn things differently ( And the most interesting way to learn is animation ).
All of them? This is a very old video- you might want to see some of the more recent ones. Animating a weekly video on top of the rest of the work it already takes to produce them might be the least realistic suggestion for something feasible. I am an animator, but for example, the pilot for a series im working on comes out later this year. Animating every week wouldnt leave hours to sleep or eat.
@@CharacterDesignForge yaa i understand that its too difficult to animate.....................not because of it is hard but it takes a lot of time.
Well , As an animator (Going to start my own new animation channel with a different channel name) i gave a suggestion that you should make a short animations (that you can edit and fix in between of your video) for examples because it will be quiet easy to understand your words clearly.
Well thanks for your reply 🤗
Most of my "OCs" live in a different dimension. Like you swim to the bottom of a lake and there's a wooden latch that leads to it. I have an entire town of experiments and it has a lot of work that needs to be done with it to become more acceptable but it's getting there. Also I do have demigods and gods and it's a bit crowded but I can't help it. the only immortals OC I have is my gods and goddesses but I only have two and I don't even use one of them. I love my OCs and can't wait to make them more realistic
Is that Super Mario Galaxy music I hear in the background at about 1:05? Listen closely, I think it is. Nice touch! Very informative video! I always enjoy your videos. They are quite helpful to me. :)