#the only way I can distinguish the two is their headshapes | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

saltycharacters · 5 years

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How do you come up with such original designs (for humans and creatures? I can easily come up with diverse personalities for my characters but when it comes to designing their looks I melt into a puddle of disappointment

God, this ask is about 2 years old, no joke. I’m so, SO ashamed that I never got around to replying to this- I had a super detailed explanation planned, but I kept forgetting about it and putting it off aaand yep. i am so sorry man. I’m not even sure if you’ll ever see this lmao. But I feel bad about leaving it as is, so better later than never.

I’ve mentioned this here and there, but my main strategy for character design is juxtaposition- finding shapes in an animal or an object or etc and replacing it for something similarly shaped. Here’s a basic example of what I mean:

I use this method more than any other for character creation, as you can see

And this doesn’t only work for animal characters! It can be done with humans/humanoids too!

And you know how practice makes you better at things? Well fun fact, you can actually train yourself to become more creative and get the ideas that you like! It just takes time. Over the years, I’ve actually taught myself to to notice shapes more frequently in things, and that’s why I keep getting so many ideas. And with enough practice, you can actually get pretty abstract with your juxtaposition- Take my character Bail for example, whom I gave eyeball fingers.

Believe it or not, I didn’t just put them there randomly. I actually had a thought process behind it and it went something like this:

Of course, this isn’t the only way to make characters, and it’s definitely not everyone’s aesthetic. So here are a few other tips I can give you, in regards to character design!

For animals

-Change/create an animal character into a really weird, obscure or exotic animal. Have a lot of cats and dogs? Want to change it up? Think out of the box! I turned my cat character into an Australian quoll, and it rocked! I actually have a lot of pictures of weird animals saved into my phone for this reason. It really helps keep things interesting- plus, it’s super fun and a great drawing prompt!

-Combine animals. This is advice I’ve given to a few of my friends before and they seem to really like the idea, so I definitely recommend taking a few animals and mashing them together. Not even just two animals- try three, or four, or more. I actually find mixing at least 3 or more animals produces more satisfactory results.

-Have a lot of animal characters and not enough people? Turn some critters into humans! I’m currently having a blast redesigning old ocs like this, because I tend to make more funky creatures than funky humans and it really helps. You can also do the reverse- go from human to animal.

For humans

-Do you find yourself thinking that your human characters look too similar/boring? What can you do to change that? Ironically, a lot of times this answer is very simple. Visibly diversify them. Give them different skin colors, for one. Hair is a given, but specifically try to vary between straight hair and wavy hair and curly hair. And give them vastly different hairstyles. Don’t be afraid to look them up. Skin features such as freckles, moles, vitiligo, scars, acne, facial hair, etc can really help make your character(s) stand out as well. Additionally, give them visibly different noses. Chins. Head shapes. Body shapes. Give some wheelchairs. Give some prosthetics. Etc etc- Like i said, this all seems super obvious, but I get people telling me they think their ocs are too mundane and I glance at them, and they look identical- save for the varying hairstyles and clothes. We’re use to seeing such diversity in real life to begin with- even as you pass by people on the street, most don’t look anything alike. So of course you’re gonna find something lacking when the only distinguishing factor you use is hair and clothes. Really, don’t be afraid to make them as different from each other as possible!

-Also, remember that juxtaposition thing I talked about? Use it for clothes. Design some really funky clothes. I actually based my ocs around some really cool outfits I made with this method, and it’s very useful for creating humans.

And lastly, the second most used method (by me) for character creation is to just doodle- I doodle a lot and often I accidentally create something I really like. Start with a headshape, I usually go with circles. Keep adding random things to it, and eventually, you may end up with something super cool.

Even though I doubt the original asker will read this, I do hope others find some of this advice useful!

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