hello, rpr! *___*
early on in my rping (years ago), i would often come up with the appearance of a character first. it was the first thing on my mind, because i honestly just wanted characters who were cute! obviously, that was a mistake- the personality tended to be an afterthought, and a very generic one at that. now, i am kind of having the opposite problem- i'm blocked on the character's appearance!
i know a good deal about what my new character is like in terms of concept and personality, but i'm just stuck when it comes to what he should look like. i feel really pressured to have a unique, cool design. doodling ideas for him is just making it worse, since i get frustrated when those doodles don't come out looking decent. do any of you experience this? how can you rectify it? i'm sure i'll come up with something eventually, but in the meantime i'm pretty stumped!
thanks!
early on in my rping (years ago), i would often come up with the appearance of a character first. it was the first thing on my mind, because i honestly just wanted characters who were cute! obviously, that was a mistake- the personality tended to be an afterthought, and a very generic one at that. now, i am kind of having the opposite problem- i'm blocked on the character's appearance!
i know a good deal about what my new character is like in terms of concept and personality, but i'm just stuck when it comes to what he should look like. i feel really pressured to have a unique, cool design. doodling ideas for him is just making it worse, since i get frustrated when those doodles don't come out looking decent. do any of you experience this? how can you rectify it? i'm sure i'll come up with something eventually, but in the meantime i'm pretty stumped!
thanks!
Hi witch!! 
That's a very interesting question you've got there. I have to admit, I personally see no reason why you can't design appearances first - I do it frequently, and the character can still have a very well developed personality and overall design. I guess it depends on what drives you, although if you're stuck with a personality, writing down some random traits and rolling a die for it can be fun! (There are bunches of generators for this too, you can Google them).
To more directly answer your question, it sounds like you're stuck because you want him to be unique and cool looking. Why is this important, and unique in what way? Is it because of your drawing style that you're unsatisfied or do you have trouble coming up with physical attributes?
I'm personally a firm believer of 'less is more'. I have some extravagant looking characters, but a whole bunch of them have fairly average appearances too. Kvothe for instance is just a regular looking dude, there's nothing much about him that stands out terribly. He's got some scars from his previous occupation but otherwise there's nothing special about him! Pearl is a normal lady with short hair and super regular clothes. No noticeable scars or markings whatsoever. And then there's Howel, the overweight scruffy dude who's as plain as they come.
None of them really stand out much because... well, as far as looks go they're just real average. They're not overly handsome or pretty. They don't have cool wings or rad outfits or anything like that. Is that really important to make them unique? To make them stand out more? I often think they end upstanding out more because they are so plain looking. A lot of people always try to come up with characters with unique and interesting appearances. And then you end up having a unique looking character among bunches and bunches of unique looking characters, which then makes the whole 'being unique' thing normal.
There's nothing wrong with wanting a unique design, but you seem awfully frustrated with it, so perhaps this character is meant to be made unique through his portrayal of character, rather than appearances? Most of the characters that work out best for my games are fairly plain looking, so I don't think you'll have to worry about a lesser quality of RP for it.
That's a very interesting question you've got there. I have to admit, I personally see no reason why you can't design appearances first - I do it frequently, and the character can still have a very well developed personality and overall design. I guess it depends on what drives you, although if you're stuck with a personality, writing down some random traits and rolling a die for it can be fun! (There are bunches of generators for this too, you can Google them).
To more directly answer your question, it sounds like you're stuck because you want him to be unique and cool looking. Why is this important, and unique in what way? Is it because of your drawing style that you're unsatisfied or do you have trouble coming up with physical attributes?
I'm personally a firm believer of 'less is more'. I have some extravagant looking characters, but a whole bunch of them have fairly average appearances too. Kvothe for instance is just a regular looking dude, there's nothing much about him that stands out terribly. He's got some scars from his previous occupation but otherwise there's nothing special about him! Pearl is a normal lady with short hair and super regular clothes. No noticeable scars or markings whatsoever. And then there's Howel, the overweight scruffy dude who's as plain as they come.
None of them really stand out much because... well, as far as looks go they're just real average. They're not overly handsome or pretty. They don't have cool wings or rad outfits or anything like that. Is that really important to make them unique? To make them stand out more? I often think they end upstanding out more because they are so plain looking. A lot of people always try to come up with characters with unique and interesting appearances. And then you end up having a unique looking character among bunches and bunches of unique looking characters, which then makes the whole 'being unique' thing normal.
There's nothing wrong with wanting a unique design, but you seem awfully frustrated with it, so perhaps this character is meant to be made unique through his portrayal of character, rather than appearances? Most of the characters that work out best for my games are fairly plain looking, so I don't think you'll have to worry about a lesser quality of RP for it.
All I can really say is don't worry so much about having a unique and cool design. Just focus on what seems to work with the character. Given what the character is and how they live, how should they be built? Given who they are and where they come from, how should they dress and keep their hair?
As some examples:
As some examples:
- Shanique is a human contortionist and acrobat, so she is thin with wiry muscle and keeps pretty healthy. I also wanted her to be generally mellow, but as a showperson, she does have her bright outfit. And she's black just because I felt like it and it seemed to fit.
- Willow is just supposed to be adorable and fun, so she ended up with squirrel features. (I also later realized that I'd unintentionally made her remarkably similar to Grace from EGS, but that's kinda to be expected.)
- With Elves, the idea of the black-skinned, cave-dwelling Drow always bugged me. So when I made my Elves, the nocturnal cave-dwellers are pale from lack of sun, and the dark-skinned ones live in the desert. The cave-dwelling ones are also pretty religious and proper, so hair and clothing is flowy and long; while the desert-dwellers depend on survival skills ad the ability to act as merchants, and ended up coming out very (dangerous) gypsy-like.
Sanne wrote:
Hi witch!!
That's a very interesting question you've got there. I have to admit, I personally see no reason why you can't design appearances first - I do it frequently, and the character can still have a very well developed personality and overall design. I guess it depends on what drives you, although if you're stuck with a personality, writing down some random traits and rolling a die for it can be fun! (There are bunches of generators for this too, you can Google them).
To more directly answer your question, it sounds like you're stuck because you want him to be unique and cool looking. Why is this important, and unique in what way? Is it because of your drawing style that you're unsatisfied or do you have trouble coming up with physical attributes?
I'm personally a firm believer of 'less is more'. I have some extravagant looking characters, but a whole bunch of them have fairly average appearances too. Kvothe for instance is just a regular looking dude, there's nothing much about him that stands out terribly. He's got some scars from his previous occupation but otherwise there's nothing special about him! Pearl is a normal lady with short hair and super regular clothes. No noticeable scars or markings whatsoever. And then there's Howel, the overweight scruffy dude who's as plain as they come.
None of them really stand out much because... well, as far as looks go they're just real average. They're not overly handsome or pretty. They don't have cool wings or rad outfits or anything like that. Is that really important to make them unique? To make them stand out more? I often think they end upstanding out more because they are so plain looking. A lot of people always try to come up with characters with unique and interesting appearances. And then you end up having a unique looking character among bunches and bunches of unique looking characters, which then makes the whole 'being unique' thing normal.
There's nothing wrong with wanting a unique design, but you seem awfully frustrated with it, so perhaps this character is meant to be made unique through his portrayal of character, rather than appearances? Most of the characters that work out best for my games are fairly plain looking, so I don't think you'll have to worry about a lesser quality of RP for it.
That's a very interesting question you've got there. I have to admit, I personally see no reason why you can't design appearances first - I do it frequently, and the character can still have a very well developed personality and overall design. I guess it depends on what drives you, although if you're stuck with a personality, writing down some random traits and rolling a die for it can be fun! (There are bunches of generators for this too, you can Google them).
To more directly answer your question, it sounds like you're stuck because you want him to be unique and cool looking. Why is this important, and unique in what way? Is it because of your drawing style that you're unsatisfied or do you have trouble coming up with physical attributes?
I'm personally a firm believer of 'less is more'. I have some extravagant looking characters, but a whole bunch of them have fairly average appearances too. Kvothe for instance is just a regular looking dude, there's nothing much about him that stands out terribly. He's got some scars from his previous occupation but otherwise there's nothing special about him! Pearl is a normal lady with short hair and super regular clothes. No noticeable scars or markings whatsoever. And then there's Howel, the overweight scruffy dude who's as plain as they come.
None of them really stand out much because... well, as far as looks go they're just real average. They're not overly handsome or pretty. They don't have cool wings or rad outfits or anything like that. Is that really important to make them unique? To make them stand out more? I often think they end upstanding out more because they are so plain looking. A lot of people always try to come up with characters with unique and interesting appearances. And then you end up having a unique looking character among bunches and bunches of unique looking characters, which then makes the whole 'being unique' thing normal.
There's nothing wrong with wanting a unique design, but you seem awfully frustrated with it, so perhaps this character is meant to be made unique through his portrayal of character, rather than appearances? Most of the characters that work out best for my games are fairly plain looking, so I don't think you'll have to worry about a lesser quality of RP for it.
i mean, i see nothing wrong with designing appearances first, i'd just like to clarify! my issue back then was that i just wanted a bunch of characters that i found charming and then stuck random silly personality traits on as an afterthought. designing appearances first can be totally fine, like i've you've got a really cool idea for a character's looks and just base them off of those cool ideas that you have!!
i definitely see what you're saying! it's just that i've been on iscribble a lot lately- i don't know if you're familiar with that, but it's a collaborative drawing site. on iscribble there are these lovely oc drawing boards where people volunteer to draw your characters for you, and all of the designs are just so nice that i feel like i should be inspired in a similar way. i have thoughts about my character's hair color and eyes and clothes, but i get the feel that he's too plain. i suppose that doesn't matter too much in the long run though, and as i develop him more i might just pick up new ideas along the way.
now that you mention it though i do think that my character's unique attributes will stand out for him at least a bit. don't feel obligated to read this, i'm just spilling everything out and it's probably boring. also he's kind of just a concept right now, but a concept that i honestly quite like!
his name is naïm and he's an elder god (like lovecraft/eldritch style), but he's of the more benign sort- kind of a gentle giant. (he wouldn't be played in an op way, don't worry u___u) like nyarlathotep he can assume a human form, but with a few caveats- as a god he's not meant to be looking at such 'small' things, so what you might see as a human or an animal or plant, he sees as multicolored and shifting glowing lights (think a shifting, pulsing mosaic) in the shape of humans and animals and plants. this is because he can see different forms of energy as they are being released, including things like uv rays and such.
inanimate objects are much more easily perceptible to him, but they still have a very faint varicolored glow due to the energy produced by the microbial life on them.
he behaves very dreamily/sometimes listlessly because his world is pretty much a surreal glowing colorscape all the time
the one definite thing i know about his appearance is that, since his vision is not meant for perceiving things like a human world, his fashion sense would be... off. he doesn't pay attention to the colors of the clothes and sometimes he can't even see what color they are, so he could wind up wearing red&blue shoes with jeans and a pink and yellow knit sweater or something.
i also see his hair as being white or a very light blonde aaand the pupil-iris region to just be one milky white-blue color
that's all i've got in the realm of looks. i think it'll be okay though, i do feel reassured *___* i just would like a character who is also fun to draw! however, i intend on portraying him with a lot of fun religious iconography (i love those behind-the-head round halos) as well as incorporating his kaleidoscopic vision issues into my art, so maybe it'll work out in the end.
He already sounds like he'd be pretty fun to draw.
Try dress up games! That's what I do when I'm not sure what my characters should look like. I often use hero machine and dreamselfy, especially the latter since there are so many options. When I get inspired I simplify the design a bit and that's that! I usually go to hero machine when I have a good idea of my characters appearance already.
I don't really have this issue but... tbh most of my chars are furres, so having them look alike doesn't happen much, as they're generally different species. (I've had pegasus, wolf, jackal, hybrid ungulate, housecat, griffin, otter...)
This char is frankly designed to be Larped by me though, so he resembles me, so that I don't have to constantly pause things to remind people that no, my char doesn't actually look like me and can they stop using my appearance for assumptions about him.
This char is frankly designed to be Larped by me though, so he resembles me, so that I don't have to constantly pause things to remind people that no, my char doesn't actually look like me and can they stop using my appearance for assumptions about him.
Novalyyn wrote:
All I can really say is don't worry so much about having a unique and cool design. Just focus on what seems to work with the character. Given what the character is and how they live, how should they be built? Given who they are and where they come from, how should they dress and keep their hair?
As some examples:
As some examples:
- Shanique is a human contortionist and acrobat, so she is thin with wiry muscle and keeps pretty healthy. I also wanted her to be generally mellow, but as a showperson, she does have her bright outfit. And she's black just because I felt like it and it seemed to fit.
- Willow is just supposed to be adorable and fun, so she ended up with squirrel features. (I also later realized that I'd unintentionally made her remarkably similar to Grace from EGS, but that's kinda to be expected.)
- With Elves, the idea of the black-skinned, cave-dwelling Drow always bugged me. So when I made my Elves, the nocturnal cave-dwellers are pale from lack of sun, and the dark-skinned ones live in the desert. The cave-dwelling ones are also pretty religious and proper, so hair and clothing is flowy and long; while the desert-dwellers depend on survival skills ad the ability to act as merchants, and ended up coming out very (dangerous) gypsy-like.
i do the same like she just stated, i base what they should look like from a number of factors that would be the characteristics, their background, their life style, their likes and dislikes, even what their favorite things to do on their free time could define how they look like
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