Character "Stats"

[Novacancy]

Your blood is full of guinness, paddies!

*taps a vein*

Mmmm, blood beer. I wouldn't feel so guilty about it if it weren't so perilously close to vampirism. As for my blood type, its... er... red. I don't know.

Yes, right, the topic was suppossed to be stats. I'd say a few basics like name, affiliation, hobbies are always good, but stuff like height, weight, and eye color are pretty much irrelevant if you've got pictures to go with it. Unless maybe you have a lot of colorblind readers, then eye color may be enlightening.[/quote]

[Alschroeder]

To actually answer the question...*Grin*

I have actual cast pages---not with their height or religion or political affilication, but with enough information to tell them apart.

I did something similar with a recent page about Flickerflame---in which I explained the background about Flickerflame, Sage, and Thunderous, among others. No real stats, but enough to explain the motivations and a picture of how they looked. That's at http://mindmistress.comicgenesis.com/mmflicker.htm...

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Al

[The Neko]

I find that character pages often become bloated with unnecessary data or things that are already obvious from the comic. Usually if the character can't be described in a paragraph, it's too much for a cast page.

I usually only refer to cast pages to match a name to a face and get a basic idea of their disposition, which can be said in one or two sentences.

[Jackhass]

I like my characters to be mysterious.

I actually have a full line-up of character descriptions done, but I've never posted them anywhere. I dunno'...I just like the comics to speak for themselves.

[Black Sparrow]

I like to know a little info. General descriptions and the like. But height, weights, birthdays, and star signs? When are we EVER going to need to know that?

[Des]

I always love big informative cast pages. If I'm already into the comic, I like them when they have fun little tidbits that don't get brought up in the story but are still realted to the character. Like favorite food, like, dislikes and hobbies. If I'm not into the comic, these type of things still get my interested in the characters and the comic.

I also LOVE it when people do character sheets. Like this one comes to mind. She the character back and front, different hair styles or clothing they might wear, specific colors, accessories they always wear, in costume, out of costumes, ect. Specially great when people are looking to do fanart of your characters and need a good guide to work from.

But yeah, I think character profiles are really helpful for the writer as well. Sometimes people don't think about what a character's favorite food is, and ya know, I think its important to know. Characters a people too, and writers have to know every single little tidbit about them to be able to write them (at least I think so). Then again, my stories are always character driven so characters are always really important to me.

[Dburkhead]

In Cold Servings I definitely had to do a pretty in-depth "character profile" of my main character. This is particularly true because of my desire to keep things "realistic." For example, once I chose a character height (average height or a bit taller--5'10" in this case), and a weight (heavy lifter, but not a hardcore bodybuilder--200 lbs), I then can figure out what he can lift in various ways and so on. Knowing what his degree is in college, knowing what kinds of funds he has, and where they came from, knowing what his apartment costs, etc, all put important restrictions on what I can do in the comic.

However, the cast page only has a short two paragraphs. The rest is for my use.

[Phalanx]

I find that character pages often become bloated with unnecessary data or things that are already obvious from the comic. Usually if the character can't be described in a paragraph, it's too much for a cast page.

I usually only refer to cast pages to match a name to a face and get a basic idea of their disposition, which can be said in one or two sentences.

Well, for TLS's cast page, I have this neat little collapsing text trick. You get a brief paragraph description of each character and a pic. But sometimes users want more info, so all the spoilerish info and full profile is hidden behind something rather like an LJ cut tag that the user can click at their own risk.

I still haven't tested it to see if it works with pictures as well, though.

[EvilChihuahua]

Johndar listed a theme song for each character, and I think that was pretty cool. It really gives you an insight into both the characters personality, and how the artist sees him.