Hey guys I'm currently developing some characters for a short film/animation for college, and as such have it on the brain When you were coming up with your comic characters, how did you go about it? Did you just know? Did you draw them first and write a history later? Enquiring minds would like to know
-Vim
P.S You can see my character stuff in my DeviantArt account (hit www down there ) - Little Voo & Wicked the Cat.
When I write, I just write and the character develops as I go. I frequently go back to the beginning of stories and tweak the character to be more like who he or she evolved into by the end.
However, I generally start stories by putting a character in a situation and see what develops. As such, I usually need a rough idea of who the character is before I start - even if I don't know their personality.
My characters were all inspired, drawn, and finallized on the fly. So far All but one of my characters were created in less then 5 minutes each. The back story/history for each charater is then best written afterwards. Make the story fit the character not the chatacter fit the story. If creating a slew of characters for something in particular try to define their main attribute first. (the sarcastic one, the word of reason, the cute ditzy one, the madman) then fill in the blanks. That way you end up with a balanced cast that compliment each other rather than having an army of clones running around.
Just toy around with ideas and they will come. Many great things were created by simple taking a random thought and running with it.
I am The Poster Formerly Known as Crossfire. Or PFKAC. ...has a certain ring to it, no?
Hmm, when creating a new character.... well.. I'm not sure, it just sort of comes out of nowhere... but in some case I base them on people I know. For exemple Valer's hair are actually the one of a girl who used to work at the drugstore in my area.
All my characters were pulled from real life sources combined heavily with common RPG player types. They were pretty much pre-made for me to a degree, so they just flowed directly out of my head and onto the paper with no real trouble.
Only one of the characters, Dave, changed very much from original conception to final execution. He originally started off as the extremely confused gamer who's specialty was GURPS. He eventually became the extremely confused gamer who's new to RPGs and only plays because the rest of his friends play.
Big change, huh?
Anyway, when I'm making characters for other stuff (from NPCs in RPGs to characters in short stories), I generally take a few base characteristics that I want the person to have and then add on from there. It usually doesn't take me very long to have enough info to start working with them in an actual story setting.
Existence is a series of catastrophes through which everything barely but continually survives.
I discovered a month or so ago that my characters are different parts of how I act. So when I do their development and how they act I just put myself in their situation.
K-Dawg wrote:I discovered a month or so ago that my characters are different parts of how I act. So when I do their development and how they act I just put myself in their situation.
Yeah in my spinnaker interview I discussed how my characters were aspects of my life, and I think it reminds of me what I learned in a drama class that when you write a story, the characters are like these little people sitting on your desk saying "write about me" so you have to find those little people and say "do something cool, so I can write about you" then write about them.
"I find the first strip on this site incredibly offensive and awful" - Scott Kurtz SuperFightFight More Filling than Douche Juice!
When I come out with a character I first start with a general concept of what I want or need. Usually I think of what I want the characters to DO then make a backstory and a personality that would match the task. If your story starts with the main character getting kicked out of school for peeking in the womans bathrooms the backstory will be dramatically different if you have an outgoing horny character (in this case it is most likely he did it for the thrill) than if you have a quiet shy character (in this case the whole thing would most likely have been a missunderstanding. Probably anyways...).
Next I have to do a rough sketch of what that character should look like. In some cases I know what I want right off the bat. However, in others I have to do 3-5 character sketches before I get comfortable with the finished product. You have to think hard about what this particular character would wear. And to do that you have to think of things like habbits and such. Having clothes untucked constantly would imply a carefree character while a cleancut look implies the opposite. I find this particularly fun because with practice you can create some interesting characters by mixing their look with their personality.
The next step is to outline the characters place in the story. I make sure I figgure out ahead of time where I want the character to go and be at the end of the story because otherwise it gets frustrating and I can write myself into a corner if I'm not careful.
Then, after I have a clear idea of this characters place in the story I addapt the character design based on the history and future plot developed. For example if your character is supposed to loose a hat in the beginning of a story and then have it returned by his brother whom he thought to be dead you had better draw your character with a hat (and without so you can get the hair right after he looses it.)
For me alot of work is done before I start drawing. The pros do even more than me. The bottom line is to be thorough but have fun. So good luck. And be sure to share this little endeaver with the rest of us when you are done.
Help me live my childhood dream of becoming the head of an evil corrupt corporate conglomorate:
One thing I do for drawing characters is collect pictures. I have a character named Kate Calamus who is already well defined, having appeared in some of my stories. Since she's been iaround for me for a long time, I have pictures I've come across on the net called things like "Kate's Hair.jpg", Kate 1.jpg" and "Kate's Outfit 1.jpg" - just because those images represent something about the character for me. I see them and think "that's what she would look like".
So, when i draw her, I have a large collection of reference images that will help me get the right look.
Faith is what credulity becomes when it finally achieves escape velocity from the constraints of terrestrial discourse- reasonableness, internal coherence, civility, and candor. Thus, the men who commited the atrocities of September 11 were neither cowards nor lunatics of any sort, but Men of Faith- perfect faith- and this, it must finally be acknowleged, is a terrible thing to be.
Well, often my main characters are the least important part of the stories. They're merely there as focal points for the reader to live vicariously through, kinda like Nemo, of Winsor McCay's Little Nemo in Slumberland, which I hold up to be a very clear influence to my storytelling style. I give a very great amount of time and energy to developing the world that surrounds a character. The setting is much more than just a background for me. It is the universe within which a character must interact. To me, that's more important a concept than a well-devoloped character.
That isn't to say that's how I do it ALL the time, but I'm often surprised at just how static the protagonist is within my stories. Anyway, when I do have to develop characters, it's usually in the form of an amorphous cloud floating in my imagination until it's time to bring them out. There's not often too much in the way of concerted character design/development on my part. All I know is how the character should 'feel', and put him/her/it down on the paper accordingly. It works for me because I don't do character-oriented storytelling.
It's all very biological, really, but just as with real biology, there is a system to the gestation of a character. It's never accidental.
"Just because we're amateurs, doesn't mean our comics have to be amateurish." -McDuffies
well for me no matter how much preplanning I do before I get a pencil. the moment i begin drawing they change anyways. I should dig out my early sketch and bios for the characters that would become the cast of my comic. The whole spending so much time designing characters.. make the design itself becomes a part of them.
<KittyKatBlack> You look deranged. But I mean that in the nicest way possible. ^_^;
It's interesting how broad the spectrum is Usually I'll think of a character and have noplace to put them, so they get designed and doodled and kept, I'm like an agent - when I'm finally working on a project I'll put out a casting call
For this project it's different though, these characters are totally new - I was doing a project in my livejournal where I was doing free pictures based on words from peoples interests lists. One of them was 'pins', and I drew myself as a voodoo doll.
From there, I thought "a voodoo doll would make an awesome character!" and then placed her as belonging to a witch. A witch would have a cat, therefore Wicked is Little Voo's foil/nemesis. Then, I watched an episode of Tom and Jerry, and it all totally fell into place .
So now I've got a network of characters, many of whom won't appear in the first animation (but that I'll probably draw anyway).
Well, now, it really depends. People all talk about how they just create a character and toss 'em in, but it's likely that they have more developed than they realize at first. You have to, or you can seriously hurt your continuity. But for the most part it's something that starts to come naturally.
Although here's an example: to create the enemies in my comic, I used the personalities of people I've known. I wasn't gonna cause it seemed kinda petty, but I changed my mind cause they had such perfect personalities for it. Although that isn't a compliment.
Backstories are, in general, a waste of time. A face, a name, and a rough concept are all a character needs to begin life. As things come up over the course of your comic/novel/TV show, fill 'em in. This is a much more fun and naturalistic way to create a fully-formed character than slaving away on a comprehensive backstory that might wind up never being used.
They're your characters...therefore it stands to reason that you know everything you need to know about them already.
Of course, I'm the one that isn't JP Sloan or Jim North.
I like to put a lot of research into my characters. I scour the web for popular comics and see which characters would be easiest to rip off. It's quite remarkable how a complete lack of drawing talent will mask total plagarism.
aw man.. I was all prepared to post this long and boring essay on how I do characters, but Mr Wolf there basically ripped my context and nutshelled it before I even got a chance.
Guess he spared you all! Curse you Mr Wolf! Foiled again!
But then again, I am just a Mushroom. What would I know?
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Resident Over-Protective Old Geezer.
Wielder of the SPOON.. OF DOOM (with +4 to Heart Removal vs Young Punks)
When I originally camp up with the Boot Camp concept two years ago, and drew the first strip of the pencil version, the characters were incredibly poorly defined. There was Sarge, the only one with any real personality from the start (basically, the long-suffering type). At first, I just had the troops referred to as "one with glasses, one with cap, one with spiky hair, short one", until I arbitrarily assigned the names Howard, Frank, George and Timothy respectively. And there was Corporal, who at first was just male with curly hair, but then I decided to make her female, just for a change. She also had a personality from the start, intelligent and sympathetic.
It was only after a while that I started to properly assign personality quirks. Howard (actually quite clever, but with no common sense or work ethic), Frank (boistrous and rash), George (strong but dumb as a sack of hammers), Timothy (competent but shy to a fault).
To be honest, the characters haven't developed very far yet. In some of the latest strips I've drawn, I've been trying to highlight a few personality traits, but it'll be a few weeks before those strips upload.
Boot Camp - There don't appear to be many Worms webcomics out there...
I'm currently developing some characters for a short film/animation for college, and as such have it on the brain 
