A(n) (mildly snippy) instructional about creating your own lifelike OCs (read: Original Characters), within your very own universe.
Written by Sarah Shaw
Because working with your own original characters is proven seventy times more satisfying than screwing around with pre-conceived characters of someone else’s creation. You decide the rules. You decide the canon. You can play however you want without anyone complaining because you can pull the “THEY’RE MY OCs, I CAN DO WHAT I WANT!” card. If you want your original characters to be gay for each other—so be it. Nobody can argue. If you want to kill off one of your OCs, so be it—nobody can argue. They’re yours to do with what you please. You are their merciful god. The unfortunate thing about fan art is that no matter how much you wish something was so, it never is unless the original writer/artist says it is and puts it into canon. With OCs, that control is yours.
Unless of course, you’re just drawing fan art to get people to notice you. In that case, subtract 20 respect points from your account and read on. I am going to explain to you my personal method of creating and maintaining original characters that capture people’s attention. It’s not just being able to draw well—that’s merely a fraction of what it takes to create compelling, interesting original characters.
It also helps to not concern yourself with popularity and just do it for your own personal satisfaction and artistic growth.
That said, this tutorial is merely a run-down of how I choose to do things. You don’t have to agree with everything I say or do. I’m merely writing this as an outlet for myself, and because a great deal of people wanted to know and thought I had something to teach them, so I’m either proving them wrong or making them happy. Either way, I win, so go me.
Read, watch, listen, and play. Observe and study everything. Don’t copy, just absorb from everything around you. Look at the people you know, the people you don’t know, the things you see on television, the beauty you see in nature, look at books, movies, video games, magazines, fashion, anything you can get your hands on—anything that your five primary senses can pick up is a potential idea that your brain can translate, mix, and incorporate with other ideas to create something fresh.
Read anything with words, watch anything you can see, listen to anything you can hear, and play.
Just play.
Without any more babbling, onward we go, to…
Every character needs a purpose. Make sure you have a reason for this character to exist. Are you writing a novel? Making a graphic novel? Role play? Simple comic strips? Whatever. He/She is your character; you can create him/her for whatever purpose you want. Pick one!
Keep in mind that some purposes NOT to consider are:
As to the last two—your OC can be plenty sexy and plenty pretty, I don’t care (honestly, I don’t, but I’ll tackle this subject later). My point is that being sexy or pretty is not a purpose. It’s a trait. Just like you having brown/blond/red hair. Your purpose in life is not to have brown, blond, or red hair, is it?
No. It’s not. And don’t tell me it is just to be contradictory, you contradictory loather-who-makes-up-reasons-to-hate-someone (I’m looking RIGHT AT YOU).
I’ll use my OC, Cyrus, for example. In my case, in the very, very beginning, many years ago, I decided, “I want to write a novel about an assassin. I need a main character.”
Bam. That’s all, right there. Stage one complete. That didn’t take long at all, did it?
So now you have a reason that YOU need this character. But before you start conceptualising what this guy or chick looks or acts like, this unborn, faceless, bodiless character needs his/her OWN purpose.
That means…
OH SHIT! You need a story!
Don’t panic. Not every story has to be an epic adventure. Even if you’re creating this character for a novel, you don’t even have to have the entire plot planned out yet—that comes last, or at the very least simultaneously while you’re conceptualising the character.
But not to worry! What I mean when I say story, is that the character needs a goal. I wish I could remember what book I was reading when I read this, but story is simply a series of actions over time (usually in a coherent fashion). It doesn’t have to be complex yet, or ever, if you don’t want it to be. And a story typically has a goal.
So what’s he/she after? Food? Money? Sex? Revenge? “To be the best”? Starting a family? Justice? Forgiveness? Understanding? Transcendence/Zen? Knowledge? Power? Or maybe some other goal that I haven’t listed. God knows, there are plenty to choose from. You’ve got goals, I’ve got goals, your friends have goals, your teachers have goals, the president, believe it or not, has goals, that French guy you’ve never met and the one standing next to him both have goals…
This “goal” of your character’s doesn’t even need to be the BIG PRIMARY PLOT goal-line, if you have one. It more or less just states what your character wants, in general, out of life. You don’t even have to think of the WHYS yet.
I also tend to discourage “fan characters,” i.e. “original” characters that come from the Naruto universe, or Kingdom Hearts, or Bleach, or One Piece, or Harry Potter, or… some other pre-existing fictional universe. I strongly encourage you find an OC that comes from someplace new. The overall feeling of connectivity and sense of satisfaction will be greater. And also, people grow tired of fan characters very rapidly. There’s too much “mary sue” potential, and people are less likely to give you the time of day. I’m just telling it like it is.
So, going back to Cyrus, after I decided I needed a main character, I needed to know what he was after. In my case, since I already knew he was an assassin, I surmised that he wants money. Adding to that, I decided, if he wants money, he also probably wants success. And being an assassin is a dangerous job, so the biggest goal would probably be “survival.”
This is the part you probably skipped to. If that’s the case, shame on you, you lose 10 respect points and a receive +1 week of shunning.
Anyway, so you know what your character is for and what he/she wants.
So far, I’ve got… a book character who’s an assassin that wants money and to survive. What’ve you got? You’re writing stuff down, right?
No?
What the hell man, go get your sketchbook. When coming up with a character, regardless of whether you’re writing or drawing, you need to have either a notebook or a sketchbook at your side or at least easily accessible at all times. Normally I would say “omg have it with you at all times!!” but I never have my sketchbook with me at all times. It is, however, a very good habit to have your sketchbook/notebook with you wherever you go. It’s a habit I desperately need to get into, so shame on me.
Every thought you have about this figurative, nonexistent character needs to be jotted down in the pages somewhere so you can relate back to them later if you get stuck. If you’re a writer, doodle stuff in the margins for a mental visual aid. If you’re an artist, write notes in the margins for coherent elaboration and clearer understanding.
Conceptualising a character includes two primary focuses: the Physical—what this guy/girl looks like (and why)— and the Non-Physical—what kind of person they are, how he/she acts (and why), and where they come from. Neither one is more important than the other, as they both fall hand in hand. So while you’re coming up with your ideas, you kind of need to be juggling both thoughts at the same time.
Not only that, but in order to come up with these ideas, this character needs reasons why he is the way that he is, which may or may not determine how he dresses. Your procedure for coming up with all this stuff may change every time, as it did for me. When I came up with Cyrus, I basically started with his appearance first. And the closer I came to finalizing his design (it took years, just look how much he’s changed in the span of a few years), the more I began to question why he dresses the way he does, why his hair is the way it is, why all the scars, all the nonchalance, and so forth. Drawing him, for me, was a way to get comfortable with him, which I will get to later.
So now, your character has a purpose and a bigger purpose and some wants and desires. It’s time to decide WHAT HE IS, if you haven’t already. Is he a pilot? A doctor? A lawyer? Crime fighter? Magician/Sorcerer/mage? Shepherd? Priest? Photographer for a newspaper? Full-time student (what’s he studying?)? A pet? Housewife? Servant? Truck driver? Hit man? Cat burglar? Jobless slacker? This is important because what the character is “professionally” (i.e. what he’s doing with his life) will have a big affect on how he dresses and acts.
The reasons WHY he is what he is can be determined later. That may seem kind of backwards, but stay with me. This is the Rynnay-way, after all, nobody said you had to read this.
Cyrus’s famous last words…
Anyway, I’ll deal with physical appearance first since most of you are probably impatiently scanning just for this part (if so, -20 more respect points, +2 week shunning). Here are some points to go over when conceptualising visually:
This is a big one for most people. Here you need to start thinking about WHAT your character does, and how he would most likely dress and why. Your character’s clothes do not have to be overly ornate and decorated with intricate designs and baubles and vibrant neon colours in nonsensical patterns out the wazoo if your character is, say… a lawyer. And even if your character is some kind of sorcerer or magician, they still don’t have to be adorned in overly ornate… crap… overly complex costume designs are becoming increasingly cliché and just… way too much. You need to try to find a happy medium between too simple and too ornate.
Unless there’s a reason for being too simple or too ornate. For some characters, fashion only goes so far. After that, most of the time what they wear will be purely functional. Is your OC the type to dress in vibrant colours because it’s pretty even though he’s a black mage? Then fine. Otherwise, don’t go overboard. If you make your character look ridiculous when he plainly isn’t someone who wants to look ridiculous—even if you think it looks cool or pretty or sexy, chances are, your OC won’t approve. If he wants to dress eccentrically, he should probably be acting eccentrically too. Don’t just toss raver colours on him because it’s neat.
By now your OC may begin to try “talking” to you. Listen to him (or her, of course). He’ll tell you what’s up if you’re stepping completely out of line.
For clothing (without thinking about colour yet), consider various things like where they come from as well. What time period are they living in? What’s the overall technology level where they are? This will help you narrow down the possibilities of what they can wear. Here are some ideas to get you started:
PLEASE try to have a reason why their hair is an odd colour It doesn’t even have to be a very good reason. If they dyed it, why’d they dye it? If they were born with it, how? Ethan’s hair is blue because his race’s hair colours only consist of blue, white, or blond. That’s my reason. You can try to research genetics and reasons why this could be so, but it’s not necessary, really. But just not because “I like blue!! ^^”. One of the most glaring clichés that people will roll their eyes at is a character with some crazy other-worldly hair colour If you really want your OC to have pink hair, you’d best make sure you can balance out this cliché with some really original ideas, or at least put a fresh spin. You want to balance out the clichés your using with fresh ideas.
That said, here are some things to resist doing with your character’s physical appearance:
Ok, seriously, if you have to make a catboy/catigirl character, you better pray their personality and history more than makes up for it. Because this cliché is a big, big pitfall. Broken “Wapanese” like “kawaii neko desu! ^^” does not help. It actually makes it worse, because believe it or not, you’re most likely not Japanese, and even more likely very annoying.
I needs me some ideas!— It’s perfectly fair game to pull ideas from some of your favourite books, TV shows, movies, cartoons, and video games. Look at some of your favourite pre-existing characters, and break down what it is exactly that makes you like them. Look at several characters. It’s okay to borrow minor features here and there, as long as you balance out that borrowed feature with something original and fresh. If you borrow a character’s attitude, your OC should look very different than that borrowed character’s. If you borrow one or two physical traits, make sure they differ in other ways. Make this OC yours. Don’t cop out and steal ideas.
For example. My OC Cyrus was inspired by a literary character by the name of Vlad Taltos, written by Steven Brust. Vlad is an assassin with the most amazing, hilarious witty cynicism I’ve ever read. Just by saying that, it sounds like he’s exactly like Cyrus, right? Wrong. For one, Vlad is much smoother than Cyrus, not as clumsy. He’s also darker despite his hilarious sense of humour. He’s more outwardly bitter. Cyrus keeps his bitterness to himself. Not to mention Cyrus’s past is dramatically different than Vlad’s, their worlds are dramatically different, and while they both excel at knife throwing, Vlad fights with a rapier whereas Cyrus fights with katars. Cyrus is an air shifter, Vlad uses witchcraft. I used Vlad Taltos as sort of a kick-off point: cynical, smart-ass assassin. The rest came to me from out of the blue.
Another OC of mine, Nale. For him, don’t laugh, I combined Cid Highwind, a pirate, and, eventually, Doctor Cox from Scrubs. Nale is not a pirate, but he acts like one. He’s not as stand-offish and loathing of people as Doctor Cox, but he rants like him. And he’s not a pilot like Cid Highwind, but he cusses a lot and is (was) a captain of some sort, and he has a soft side pretty similar. Not to mention, when he was in the Imperial Guard’s aerial division, he probably wore goggles. He also kind of runs like him too.
Ethan. He started out as a token stereotypical elf-like character purely as a subtle jab at fantasy and anime fans. To make up for the physical stereotype of being tall, skinny, fair-skinned, and fair-haired, I made up in personality by breaking all the expected personality traits. He doesn’t mind getting dirty. He doesn’t spend hours on his hair (that’s the joke). He doesn’t bathe any more regularly than anyone else. He’ll drink hard liquor without hesitation, and is a violent drunk. He will brawl with fists and feet if it comes down to it. His punches actually hurt like a bitch. He bleeds like anyone else, and his farts stink like anyone else’s. He’s just ill-humored and was raised to be proper.
Another OC of mine, Trent. Once again, I was inspired by Cid Highwind. Except this time the only thing I pulled from Cid was that he’s a mechanic and wears goggles (because hey, goggles are hardcore—but they do serve a purpose!). Everything else I pulled from either other artists I was looking at, or from out of the blue.
Keep in mind, that when you pull inspiration from pre-existing characters, you need to be a little careful just how much you pull from them. Take a step back every so often and ask yourself “Does this character resemble too much something I’ve already seen before?” Is somebody going to look at your ninja and go “Oh, a Naruto character. Boring.” If so, you’ve got some rethinking to do.
The main thing you want to keep in mind at all times, is to avoid overused clichés. Don’t get so involved with doing this that you forget to pause every so often and ask yourself, “Is there something I’ve done that is too overused? And how can I keep it but make it new and interesting?”
If you find yourself with an overactive desire to give your character some kind of physical trait that you know is otherwise looked down upon as an overused cliché (such as Ethan’s long, fine hair or the tendency to go on long, elaborate speeches as they’re about to win a battle for example), and you’re not sure you want to get rid of it for whatever reason, do what I do.
Let them or another character acknowledge that this is silly, and let them make fun of it, or admit that they think it’s stupid too. Say they have pink hair. Maybe… their little brother played a prank on them, and now their hair is pink. I don’t know. This lets the audience know that yes, you are aware that you are using a cliché, and that you understand that you think it’s silly too and that this is the point.
Assuming that IS the point you were trying to make by deciding to stick with the cliché.
Every time Ethan starts to go into some elaborate explanation about something, I almost always have Cyrus or Nale (usually Cyrus) make some kind of comment, either out loud or in the narration, about his long-windedness.
Again, famous last words.
The further down the page you get in sections, the more time you’ll be taking to make your decisions and figuring these things out—mainly because the deeper you delve into a character, the more thought you have to put into it. So when you get around to familiarizing yourself with their behaviour, it’ll take a little longer than just figuring out what they look like, because now you have all these questions to ask yourself and facets of their personality and history to explore.
Hopefully while you were going through and thinking about what your character looks like, you were also beginning to pay attention to the way he/she acts.
(This portion is where it begins to become obvious that in a way, we are telling a story backwards. We are determining first what this character’s ultimate goal is and what they look like, which is heavily dependent upon how they behave and what they do professionally, which is in turn heavily dependent on what happened in their lives previously. Much of the time when I create a character, I won’t know his or her back-story until I already know what they look like and generally how they behave. I will come up with the physical and the behavioural before coming up with why. This is because when I already know what the results of whatever happened to them are, I know what questions to ask them in order to figure out what happened and how they grew up.)
At any rate, I’ll get to that later. For now, here are some questions to ask your OC to become more familiar with who they are and possibly where they come from.
And of course, some things to resist doing:
Hopefully by now you have several pages of your sketchbook or notebook filled corner to corner with notes and doodles and sketches about this new… person, creature, or being that you’ve made. And hopefully by now you have a name to refer to him by. If not, think of one now. Because you’ve come this far and you know him this well already, he or she deserves a name. If you need help with a name, try looking up a words that represent the character in some foreign language (resist Japanese if you can) and coming up with derivatives of it. Also try name generators, and sites that have a dictionary of name meanings.
So, you’ve got a moderately almost solid idea of this new OC of yours. Now before you start to get even deeper into the character development, the question you have to ask yourself is “Where does he come from?” Without knowing about his environment, it’s difficult to take his development any further. So for now,we’ll take a break from the character and digress into the environment before we get more involved with him.
Where does he/she come from? Suddenly there’s an explosion of possibilities that have opened up to you. A completely blank canvas or blank document. You should already have a vague idea of what kind of place he’s from, and hopefully you have not chosen a pre-existing universe such as Naruto, Harry Potter, or Disney/Squenix. If you have, you’ve missed the point of my tutorial entirely, and this section might be totally meaningless to you.
By the time you get this far, you probably have a pretty decent idea what kind of time period your character is mimicking. Whether it be medieval-esque fantasy, modern fantasy, modern fiction, sci-fi, or what have you, you have something to kick off from.
I’m not going to claim to being any kind of expert on politics, economics, or matters of war, but I do know that every world has all three. As a matter of fact, I know very, very little about either of these, which is why my story, personally, has little to do with them (except maybe war, which is more of a background plot than anything). But that doesn’t mean I can completely ignore these factors. Wherever your character comes from, there are current events happening publicly that are affecting him.
Above all else, make sure you have at least a general understanding of the following:
You should probably eventually come up with names for things as well. Names of important government figureheads, the name of the capital city, names of major sections/states/territories, names of surrounding oceans, prominent land marks (mountains in particular), and so forth.
Keep in mind though, you don’t have to come up with all of this at once. A lot of world building, at least for me, is thought of while I’m coming up with the story. One of the pros of being god of your own little universe is that you can make snap decisions like this, and as long as they don’t contradict what’s already true, nobody will think anything of it. And even if you do decide to contradict what you’ve already said, make sure that you make this alteration completely and utterly—alter anything that’s affected by these changes too. The last thing you want is a plot hole big enough to drive a truck through or for people to get confused because of a change you made late in the making, leaving something from earlier on dangling in the ether. As the saying goes, “cover all your bases.”
Yes, yes. The horrible “R” word. Everybody hates doing it. Or at least I do. I mean come on! I want to write! I don’t want to read! And my story has nothing to do with politics or economics! Politics and economics are boring! I don’t want to read boring stuff! “Do not want!”
Yeah, well, too bad. If you get an idea for what kind of government system you want your world to have, you should probably have at least a general idea of how it works. You don’t have to be an expert on it, but if something arises in the plot that involves the government in a way you’re not sure how it would work or what group or officials would be affected or react, you might want to look it up. There’s a perfect LiveJournal community called “little_details” that’s purely for writers and all the little questions they have about… anything at all in the real world. From the human body to investigation, for any genre of writer. Check it out if you’re a stickler for details and like to ask a lot of questions.
Research can also provide a good source of inspiration. You can think of one or two cultures in the real world that you enjoy learning about, and combine aspects of them to create this new country you’re making up.
LANGUAGE: parlez vous Elvish?
Here are some tips on language for your world:
All in all, when coming up with your little world, just keep asking yourself, “How does it work, and why?” Spend as much time as you like developing your environment. What always helped me was to think about my own world. What things do I do every day? What affects me? What affects my friends? Go out to the mall, or the park, or your school cafeteria or eatery, and watch people. This is your world, this is this is humanity. Watch how they behave. People are people no matter where they are. There are different cultures, different beliefs, different traditions, different countries, but in general—they’re still people. So are the people in your new world. They all have lives, they all have business that needs tending to, and most importantly, they’re all going to have those “just another day” days.
Give it some thought. Being comfortable in the real world will help you be comfortable in your own.
Sit back in your chair and place your hand on the palm side of your wrist or under your jaw until you can feel your pulse. Hold it there while you read on.
This person you’re creating isn’t just a picture or some words on the screen. This is your son or daughter you’re talking about. It’s true that your OC is only as real as you want them to be. They’ll only feel as much as you allow them to. They only breathe as deeply as you believe they do. They’re only alive if you let them be. And if they are alive, they have a pulse too.
With that in mind, they’re your kids—not your sexual fantasies. You adopted them as your own, and they’re yours now. And just as if you had a real son or a real daughter, you want to know every little excruciating detail about them. You want to know how they grew up, who their friends are, how they’re treated, their crushes, their interests and hobbies, where they’re going, why they’re going, how long they’re going to be gone, what are they doing right this very moment—everything you would want to know about your own offspring, you want to know about your character (even if they don’t want to tell you and you have to squeeze the information out of them). You don’t get more interested in anyone as much as you do your own offspring. The same thing goes for your character. Know them like you know yourself and better.
When you’re still not feeling real close to your character, and you’re not sure how to relate to them better, try putting your fingers over your pulse for a few minutes while thinking about where you want to go with your OC. You’ll be reminded that regardless of the differences, regardless of how strong or fearless he (or she) claims to be, he’s still a living, breathing being with concerns and thoughts and worries just like you. And as much as you can feel your own pulse, if he looked for his, he’d feel one too.
...So now that I’m done being lame, let’s continue.
You’ve got a purpose, a greater purpose, a colourful shell, and you’ve got some general, still-mostly-dry personality traits to go by, and some semblance of an environment to put it all in. Now that that’s out of the way, we can proceed to further develop the “Non-physical.”
One of the biggest factors that will help to solidify a character is time. The longer you work with an OC, the more familiar you’ll become with them, the better you’ll know them, and the more “real” they’ll become to everyone else. People can see the love a writer or an artist puts into their work, and if you put enough into it, the liveliness of your OC will become apparent. It’s very rare that you create a character that immediately jumps off the page the same day he’s conceptualised. That usually doesn’t happen unless you’ve been creating OCs for a very long time and your mind is exercised enough to really feel things right off the bat. For most people, you need to dedicate a lot of time and just use your characters frequently enough. I’ve had Cyrus around for about five years now. A lot of his “realism” didn’t begin to really become apparent until a few years down the road when I started to really question the different deeper aspects of his personality, and when people began questioning me about him.
There’s a lot to say here, so bare with me.
Go down the list of personality traits that you made in the previous section and ask yourself “Why?” as often as you can. That will start you down a general path of considering the causes and effects of what your character has done, what’s happened to him, and what the results of such actions are in the “present.” Try to consider all the facets of his personality that are the most notable and ask yourself how he came to be that way. What sort of psychological/emotional/physical trauma did he suffer, if any? All that sort of thing… like I said, go down the list of personality questions I mentioned, and then ask yourself “Why?” when you answer all of them.
This is when you start to define a timeline of sorts for your OC’s personal history or back story. “For every action, there is a reaction.” It’s up to you to determine what that is, according to your character’s personality.
Some exercises that might help are doing thing such as sitting down and typing out a conversation between you and your OC. Start by saying hello, maybe a little small talk, and just sort of see where it goes from there. Sometimes he may not want to answer a question. In that case, you can of course either press the matter (maybe find out how short his temper is as a result, and then why his temper is that way), or drop it and move on. I still have my first conversation with Cyrus. Since then, he’s changed a bit, but the same information and general attitude has remained more or less the same.
You may also consider going through your music and finding some songs that put you in the right “mind set” for the character. Listen to songs that put the strongest mental image of your OC in your mind, and listen to them over and over again, and just write what comes to you. Music is one of my greatest inspirations as far as mental imagery goes—which can be very important in order to then express it outward to an audience.
Some things to be careful of with your OC’s back story. are overly dramatic disasters. As I’ve said numerous times already: use moderation and balance. A compelling character will very often have an interesting life story and a great deal of heartache involved in it, but if you make it too terrifying while having your character come out of it too unbothered, then nobody can relate to this. The character becomes flat, untouchable, and nobody can sympathize. In the same vein, if your character is too “emo” in comparison to what actually happened to him, that’s just as annoying. Try not to let your OC cry too much. Just like in real life, nobody likes a crybaby.
One of the key things to remember is that as compelling and exciting and new and interesting as your OC has become, you have to always think of them as just another person. Wherever they live, they are just as likely to be seen wandering somewhere as anyone else is. Even if they lurk in the shadows all the time, there are still times when they are minding their own business and going about their day just like anyone else you see walking down the street. It’s important to think of them as a normal person regardless of how bizarre their “powers” are, because when you can think of them normally, it’s much easier for you to relate to them, and in turn you can demonstrate their “normalcy” to your audience, and they in turn are able to relate to and understand them as well. Somehow, for some reason, when a writer feels so closely connected with their OC, the love and power they feel for them always shines through in their writing and art, and somehow it always becomes apparent to the audience. Even if the artist isn’t doing it consciously, the audience can feel it.
Even the first popular super heroes had normalcy—Spiderman and Peter Parker. Batman and Bruce Wayne. Superman and Clark Kent. They all had their own lives to tend to, just like you and your OCs. Their “normal” lives, even forgetting their super lives, had their fair share of what would be considered stressful and nerve-wracking in the average, real world. Making a deadline on time for work, earning enough money to eat and pay bills, trying to run a business, keeping up with the current events, friends ditching you, love lives falling apart, avoiding getting hit by a car…
What I’m trying to say is that, while it’s true we as artists are giving our audience a means of escape from the real world, we can’t completely erase it even in the worlds we let our audience escape to. There is still normalcy that has to be established, otherwise nobody can relate to or empathize with it, thus nobody cares, and thus it doesn’t provide a very good escape—it’s not interesting, no matter how super strong and cool your character’s powers are, and no matter how sexy and drop-dead gorgeous they look. If nobody can empathize, if nobody can feel the hurt and the frustration—even every-day “Damn it, I stubbed my toe!” events— they become flat, uninteresting, done-to-death characters, with just another pretty face.
Through your OC’s “average” humanity, they will become above average as characters. Cid Highwind, to me, seemed like the best character in FF7 simply because he seemed like an average Joe-type of guy. He had a job, a crappy government made his job difficult, and he had some plans fall through. That happens to almost everybody at some point in their lives. And like most people, he didn’t sit in a corner and cry about it or go into drawn-out flashbacks about it. Heck, you don’t even get to know what happened to him until someone else tells you how it went down.
So, in other words, more of this “don’t make your OC perfect” type stuff. Sure you can make their lives difficult—and you probably should, and I most certainly expect that you will—but at the same time, they’re still human (or what have you).
If it helps, try to think of all the problems you have going on. And all the problems your friends have going on. All the problems your parents have going on. And their friends. Look for people you know who are in the same age bracket as your OC, and listen to what kind of normal stresses they have going on. That’ll give you an idea of what kind of “smash-your-face-into-a-wall-in-frustration” things can affect people.
Before the opening of the novel—i.e. in his back-story, almost all of his problems were fairly average, and pretty straight-forward, logical results of previous actions. Before he became an assassin, he had to cope with living by himself, making enough money, getting food to eat, finding a place to live, coping with public scrutiny, not getting lost on the way to where he was going, not losing his job despite how much he hated his job, interacting with acquaintances and strangers he meets from day to day, getting enough sleep, bathing, having clothes on his back… not to mention all of what was going on in the world outside of the town he happened to be in, and how that affected him and people around him.
When he became an assassin, he then had to deal with all of that plus dealing with the consequences of being a murderer. Like any normal person, his fear of being arrested or killed drove him to stay ahead of the game, therefore he had to make sure he stayed healthy and active (eating right, exercising, training, sleeping if he could), stay sharp and learn how to stay on top of things—cover his tracks, watch people closely, be aware of his surroundings, use false names—all manner of things. His reasons for being the way that he is are all results of him just being a normal person reacting the way any normal person would to the situations that he either brought upon himself, or were put upon him by the people and environment around him.
Most of you, I reckon, are artists. I, personally, am an artist first and a writer second (though sometimes the dividing line is blurred). But surprisingly or not, I don’t have much to share in regard to illustrating your characters’ life. At least not without having to make this a drawing tutorial, which is not my intent. I’m not writing this to teach you how to draw. That’s up to you. But what I can do is offer some tips in two areas.
The face of the character is what the audience seeks out first—most notably the eyes. Usually. It is an automatic, subconscious, psychological reaction because the human face is what we recognize and relate to the most as human beings (maybe because that is often the first thing we see when we are born and what we see most often when we are babies but don’t quote me on that). So keeping that in mind, it makes sense that this is where people tend to notice the “liveliness” of a character first.
Next comes the body. Not much extra to say about the body, other than to let line of action flow. Don’t stick to nothing but static poses. Practice some dynamic poses and let your character goof off once in a while, as I’m sure you like to do. Body language is used to reinforce what the face and the voice is saying, so make sure you draw with that in mind.
With that in mind, you should be able to draw the body without a head and have the emotion still be clear. And you should be able to draw the head without a body and have the emotion still be clear. Draw the eyes without the rest of the face, and have the emotion still be clear. You get the idea. Static emotion = static expression = boring. Dynamic emotion = dynamic expression from head to toe = lively.
And I think that about does it.
(Begin thought-provoking closing statement… now!)
That said, creating compelling OCs is time-consuming, thought-provoking work. But it’s fun work. It’s very satisfying, at the end of the day, to know that all the ideas and thought you put into your OC are all by your bidding. It takes a long time to develop a character really, really well. And sometimes it takes the help of some friends too—get some close friends together and chat them up about their OCs, or get their feedback on your work. But don’t feel so rushed to get to the finished product, because when it comes to original characters, you’re never actually “finished.” What’s fun is the development itself, and getting excited over new ideas that come into your head.
It’s not the destination, it’s the journey. I find real life to be much the same way. There’s not much journey in toying around with characters that have already been developed by someone else. In that same vein, there’s not much life, either. Get off your rear-end and make something new.
So, to summarize, here’s what I want you to walk away with: