graves
November 10th, 2018, 07:16 PM
people constantly ask me for character advice so i thought id give a good starter for people? i hope this helps anyone in need.
Whats a character ? how do i make one?
A character is a fictional being that you are creating. You have to take into account who they are as a person no matter what species. Think; why are you creating this character? What are they going to accomplish? And after you answer that question - own it. Even if your creating a character thats just for fun and to just draw once n awhile, own it. If youre making a character just to draw and have fun with, push yourself with poses, backgrounds, color choices, ect. If you have a certain reason for creating the character. Some example reasons are like simba in the lion king, his reason was to defeat his father, or cinderella's purpose was to prove that even a girl that most people didnt seem worthy of love still got it, she proved her point, there for her development cycle is complete. First start with a name, a gender, and a brief appearance and start from there.
What is a character cycle?
A character cycle is their timeline. Throughout this doc im going to use the lion king alot since i know it by heart. We start by meeting the character simba, and his father mufasa. Then we are introduced to scar, and we learn about their distaste for eachother. Scar is the obvious antihero in this story, which is what your character needs. It doesnt need to be a person, persay, but a character that drives them down and motivates them to come back up again. We see this when scar kills simbas father, he taunts him to run away, and simba eventually rises again to take back thr throne, and faces that one lingering bully in his life. This is what we call CHARACTER DEATH and CHARACTER RESURRECTION. This is not to be meant to take litteral, though. Your character must feel what its like to be at its ultimate low (death), and come back up again and work through it (resurrection.) your character should have short term goals and long term goals, their long term goal should have been established in the beginning stages of their early life. For example, daydream has always wanted to be a warrior. Even as a medicine cat, its always been a lingering thought. After all the loss and trauma they have faced they are going to finally fulfill that goal, and then their character cycle is complete because they have fufilled their purpose in life. Just like the lionking, simbas purpose to was to make his father proud, and in the end, he finally did, and the story ends.
So lets recap, this is what your character timeline should look like.
Establish character bonds. Whether this is with parents, friends, enemies, ect. Set a long term goal. > have your character go through trial and error to figure themselves out. Have them make mistakes, have them have victories, its what makes them realistic. > have them face the ultimate struggle/ fear they have been battling with. Maybe this is depression, an enemy, whatever it is. Face it > have them not survive this attempt at challenging their struggle (this is called character death, obviously not literal) > have them strengthen their bond with their positive relationships from the very beginning > attempt at that struggle again, and succeed.
Now lets apply this to a character to see it in play, shall we? Ill use daydream for example.
Daydream as a kit had a rocky relationship with their mother, their father dying when they were young. Because of that they arent close with their siblings or mother, which has developed a sense of subtle abandonment in them. They gained a friend turned enemy named auttumpaw. Their long term goal was to keep themselves busy by being a warrior > auttumpaw and them ended up having a fallingout, to the point that she bullied and harassed them for the longest time. They ended up being a medcat instead, and losing alot of their close loved ones such as cricketpaw, geckoleaf, juniperpaw, and flashpaw and made them suffer more abandonment issues and feel like they are..alone. They did befriend sunblaze and luckynight though, lifting them up a bit > their ultimate struggle is dealing with their fathers death and auttumpaw. They will face her for the last time and end up accidentally killing her, and after she is killed the nightmares end, but during the fight she injurs their eyes and they got blind > they fall into a hard depression because they are blind, barely talking to cats and letting no one in > a friend (possible sun or lucky) set them straight and bring them up again mentally, and they learn to trust again, to talk about how they feel for the first time, and emotionally come back from that. In the end, they finally become mentally happy, step down as medicine cat, and become a warrior. Because they finally reached their long term goal, their character development and cycle is complete.
Creating a characters purpose, quirks, background, and personality
Personality is something that has been done with every trait. Accept this now; no characters personality traits are original, the REASON WHY they act the way they do is the key. A characters background is possibly the most important thing in a character's development. Well go back to daydream again. Because they lost their father at such a young age, and suffered their mothers neglect, they built a wall up for themselves and handle things much more personally then most would. To any other person, they may seem grumpy, moody, short tempered and dramatic, but there's a reason WHY they act that way, which is what makes them unique. Ask yourself why does your character act the way they do? This streams from their family life and their relationships they form when they are younger. For instance, if a cat grew up around a very tough love kind of family, they might come out to be very blunt, and seem a bit intense, but theres a reason for it, you know? Develop that.
Something that also makes a character stand out is their quirk. What is a quirk, you may ask? A stereotype or shortened version of your characters purpose. Going back to daydream, their quirk is a medcat that doesnt like starclan, and wants to be a warrior. In your mind you think “huh, medcats usually dont want to be a warrior since they went into it by choice, and usually get along with starclan, this catches my eye since they break the mold”. Or another one of my characters, bearsnarl, she is an abusive queen that hates and loves all the kits she steals. That catches your eye because yo expect a queen to always love their kits, tend to them, ect. Break that mold and push those boundaries, once you come up with a character quirk, you can start building the rest of them.
A characters purpose streams into their background a bit. Like in the lionking, it was always hinted that siba would be king one day. He went through losing his father and running away and not wanting to be king, to facing his fears (scar) and becoming king, fulfilling his purpose/long term goal. There for, his character development is complete, and thats why the move wasnt longer and in te lion king 2 we see a nw generation, his daughter. Because the story is no longer about him, he has fulfilled his personal long term goal and feels content with life now. Apply this to your own character now, what was your characters quirk? What is the reason you made this character?whats something that they want to fufill?this can be a range of things, whether its to be mentally stable, to have a family, or like simba, be the rightful king. Figure it out.
Pacing
This is something i see with alot of people and their characters. Theyll rush relationships and dynamics for whatever reason. Understand that every relationship your character has, whether it's with friendships, their parents, lovers, ect. They are all DIFFERENT in their own way. They will each have their own struggles and fight sometimes, and that fighting, once resolved, will infact bring them closer and make it harder to break. If you lack that binding time, that development, youre making the relationship between those two characters very frail and easy to break because they havent been through anything together. Its like, would you trust your lifetime friend who has seen you fail,succeed, at your best and worst, or trust your neighbor? You may be kind to your neighbor and have some small talk, maybe even go out once or twice, but if you do not let them in on your weaknesses, you are not close enough to not be broken.
This depends on the character though, if your character is the type to rush into things then by all means go ahead, but know that is a character flaw, and as they mature they will grow out of it and change. A thing about a character is that they HAVE to have flaws, some bad things about them, and understand the character you wrote in the beginning may turn out very different when you see their development. Thats good though, because it shows your character is growing as a person and recognizing their flaws and working through them, and bettering their self, but this takes time. They wont see what their doing is bad if no one tells them, which is what their string bonded relationships are for. Understand that your character has to CHANGE as they go on, let them grow and move forward.
Dynamics
In order for your character to be portrayed are… other characters ! establishing bonds is very critical. But you have to see and think what do your characters relationships represent? In the lionking, the monkey represented guidance and wisdom that simba didnt have. Timon and pumba represented relaxation, helping him understand self acre and taking a break, while nala represented reason and confrontation. Each character in YOUR characters life should have an impact on your character as a whole. Whether its a good or bad type of impact, the choice is yours.
These are very important because these people are going to be the people that either lift your character up, bring your character down, help them change, ect.
FOR ANY TIPS ON CHARACTER/ANY SPECIFIC QUESTIONS FOR YOUR CHARACTER PLEASE LEAVE THEM BELOW AND ILL HELP YOU.
Whats a character ? how do i make one?
A character is a fictional being that you are creating. You have to take into account who they are as a person no matter what species. Think; why are you creating this character? What are they going to accomplish? And after you answer that question - own it. Even if your creating a character thats just for fun and to just draw once n awhile, own it. If youre making a character just to draw and have fun with, push yourself with poses, backgrounds, color choices, ect. If you have a certain reason for creating the character. Some example reasons are like simba in the lion king, his reason was to defeat his father, or cinderella's purpose was to prove that even a girl that most people didnt seem worthy of love still got it, she proved her point, there for her development cycle is complete. First start with a name, a gender, and a brief appearance and start from there.
What is a character cycle?
A character cycle is their timeline. Throughout this doc im going to use the lion king alot since i know it by heart. We start by meeting the character simba, and his father mufasa. Then we are introduced to scar, and we learn about their distaste for eachother. Scar is the obvious antihero in this story, which is what your character needs. It doesnt need to be a person, persay, but a character that drives them down and motivates them to come back up again. We see this when scar kills simbas father, he taunts him to run away, and simba eventually rises again to take back thr throne, and faces that one lingering bully in his life. This is what we call CHARACTER DEATH and CHARACTER RESURRECTION. This is not to be meant to take litteral, though. Your character must feel what its like to be at its ultimate low (death), and come back up again and work through it (resurrection.) your character should have short term goals and long term goals, their long term goal should have been established in the beginning stages of their early life. For example, daydream has always wanted to be a warrior. Even as a medicine cat, its always been a lingering thought. After all the loss and trauma they have faced they are going to finally fulfill that goal, and then their character cycle is complete because they have fufilled their purpose in life. Just like the lionking, simbas purpose to was to make his father proud, and in the end, he finally did, and the story ends.
So lets recap, this is what your character timeline should look like.
Establish character bonds. Whether this is with parents, friends, enemies, ect. Set a long term goal. > have your character go through trial and error to figure themselves out. Have them make mistakes, have them have victories, its what makes them realistic. > have them face the ultimate struggle/ fear they have been battling with. Maybe this is depression, an enemy, whatever it is. Face it > have them not survive this attempt at challenging their struggle (this is called character death, obviously not literal) > have them strengthen their bond with their positive relationships from the very beginning > attempt at that struggle again, and succeed.
Now lets apply this to a character to see it in play, shall we? Ill use daydream for example.
Daydream as a kit had a rocky relationship with their mother, their father dying when they were young. Because of that they arent close with their siblings or mother, which has developed a sense of subtle abandonment in them. They gained a friend turned enemy named auttumpaw. Their long term goal was to keep themselves busy by being a warrior > auttumpaw and them ended up having a fallingout, to the point that she bullied and harassed them for the longest time. They ended up being a medcat instead, and losing alot of their close loved ones such as cricketpaw, geckoleaf, juniperpaw, and flashpaw and made them suffer more abandonment issues and feel like they are..alone. They did befriend sunblaze and luckynight though, lifting them up a bit > their ultimate struggle is dealing with their fathers death and auttumpaw. They will face her for the last time and end up accidentally killing her, and after she is killed the nightmares end, but during the fight she injurs their eyes and they got blind > they fall into a hard depression because they are blind, barely talking to cats and letting no one in > a friend (possible sun or lucky) set them straight and bring them up again mentally, and they learn to trust again, to talk about how they feel for the first time, and emotionally come back from that. In the end, they finally become mentally happy, step down as medicine cat, and become a warrior. Because they finally reached their long term goal, their character development and cycle is complete.
Creating a characters purpose, quirks, background, and personality
Personality is something that has been done with every trait. Accept this now; no characters personality traits are original, the REASON WHY they act the way they do is the key. A characters background is possibly the most important thing in a character's development. Well go back to daydream again. Because they lost their father at such a young age, and suffered their mothers neglect, they built a wall up for themselves and handle things much more personally then most would. To any other person, they may seem grumpy, moody, short tempered and dramatic, but there's a reason WHY they act that way, which is what makes them unique. Ask yourself why does your character act the way they do? This streams from their family life and their relationships they form when they are younger. For instance, if a cat grew up around a very tough love kind of family, they might come out to be very blunt, and seem a bit intense, but theres a reason for it, you know? Develop that.
Something that also makes a character stand out is their quirk. What is a quirk, you may ask? A stereotype or shortened version of your characters purpose. Going back to daydream, their quirk is a medcat that doesnt like starclan, and wants to be a warrior. In your mind you think “huh, medcats usually dont want to be a warrior since they went into it by choice, and usually get along with starclan, this catches my eye since they break the mold”. Or another one of my characters, bearsnarl, she is an abusive queen that hates and loves all the kits she steals. That catches your eye because yo expect a queen to always love their kits, tend to them, ect. Break that mold and push those boundaries, once you come up with a character quirk, you can start building the rest of them.
A characters purpose streams into their background a bit. Like in the lionking, it was always hinted that siba would be king one day. He went through losing his father and running away and not wanting to be king, to facing his fears (scar) and becoming king, fulfilling his purpose/long term goal. There for, his character development is complete, and thats why the move wasnt longer and in te lion king 2 we see a nw generation, his daughter. Because the story is no longer about him, he has fulfilled his personal long term goal and feels content with life now. Apply this to your own character now, what was your characters quirk? What is the reason you made this character?whats something that they want to fufill?this can be a range of things, whether its to be mentally stable, to have a family, or like simba, be the rightful king. Figure it out.
Pacing
This is something i see with alot of people and their characters. Theyll rush relationships and dynamics for whatever reason. Understand that every relationship your character has, whether it's with friendships, their parents, lovers, ect. They are all DIFFERENT in their own way. They will each have their own struggles and fight sometimes, and that fighting, once resolved, will infact bring them closer and make it harder to break. If you lack that binding time, that development, youre making the relationship between those two characters very frail and easy to break because they havent been through anything together. Its like, would you trust your lifetime friend who has seen you fail,succeed, at your best and worst, or trust your neighbor? You may be kind to your neighbor and have some small talk, maybe even go out once or twice, but if you do not let them in on your weaknesses, you are not close enough to not be broken.
This depends on the character though, if your character is the type to rush into things then by all means go ahead, but know that is a character flaw, and as they mature they will grow out of it and change. A thing about a character is that they HAVE to have flaws, some bad things about them, and understand the character you wrote in the beginning may turn out very different when you see their development. Thats good though, because it shows your character is growing as a person and recognizing their flaws and working through them, and bettering their self, but this takes time. They wont see what their doing is bad if no one tells them, which is what their string bonded relationships are for. Understand that your character has to CHANGE as they go on, let them grow and move forward.
Dynamics
In order for your character to be portrayed are… other characters ! establishing bonds is very critical. But you have to see and think what do your characters relationships represent? In the lionking, the monkey represented guidance and wisdom that simba didnt have. Timon and pumba represented relaxation, helping him understand self acre and taking a break, while nala represented reason and confrontation. Each character in YOUR characters life should have an impact on your character as a whole. Whether its a good or bad type of impact, the choice is yours.
These are very important because these people are going to be the people that either lift your character up, bring your character down, help them change, ect.
FOR ANY TIPS ON CHARACTER/ANY SPECIFIC QUESTIONS FOR YOUR CHARACTER PLEASE LEAVE THEM BELOW AND ILL HELP YOU.