User blog:Decathartique/dC's Character Creation Guide

Since a lot of people have been creating character creation guides lately, I got somewhat inspired and decided to create one as well. This guide has the purpose of covering all the aspects of RWBY OC-creating, from personality to design and visual aspects, therefore it might get updates constantly.

This guide is basically the methodology I employ when I create characters, so don’t take it as a Word of God, but rather as just another guide for character-making. Also, while I’m an artist I’m no writer, so my guide might be more inclined towards image and concepts rather than narrative because of this.

Since I’m a visual artist this guide might be heavily theoretical/conceptual in some parts, so don’t be afraid to ask if you don’t understand something. Also, if I make any typos or explain stuff in a weird way I apologize beforehand; English isn’t my first language and I’m not the most verbal person either, so please don’t hesitate in telling me if I haven’t explained something clearly enough.

NOTE: This guide doesn’t only work with RWBY OCs; this guide might work with any kind of OC as well.

What’s the point of character-making?
Before starting with the process itself, I think this question must be made: Why do YOU want to create a character? Chances are you’re going to say it’s either for fun or because you want to gain some artistic/writing/designing skill while doing so or something along those lines, and that’s obviously good of course, but the thing I’m asking is: What’s the POINT of creating a character, in your case? Do you wanna show off something you like or that you consider interesting through a character? Do you wanna make visible or personify some concept or issue through a character? Do you wanna create a character as a mean for achieving something in particular? In my opinion, you should ask yourself first this before starting creating that character; it doesn’t have to be something overly complex, it can be something quite simple. For example, I created Candela because I wanted to do a character based on Chilean stuff, because 1) I’m Chilean myself and 2) Almost all the Latino stuff you see in English-speaking media is either Mexican or just some weird ass Latino-gringo stereotyped crap, so there’s a representation factor present as well; the wish to show that Latinos are a diverse group and that they can look pretty different from each other (in Candela’s case, she’s quite different from what you’d expect from an USA-centric stereotype appearance-wise due to her European-looking attire -even if she has an indigenous surname-, therefore representing the concept of miscegenation, which is probably the most characteristic thing in Latinos and Latino cultures in general).

Of course, I got some OCs that have a less “serious” motivation as well; take Hal for example: I created him in that way because 1) I like football (not handegg), 2) because I don’t like how Velvet is the “typical” mellow rabbit and I wanted to make an OC that would be a temperamental rabbit Faunus (I have a pet rabbit and he’s quite temperamental and sassy and I love him because of that), and 3) because I like men with nice legs and I think there should be more of them. I’m not even kidding.

The basis of everything: The motif
After asking myself the purpose of the character I wish to create, I proceed to probably the most fundamental part of character-making, in my opinion: the motif. Sure, you might say that “motif isn’t always necessary” or that “it isn’t obligatory”, but I disagree. In my honest opinion, if you don’t wanna have a dull, inconsistent character, you SHOULD assign a motif to it. Why do I have such a drastic opinion, do you wonder? I got 2 reasons:


 * A motif will trace a framework from the start, so it’ll be easier to create the character with it defined from the start. Assigning a motif to a character will give you solid options of what you can pick for creating it. For example, if you assign the motif “fish” to a character, a lot of concepts and elements are associated to the idea of “fish”: gills, scales, water, mermaids, sea, colorfulness, tropical weather, swimming/diving, etc.…and you can even get more concepts for ideas from these, and so on (i.e.: fish -> mermaids -> singing -> music -> pop -> idol -> kawaii -> Japan, etc.). As you can see, it helps a lot in bringing ideas for the appearance/personality/backstory of your OC, and at the same time keeps consistence; it doesn’t become a character that doesn’t make sense.


 * A motif helps an awful lot in creating a character people will find eye-catching and/or that will identify with, because motifs are concepts people know beforehand and can relate to a lot of other things, and some motifs (such as the sun, the moon, certain mythological characters, etc.) are present since the birth of humanity, and therefore are present in the collective unconscious, making them universal and easier to understand (and therefore making them familiar and “accessible”). It could be said that in this case, characters with a motif set work in a similar way to stereotypical or archetypal traits, since motifs make the character more “predicable” and “known” in their traits (not necessarily in their personality, of course), and therefore more familiar to the rest.

A motif can be any kind of thing: from plants to animals, from countries to planets, from forms of art to sports, from fictional characters to real people. Get creative and don’t be afraid of delving in something that could be considered weird or recherché; it might be a great way of creating an authentic, eye-catching character.

Brainstorming and connecting concepts for inspiration
As I mentioned before, a motif will trace a framework from the start, and you can get a lot of concepts from it. Here’s when brainstorming comes into play.

Like I said in the latest section, if you assign the motif “fish” to a character, a lot of concepts and elements are associated to the idea of “fish”: gills, scales, water, mermaids, sea, colorfulness, tropical weather, swimming/diving, etc., and you can even get more concepts for ideas from these, and so on (i.e.: fish -> mermaids -> singing -> music -> pop -> idol -> kawaii -> Japan, etc.). All these concepts can help and turn into ideas and inspiration that will help to create your character; you can even find a better motif or allusion for your character this way.

While I do this as a mental exercise myself, you can sketch down a scheme so you can see all the concepts you’ve thought, and connect them for getting even more ideas. Here’s an example I made in some minutes:



As you can see even if there’s a lot of concepts coming from “fish”, there’s still plenty of concepts you can keep adding to this scheme, and that can still be connected with the concept of “fish” in some way or another, even if they look far-fetched at first glance. Having the conceptual part of the character to make sense is the key.

Traits: How to avoid dullness
Giving traits to a character might seem an easier task, but you know how to make them work. Some people tend to think the more traits you give to a character the “better” and more complete the character will be, but that’s not always true since real people aren’t always complex; there’s quite of people with simple personalities and simple lives outta here, just like there’s also people with complex ones and a long backstory. Rules such as “less is more” easily apply here, though there’s nothing wrong with making a more complex character either, as long as it doesn’t look forced or crumpled and keeps consistence.

One of my teachers at university once told me in class: “When creating a character, it should have at least 3 physical (both body and clothing) traits that make them different from the majority –that are prominent and eye-catching-, so it can be identifiable by everyone”. Personally, I think this method works pretty well and helps a lot when creating a character.

In my case, I’ll mention some of my OCs and the prominent traits they have appearance-wise as examples:

Ryan: Grizel: Candela: Colby:
 * Body: Freckles, wavy fluffy middle-length blond hair, tall height, wide back.
 * Clothes: Long coat, white puffy pants.
 * Body: White short hair, very pale skin, strong legs, big breasts.
 * Clothes: Zettai ryouiki, that thing that covers her cheeks, moonstone pendant.
 * Body: Red hair in a net, curvy body shape, dog ears (hidden under hat).
 * Clothes: Over detailed attire, legs showing, jewelry.
 * Body: Long ombre hair, slim body.
 * Clothes: Crumpled pants, jacket over shoulders, winged eyeliner.

This rule should still work even if the character has rather simple clothes or clothes that a lot of characters wear; I can mention Randel as an example, since he wears the Beacon Academy F.C. kit just like another dust football player:

Randel:
 * Body: Dog ears, disheveled mohawk, short height, somewhat bulky body shape, scar on left eyebrow, tattoos.
 * Clothes: Fuchsia Dust football shoes with cyan and blue details, captain armband.

As you can see they have more prominent traits, but 3 should do the work.

The “3-prominent-traits” rule works when applied to personality and behavior as well, for example:

Ryan: Grizel: Candela: Colby: Randel:
 * Social awkwardness due to being a foreigner
 * Fondness of plants
 * Secretly naughty
 * Double-sided personality
 * Workaholic
 * Can’t stand nonsense
 * Very outspoken
 * Looks like a lady but doesn’t behave like one
 * Passive-aggressive
 * Machiavellian
 * Tries too hard to be dominant
 * Show-off
 * Very hot-headed
 * Tends to be over-protecting with friends and family
 * Never gives up

Please remember that these prominent traits doesn’t always have to be positive, otherwise chances are you’ll get a dull character if he doesn’t have any “bad” and/or questionable trait; us real people aren’t flawless, at all!

Common sense for clever designing
Common sense plays a key role when designing a character. While it’s true that a lot of things that are considered impractical IRL for fighting are overridden in RWBY (i.e.: wearing high heels), common sense is still used in some aspects of design in one way or another. For example, while Aura will turn high heels into a kind of shoe that’s convenient to use, a long and tight skirt will still significantly reduce your character’s mobility. Therefore, you should try to be logical and give clothes the character won’t mind using; for example, if your character is a mage-type that isn’t a really mobile fighter, then chances are they won’t mind using clothes that tend to restrict their movement; on the other side, a melee fighter or an assassin-type will definitively need comfortable clothes that are as less movement-restrictive as possible. This should be applied taking in account the character’s personality as well; you wouldn’t give a prudish and conservative character a bikini top and short shorts, no?

The importance of color
I remember mentioning once in a certain character designing guide made by other user that “good color choice can be more important or influential than the design itself”. I said this because it’s not always necessary to make a character’s design heavily complex; you could give them a simple outfit such as a hoodie, shorts, leggings, and sneakers, and it’d still be an eye-catching character if their color scheme is carefully picked.





As you can see color scheme becomes extremely important in design and might make the difference between an “ugly”, kitschy character and a stylish one, so if you aren’t creative with clothes or have a character that wears simple clothes, giving them a good color scheme helps a lot in making them avoid dullness.

For picking a color scheme for your character, knowledge in color theory becomes quite helpful and assures you to get a color scheme that won’t look bad. Here's a couple of graphics explaining it and how can you build color schemes with it: 1 2. In the example I made I used an analog palette.

Also, there’s also psychology of color, which also helps to reflect your character’s personality in its looks; for example, if you have a calm, somewhat cold character, a blue-ish color scheme might look better on them than a red one. Here's another graphic explaining it and the traits associated to each color.

Characterization
Coming soon.

RWBY-specific aspects
Coming soon.