User blog:Kayem-san/Web's Guide to Character Design

He asked me to re-post this here.

Hello to whoever may be reading this. This is Web, character designer and, uh, let's just say general nuisance for Nick Fanon. Listen, are you tired of seeing character pages that are all like



Well, with this guide, I'll show how how to flesh out your characters and avoid some mistakes that can mess up good ideas for characters.

Step 1: Have an Idea
This is the absolute easiest part of making a character, so a lot of creators end up falling into a trap of never progressing past this stage. For this part, really all you gotta do is come up with a sentence describing your character, and moreso what's interesting about them. Every character should be able to have a sentence like this. Web's would be "A living video game sprite who can copy moves from fighting games and real life martial arts". John's would be "A powerful gun expert who has lived for hundreds of years". Even if your character isn't an action character, they should have a sentence. Y-Guy is a letter-shaped tween trying to get through a nonsensical middle school. That's really all you need at this point of the design.

Step 2: Origins
Now you get to the actual creating part. You should probably start off by explaining where your character came from, otherwise they'd pretty much just be showing up somewhere pointlessly. Could you imagine if there was just suddenly a flying guy with lazer vision in Metropolis with no explanation? Anyways, your character's origins need to be deeper than "He got slightly born and now he's fightan bad guys". Well, who was your character born to? Does he have parents? If not, why? If yes, why isn't he with them? Why is he fighting? What prompted him to do so? How did he end up at the place he is now? Why did he go there? Basically, if your character's origins don't explain what happened to him before his show/game/comic/porno, he needs better origins.

Step 3: Abilities
This step only applies to action characters, but it's absolutely crucial to them. If your character is fighting bad guys or good guys, how is he doing it. John the Marksman uses his extermely accurate marksmanship and weapon expertise, Web uses the virtual and physical martial arts he is able to preform with absolute presicion, Bagel has a lazer cane and lotsa fighting skills dawg. Your character needs some clearly defined abilities and weapons, otherwise it gets confusing when they fight.

Step 4: Let It Go
Now that you've made your character, you're ready to put it in a series and let it rip. One thing you have to remember is that character development is even gonna continue at this stage. Maybe their personality will change over time, maybe their abilities will fade with age, or maybe *gasp* they become evil/heroic. Be open to your character being different at the beginning and ends of a series.

Have a great day, from your friendly neighboorhood Webbeh.