Nicallel Wrote:
Looking for tips for creating more unique characters ; O
In anime style but of course


...

I dont know if I should bother posting samples for a question like this ; O?



My reply:
Unique characters~ Good question.
I do have a few principle of my own trying to achieve that.



1. Don't try to be special:
The fact is.... everyone is trying to be special... and when you also try to be special, you can end up just like everyone else, and even make similar choices. It's like everyone tries to be cool, and end up all dressing alike.



2. Find out more about yourself:
Know yourself, know what you like, dislike, and dig deep into the area of your general interest (other than art) learn and study from many many resources. Character creation is not limited to human, you can play with plants, animals, and items.

Ex: Spongebob is a very unquie, one of the kind character, and he was inspired from a sponge you see everyday on kitchen counter. XD




3. Know the formula and know when you can use it.
-Lately, the anime popular trend has alot of formulas, you need to read, watch enough manga/anime to know all of them. Formulas are repeatitious, and you can spot them pretty easily after you observe a while.

Once you found out, take advantages of the formula- Use the formula to your own advanage, twist it, make fun of it, usually people will find it refreshing. Other wise, avoid using it, and take another route with your design.




4. Think further!

Sooo~ How about I turn a doggy into a human-like anthro character, that's great. But that's only one step in your thinking.


Step 1------- Taking what's there and use it straight. (like copying and changing only a little)

Step 2------- Taking two concepts and use it with conbinations. (like merging a cat with a dog=catdog)

Step 3-------Taking three or more concepts and merge them together. (the most complex ones, but usually guarrentee of no repeatition for most part.)



Ex:
I want to make a unquie character from a plant.
Step 1, pick a plant and try to use its original form directly. Adding a big set of eyes and mouth to humanize it.

Step 2, pick a plant and merge it's form with a human, and make a human-plant character

Step 3, pick a plant, merge it with human, and then merge it with an animal. At step three, the most difficult is actually making all the elements work, the very different concepts tend to challenge you in their usage. But the results is usually very rewarding, your efford will get you the unquieness you have desired.


Ex:
Flower + Man+ Animal design concept

Going with formula: Rose + Girl + Cat = Perfect anime character with a little fancy touch of the rose. But you can still play with the forth element, personality. You can give this nice looking girl the most evil personality, that would still be a twist to the formula. ^_^ (In which you can see Zech Bell's author is applying in the recent esp.)

Not going with formula: Rose + Old man + Frog= Good for comedy~ XD  



That's what I do for my stories mostly. You can take this concept and apply, or add to whatever category you need to work on for your art.




EDIT:
OK, this issue keeps coming up, I will address it here before people give me the same point of view again.



"Uniqueness does not exist."


If you want to believe that, that's fine with me. But that's not what I believe.

Scientifically, we are all the same species, what define each of us to be different and unquie is that 0.0000002356% (or smaller) of DNA diffferences in arrangement.  All our DNAs have the same chemicals, 4 different types of chemicals. But they are arranged all slightly different. To me, that already make uniqueness out of a person. What everyone experienced about life is also different, that increased the uniqueness of each of us.


We are alike, we are bond to make similar choices. We are conditioned by our society to make similar choices as well!
It's GOOD to be similar to one another, in a sense; because then it's much easier to relate to one another. To be honest, I don't want an audience too different from me, because then I will have no audience at all. Everyone's interests will be too different from me to share mine.


However, it's that little bit of differences and understanding yourself, make your own choices. Learn from other's similarities, differences, and know your own differences that make uniqueness to me.
For art, I apply the same concept.




"There's nothing new under the sun."

I do not disagree to that.
We all have to take things from around us, we make art out of what we know, the icons, the shapes, the things that existed around us. In a way, they are not new, just redone.

But my arguement is...



"How much do we know under the sun?"



Before we didn't know there was space, now we don't know how big space is. Can doctors explain every mystical illness? Can we rescue ourselves from what's out of our control? Can we explain everything under the sun?

Do WE really know what's under the sun? Over the sun?

Do we even know what's under our skin??

If we don't know everything, then there's always a chance to discover something. That "something" maybe there all the time, we just don't see it.

And That's NEW to us.



Your artwork will be NEW to you, maybe it will be new to others. If you just spend the time to discover.