#topic: character design

[onepiece-oc-archives]

Heyy, any tips for dressing OCs? I struggle a lot coming up with outfits that look unique while looking like it fits in with the rest of the characters and the world.

Hi, thanks so much for your ask! Boy oh boy do I have tips for you, so buckle up! I'll try to keep this as straightforward as possible, but if you get lost on the way, I'll give examples at the bottom of the post.

First of all, it's important to have a feel for the character's personal style. One of the first things I do for every new OC I create is usually to hop onto Pinterest and make an aesthetic board for them because it just helps with so many things. Sometimes, you'll just stumble across the main design detail of your OC on accident! For example, my OC Aurelia's signature claws just showed up when I searched "gold aesthetic", and I decided that this was the way to go.

But let's go back: How do I even know what to search for? Well, you might want to have a basic concept for your character. What are their inspirations? What is their background? Do they prefer clothes that are more practical or more stylish? Do they have any signature colors? How do they come off in the eyes of other people and does that match their fashion sense? How rich are they?

The last point may be helpful to get a basic idea but, in the end, it doesn't have to be the deciding factor. Let's take the Straw Hats, for example. At the start of the story, they're not exactly rich. Still, both Sanji and Nami are walking around with nice clothes. Nami steals her clothes or bargains with (or threatens) the vendor until they give her a huge discount. Sanji, meanwhile, probably had a good bit of money before he left Baratie since it was a fairly successful restaurant, and I'm willing to bet that he probably only has one or two good jackets, so he might look high-end, but he's actually not very rich at all.

What I'm trying to say is: Knowing how your OC acquires your clothes can be a huge help both for their character design and for fleshing out their story.

Otherwise, just throw anything about your OC you can think of into Pinterest's search bar, glue "outfit" or "aesthetic" to it, and you'll probably find some good inspo for your OC's clothing style.

Now that you have an idea of their fashion sense, time to make it fit in!

I'll be the first to admit, the early animanga art style doesn't really leave a lot open for detailed character design, but once you get further into the story, you can practically go completely wild.

The first thing I'd think about is: What's your OC's place in the world? Are they a Marine? Great! You can draw them in uniform! A noble? What culture is their kingdom inspired by? A pirate? What are their crewmates dressed like? After all, some crews practically have their own version of a uniform or at least a theme.

In the end, someone's clothes "fitting in" probably isn't as much of an issue as you think. Yes, the Straw Hats' outfits look pretty simple in the early animanga episodes, but... take one look at OPLA or even try imagining their outfits in real life and you'll figure out at that isn't necessarily the case. They're just simply drawn because it's a simple art style. One Piece is such a diverse world that almost anything goes. You can go surprisingly far into sci-fi or steampunk or historical, whatever you like, if you play around with it a little.

A thing that I like to do is to take inspiration from the characters that my OC is close to. The Straw Hats are especially great here because, for a lot of story arcs, their clothes collectively have a theme, but they still manage to be individual and unique. How?

The details. It's all in the details. Even if your OC is a Marine, you can make them unique through the details. Think about Coby! How is Coby unique? Pink hair and those signature glasses! Most of the Straw Hats have one design detail that carries on throughout pretty much all of their outfits, be it an accessory, a color scheme, a pattern... Luffy has his straw hat, obviously. Zoro has his swords, earrings and bandana. Nami has circles and stripes. Usopp loves himself some overalls and, in the animanga, his goggles. Sanji almost always wears a suit or at least a dress shirt and, if he doesn't, the outfit is most likely blue. Think about how this works for your OC. What's the one detail that carries on throughout all of their outfits? That's what makes them unique and recognizable.

But details can also help tie your OC into the greater world. Remember that you are an artist making character design and you're free to throw in as many easter eggs as you want. They can really add to an outfit. Adopt an accessory from a character that your OC is close to! Make the pattern of their clothes a nod to someone or something or someplace else! That's what brings your OC to life because it's what people do. We steal each other's clothes, we buy matching outfits, we unintentionally and subconsciously pick up on or play off of other people's sense of style... It's a natural process, maybe even a sign of love, and it's one of my favourite things to see in art or character design.

To maybe put this all into perspective, let me walk you through how I came up with the outfits for two of my OCs, from two different backgrounds and parts of the world.

OC no. 1 is my beloved Akaito Coraline. Cora is a tailor of considerable fame throughout the East Blue and ends up joining the Straw Hats because she's childhood friends with Sanji. Finally, she ends up dating both Sanji and Zoro.

Practically the first design detail I had about her was a nod to her family, because her family and their tailoring tradition is a very important part of Cora's character. So, it was decided that she would have a sewing needle pierced through her ear. Her profession as a tailor also made it pretty self-explanatory to me that she would prefer clothes that are, well, tailored, and she most likely makes all of her clothes herself. So, she could wear fitted blouses and other fairly intricate or expensive stuff without actually being rich or being able to go shopping often because she can sew those clothes herself - which is also a lot cheaper. It also occurred to me that Cora would have a love of fashion and would probably put fashion over functionality in her outfits. Because of her backstory, I also knew that she would keep her back covered. Lastly, as a pirate, she would have to have some kind of weapon, and I decided on a rapier, because it's elegant, feminine, fashionable, and long and pointed like a sewing needle.

In the end, I threw all of those things together, picked reference images from Pinterest, slapped them into my drawing program, and, through trial and error, came up with this:

Base by Hevis-Swan on DeviantArt by the way - use and credit bases, kids, it really helps!

We've got the sewing needle through the ear and one of Zoro's earrings to link her to him. We've got a form-fitted blouse and vest where I made sure to actually draw the different panels so you could have an idea of the sewing process. The black things on her sleeves are sleeve garters, which are meant to hold your sleeves up while you work, and I figured Cora might wear them as one of the few things she wears for practicality's sake - but they're also made of lace because she loves her fashion. The idea to have her wear pants was more of an afterthought because I absolutely wanted the holster for her scissors, but the pants are based off a pair that I own myself! The belt is based off of historically accurate belts used to hold rapiers in the 16th and 17th century. Those boot covers are extremely impractical to button up, showing Cora's "fashion over function" principle. Finally, she wears heels because she's short and likes the extra height, and the anklet is a gift from Sanji, hence the blue and silver.

On a different note, we have OC no. 2: Dracule Aurelia, the wife of Dracule Mihawk. If you've ever seen Mihawk, you know that he's one fancy man, and the same applies for Aurelia. She is rich, filthy rich, and she's an incredibly powerful pirate. Her vibe is that of a mafia boss, a femme fatale, of power and deadliness through beauty. Her epithet is "Black Widow" because all of her lovers keep dying one way or another. Either by her hand or through other mysterious circumstances.

With those things in mind, I was already pretty sure of how I wanted to draw Aurelia and what clothes she should wear. "Aurelia" roughly means "the golden one" and, combined with her incredible wealth, that already guaranteed that she'd be wearing a lot of gold. Secondly, I knew her clothes had to be sexy. There's no other way to put it; she had to be turning heads. She also needed to be able to kick people in the nose. And lastly, I wanted it to be easy to see that her and Mihawk were married, so I took a lot of inspiration from him.

Bases by Fluffy-foxgirl and Alex-Hime on DeviantArt

This outfit is essentially one big easter egg hunt. The flower symbol is found on Mihawk's sleeve, the long coat is inspired by Mihawk and the collar is both a reference to him and Aurelia's father (whom I will not name here for spoiler reasons), she wears crosses just like Mihawk, the feathers on her headpiece are a nod to the feathers on Mihawk's hat, the petal-like sleeves are a nod to the island she's from... But the outfit is still 100% her! The way everything is very revealing, the gold chains, the claws, the high slit, the dagger with the spider in its pommel...

So yeah! I hope this helped at least a little. Hope you're having a wonderful day! ^^

[iniro]

O_O...HI

sooo i'm officially making another little art tips and tricks pdf - this time focusing on approaching character and shape design !!

is there anything you guys are curious about regarding those topics that i might be able to explain in a tutorial? ie: drawing character interactions, contrast in shapes/lines, color palettes for a chara, expressions, how do you draw ___, etc ?

feel free to reply here or send an ask :-D

[quibbs126]

God I wish I had a good caption for this, but I do not. Best I can think of is “I depend on you”, but it also has nothing to do with the blue and yellow drawing at all

But in any case, this is a thing I drew today

I was trying and failing at giving Lux a good alt mode design, and that paired with other things was making me really discouraged, and I sort of ended up just starting to draw this, and then I ended up liking where it was going, which brought up my mood today, so that’s good

As such, I don’t actually have much context for what this scene is

It’s also featuring some more 3D elements in the design, since attempting to draw Transformers One again has put that back in my head, though since I still don’t know exactly how the forearms/hands work, it’s a bit less effective than I would have liked. But I’m slightly less sloppy with the anatomy I think, yay

I’m also now noticing Megatron looks a bit off, but I think part of that is that his arm is obscured by Optimus’, and while it made sense in the sketch, it looks a bit weird now

I also had to slightly change Optimus’ expression from sketch to lineart since the correct placement for his eyebrows would have made it so you don’t see his full expression, so I had to bring them down. It sounds minuscule but his eyebrows higher up did change the expression (it had more shock than the current more quiet concern)

I think I’m realizing that the sketch might have looked better than the final version, at least to me. Oh well

I also may or may not have went ham on lighting and shading, probably to an unnecessary degree. It’s just that this was the only image on the canvas and I really liked it, so I wanted to spiff it up, make it more nice looking

This is a version with significantly less of it, and also a white border because I was considering that before I realized it made it look a bit too sticker like. But I just think the flat colors on their own have merit too

Anyways, like I said, I don’t really have much context for this image, since it was just something I made to make something

Best I can come up with is this interaction happening sometime after Kiloton’s death, with Megatron still not over it and coming to Optimus for comfort. Optimus is a bit shocked at first (not to mention he’s got his own currently unrequited feelings for Megatron that he really doesn’t want to act on right now when Megs is emotionally vulnerable), but he chooses to comfort his friend anyways

Or alternatively, this is Megatron feeling overwhelmed about his whole lie about his infection and the terrible questions the truth brings, and again, going to Optimus to feel better. Optimus does the same in this scenario, it’s just that he doesn’t really know what’s bothering Megatron, since he refuses to tell him the truth. But he’ll be there for him regardless, hoping one day he feels comfortable enough to tell him

But yes, thing I drew that I quite like. Probably would be more impactful if the majority of the description wasn’t me just talking about the design process and my own personal nitpicks

[percexe]

ok this is old (by like a month or two) so excuse the slightly outdated stylings. but i forgot to post this here so ENJOY!

it’s a shame a design element as fun as the grey streaks are just put in the same spot all the time. so have my placements and the reasoning behind them (because it wouldn’t be a percexe design without cramming character significance into every little detial)

[chibifox2002]

WARNING: THE COMIC UNDER THE CUT CONTAINS CHILD DEATH, DEPICTION OF A PTSD/PANIC ATTACK, AND HEAVY THEMES OF SELF HARM AND SUICIDAL THOUGHTS.

IF YOU ARE NOT COMFORTABLE WITH ANY OF THESE TOPICS, PLEASE DO NOT CONTINUE.

A normal day of cooking can instantly flip into a nightmare because of a simple accident...

After the toys brought Ms. Miller to her room, they all couldn't help but wonder...

"Who's Carol...?"

[molathesunfish]

more of this one i'm quite fond of her

[calamarispiderart]

heeeheheheeeeheehee

[itz-pandora]

Whatever man every time Gacha Nebula updates cringe does not exist anymore and I am free

I actually had fun w making misc AU designs in it so if you have some bitter animosity to a dress up game then keep scrolling

[rockandroar]

Here's the first set of new concept drawings for Emma Kitteridge!

Emma's personality can best be described as shy, but playful with those closest to her. In contrast to Sienna and Noah, Emma doesn't have many friends but those she does have are very good ones. Once her guitar is in her hands and she's on stage though, she is at her most confident and can really rock out. Her online presence is also an amusing contrast to her real-life friend circle - she has thousands upon thousands of "friends" on MySpace.

Emma has always been highly sensitive, and her family has always been very patient about this. Still, Emma sometimes gets frustrated with herself for crying so easily. But it's this same sensitivity that makes her such a great songwriter and live performer. She pours all of her heart into her lyrics and vocals - her songs hit you like a punch in the throat, the way great emo music should!

Included an old expression, the excited one, because that one is still so spot-on for Emma and I only had to make a few adjustments to get her on-model.

[niightcravvler]

Genuinely really interesting seeing people argue about the male and female character/skin designs in marvel rivals, and what people consider sexualization. Like, while I really like a lot of the designs in rivals, including emma frosts, there is a huge problem I have with the game and it’s over-sexualization of its female characters. There are some women in the game who aren’t overly sexualized (at least by the standards of comic/superhero media), like mantis, squirrel girl, or black widow, but there are no skins for the male characters in the game that compare to invisible woman’s malice costume, or psylocke’s vengeance costume.

I’ve seen people argue for some of the other costumes for male characters that show a lot of skin, but sexualization, and specifically objectification, isn’t really as simple as that when comparing the treatment of male characters to female characters. When male characters show a lot of skin (like black panther’s bast’s chosen skin, or namor’s wakanda forever skin), it’s still catering to a male audience.

Women in the game show a lot of skin to show men something pretty and sexual to look at, men in the game show a lot of skin to show men a power fantasy for them to play as. Nothing about sue’s malice skin showing her entire ass emphasizes her power in the way that iron fist’s immortal weapon of agamotto skin shows off his abs.

The only thing I feel like gets close to the way that rivals sexualizes its women is otherwindow's edits of men's costumes. While the amount of skin shown isn't the same as on some female character's costumes, it's a far better comparison point for what it would really look like if rivals treated all its characters the same way, which is super neat!

Really reminds me of the hawkeye initiative, a project started on tumblr years ago where artists would draw hawkeye posed like female comic book characters, and having a male character in those poses really emphasized how ridiculous they often were

[cessmaga]

My very own take of danny phantom ✌️

I kinda get why nick wouldn't want him to be dead but the concept of danny actually half died really fascinates me, so much story potential there, this idea has been running in my for a while now

my main idea is that Danny didn't know that he was actually dead, he just believes that the portal just gave him ghost powers, and his physical body being weak and gets cold easily is just a side effect to it

slowly he'll realize that his actually dead and his physical body is just slowly deteriorating (kinda morbid lol)

danny is actually half dead, but he won't last long

moments before disaster:

[outletcrash]

a year ago my friends got me hooked on genshin. i havent played in a while but i love when people redesign these guys

anyways, some archons!

[mahou-furbies]

Ah Princession Orchestra has character profiles on the website! Let's see...

...ohhh

Oh no!!!

"Theme colour: yellow"

You will be a green mahou in my heart Nagase...

[izopoz]

back on Broadway yet again...

[bleublazesart]

Savanaclaw Design headcanon time!

So, my idea is that beastmen have the subtlest of extra animal features. This includes slight color changes on places like their nose and palms of their hands, and, depending on what kind of beastmen they are, markings as well. They also most often have a really dark upper lip, or at least all our boys here do! (I see cats and dogs with black lips and YES)

Not much changed here. Leona has some facial hair and chest fur, his scar extends further, and he is BEDAZZLED. Ruggie is a freckled lad and Jack has got a proper wolf-cut.

[sonknuxadow]

this is probably an unpopular opinion with the amount of "everyone is married with kids" type future aus people make for sonic characters but i cannot see sonic getting married or having a kid ever. if he did somehow end up with a kid hed be the worlds first transmasc absent father or however the joke goes