Create your own character: creating character profile tips

December 14, 2009 by r2moo2
Filed under: how to make a manga, how to start a webcomic

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Creating our very own characters for our webcomic or manga is the most important aspect of starting our own webcomic or manga.

However how does one start to create your own character?

This is actually one of the hardest things to decide, as most of us understand that what truly captivates the audience is how we create and portray our characters in different circumstances.

So in this post, I will share with you some of the tips of how to create your own characters, by creating your own character profile.

What is a character profile?

A character profile is the traits, abilities and personalities that make up your character.

Story writers use character profiles to determine what characteristics do their characters have.

It can be as detailed as creating your characters’ bust size, and how tall they are by measurements, or it can be a just a rough guideline of their personalities’ type for you to work on.

Creating a character profile is very important because we generally do not want to create 2 characters with similar personalities or looks at the same time.

One of the characters will be redundant if it happens, unless you are trying to create twins or something.

Story writers usually write their main characters’ profile on pieces of paper as a reference, and then manga or comic artists will proceed to draw these characters based on the profiles given.

This is an important practice to help you create unique characters that your readers will love.

Doing your own character analysis

The first thing to do is not to start writing down what kind of personalities or looks you want your characters to have, but to do your own research and analysis of successful comic or manga characters’ personalities and looks.

I realize that people do not spend time understanding what a great main character should have, and they sometimes just rush into creating a character without any knowledge.

Of course, there aren’t any rules to creating a character, but we must understand that readers are not just going to be impressed with what kind of personalities you can come up with.

Readers want to be able to identify with characters and relate to them.

Spending time doing a little analysis on your favorite comic or manga characters before starting your own helps to mold your thoughts of creating a character. Look out for what actually impresses you about your favorite character, and see whether you can improve and evolve it into your character.

Tip: If you aren’t impressed with the character you have created, do not expect your readers to be impressed with your character as well.

That is why, do your research and analysis first. Learn what kind of personalities and traits do your favorite characters have, which impresses you, and evolve it to see whether you can adopt these traits into your manga or comic characters as well.

Write your characters’ profiles down on a sketch book

Again, it is to avoid similarities of character personalities or looks, as usually one or the other becomes redundant.

Also, you can use what you have already created, and use it as a reference to create another character profile by compare and contrast.

For example, in Final Fantasy 7, Tifa and Aries are two contrasting characters. It is said that Aries was created first, before Tifa was, and when Aries has brown hair, Tifa has black hair. Aries wears a dress, while Tifa wears mini-skirt.

And there are many others.

If you get the picture, by compare and contrast, with every character profile you create, you can create the alternate character profile, and it will save you from a headache while trying to come up with more character profiles.

Below is a list of the character traits you may want to use to create your own character profile:

Your character profile
Name:
Gender:
Age:
Birthday:
Occupation:
Friends:
Basic Description:

Current Information of your character
Family background:
Birthplace:
History:
Current problems your character is facing:
Items that your character have:
Pets(if any):

Physical Description (Just give a basic description and you can draw it out later)
Hair Style:
Height:
Measurements:
Eyes:
Body (fat or thin):
Physical condition:
Clothing:
Any special traits for physical description:

Personality Description
Personality Type:
Positive characteristics:
Negative characteristics:
Likes:
Dislikes:
Goals:
Fears:
Favorite food:
Beliefs, superstition or moral values:
Others:

Abilities
Physical:
Magical:
Others:

The above list is not exhaustive, and you can add others if you want, such as Zodiac Sign and whether the character is a Protagonist (Good side) or an Anatagonist (Bad side).

Final Words for this post

These are just tips about how you can create your own character by creating character profiles first, and you can start creating profiles without drawing.

After you create your character profiles, your character designs should suit the type of personality and clothing that you have first described in your character.

Hope that this little guide will help you in your webcomic, comic or manga designs.

And that’s all for today! Stay tuned for more updates on manga journey!

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