i just went through your oc masterpost and all of them are so cool and visually distinct, do you have any tips for designing ocs?
THANK YOU SO MUCH THATS SO NICE ;-;
Honestly for the most part I kind of wing it by picking a specific vibe I want to go for with each character, but I do have some things I like to keep in mind that I could list! I’m by no means a pro though lol
First off when it comes to outfits! I always try to make sure the characters dress for what they are, regular students dress casual, nobility dresses regular, wizards dress adventurously, etc. and if they don’t it would say something about their character (Ex. Strawberry doesn’t dress casual because her whole thing is extravagant outfits) and then try to base their outfits to fit their themes, be that related to their magic or just an aesthetic they would be going for based off their personalities (usually both).
I also try to make the outfits look distinct from the other characters’ outfits even if they were all grayscale and didn’t have any designs or accessories (those are important too though!). Like in general I try not to give two characters the same outfits with different colors, unless there’s a reason to (ex. the twins twinning, as they do) and even if there are characters with similar outfits they’ll have different smaller parts that add up to a more distinct whole. I hope that makes sense because I’m having a hard time phrasing what I mean!
When it comes to hairstyles though I think it’s a bit more simple, I just try to make it so that each hairstyle is a unique shape, especially since in the masterpost I’m working with small pixely lineless art in the masterpost so I don’t have the advantage of showing off showing off face shapes and body types like in my normal art (It would take ages to do them in a normal style there’s like 140-something, so i didn’t lol)
I think I’m a personal fan of color coding so I tend to design characters around one specific color and that might just make them stand out a bit more because they’re the pink one lol, but honestly this isn’t really a rule to follow or anything and sometimes I have a hard time NOT color coding characters because both are good depending on the type of characters you want to make.
Lastly I think is what helps me most, I like to take inspiration from a lot of places for their outfits and haircuts, I follow fashion blogs for that exact reason lol, and when I see something I like I’ll try to capture a similar vibe for a characters design, but I don’t make the same exact outfit or haircut because 1. I don’t wanna just copy stuff but also 2. I want the character to be unique and make edits where needed for it to fit their characterization specifically. Seriously don’t be afraid to google fashion references or even stuff like “cool wizard outfit” it can be helpful!
