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 Posted: Sun Dec 24, 2006 6:44 am
I'll be blunt.
YOU HAVE GOT TO FIGURE OUT ORIGINAL DESIGNS FOR YOUR CHARACTERS.
You cannot have characters that are ripoffs of other official characters. It makes readers go ".... huh." and it kinda makes it boring to read.
Picture this.
First panel- City view
Second panel - A dark alleyway
And oh look.
Third panel - A character who looks suspiciously like InuYasha jumps out.
I'll be even more blunt.
YOU HAVE GOT TO MAKE SURE THAT YOUR CHARACTERS CAN BE EASILY TOLD APART FROM EACHOTHER
When you have characters that look alike, it can be a real struggle for the readers to figure out who's who.
Especially if you have protagonists that are twins. They've gotta have some qualities that define them. A variety of expressions would work as well.
Characters should have different hair, height, facial features and clothes from eachother, unless its something like a performance where everyone's in uniform.
Character designs can make or break a manga. Please put these factors in to your considerations.
Edit
Thank you to RedSparrow for pointing out my post's weak point.
Alright, I am sorry for any confusion I may have caused with this post. When I say "original designs for manga" i mean ORIGINAL MANGA. Not manga on an official series, like Naruto. I myself have drawn FMA manga using the official characters.
What I mean is that you cannot rip off an official character just because it uses the same personality that you want.
As RedSparrow has said, you can use the essence of the character in your designs.
For example, in Naruto, the Manga-Ka Masashi Kishimoto uses a formal feminine tone for the character of Orochimaru, much like the character of Freiza in DragonballZ. This is to give the character a more sinister attitude. (don't take my word for it though, I'm standing by what I read in Wikipedia.com)
Again, I'm sorry for any misconceptions I may have caused.
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Posted: Sun Dec 24, 2006 7:14 am
OMG. I totally agree. Like.. 100%. Many people just take other characters and use their style to create their stuff. I just commented one kid about it. I said that your character is basically a statement, and that people definitely see it. Don't be afraid of jumping out of the box and doing something nobody has done before. Your style is your artisitc voice, and in the art community, people will notice if you are different. For me, Fanart is discouraged because it gives people somthing to limp on, instead of taking things in their own perspective and trying to fly. [if that made sense ^^;] I go to an arts school, and because there are so many kids that dont have originality, manga is STRONGLY DISCOURAGED. STRONGLY. SO STRONG THAT YOU'D PROBABLY HURT YOURSELF IF YOU EVEN THOUGHT ABOUT ATTEMPTING. no kidding. the teachers hate it. but still, because of that, (unoriginality) it has made us all suffer.
Just please, people, MAKE YOUR OWN CHARACTERS.
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Posted: Sun Dec 24, 2006 7:48 am
So true. I use to do that, but thats when i first started to draw manga. You know learning a stuff. Now seeing people do that with naruto and inuyasha and stuff, pisses me off! Makeing your own charecters is hard. But the easyist way for me to come up with a design is to copy someone elses charecter and change it completly to my own origonal charecter (i don't mean personality i mean looks i copy but i copy someone who is going to be similar to mine then i make mine unique but thats just because i've been drawing manga for 3-5 years now... maybe 4 years...)
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Posted: Sun Dec 24, 2006 7:50 am
ryugurl0083 OMG. I totally agree. Like.. 100%. Many people just take other characters and use their style to create their stuff. I just commented one kid about it. I said that your character is basically a statement, and that people definitely see it. Don't be afraid of jumping out of the box and doing something nobody has done before. Your style is your artisitc voice, and in the art community, people will notice if you are different. For me, Fanart is discouraged because it gives people somthing to limp on, instead of taking things in their own perspective and trying to fly. [if that made sense ^^;] I go to an arts school, and because there are so many kids that dont have originality, manga is STRONGLY DISCOURAGED. STRONGLY. SO STRONG THAT YOU'D PROBABLY HURT YOURSELF IF YOU EVEN THOUGHT ABOUT ATTEMPTING. no kidding. the teachers hate it. but still, because of that, (unoriginality) it has made us all suffer. Just please, people, MAKE YOUR OWN CHARACTERS. I do, its just you know, as a rough draft that they look like someone who was already created. And i hate it when i come up with someone of my own, and someone else has already came up with someone similar to it. It makes me cry
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Posted: Sun Dec 24, 2006 10:06 am
I always show my characters to my friends before i start using them because they know about more anime characters that me. so far, all of my characters are 100% origional. if you don't have what it takes to make your own characters, you shouldn't be drawing.
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Posted: Sun Dec 24, 2006 3:22 pm
I uh don't like how this is becoming sort of an anti fanart thread. The purpose to say that you should make interesting and new characters for your own stories. Drawing fanart is something completely different. In fact, a lot of famous manga artists in Japan were first scouted because they drew fan doujinshi. So, if you're drawing a doujinshi, its okay if the character looks naruto, but dont draw naruto for your original non-naruto manga. >_>
Now, I have to say that using an existing character for a template for character design is a BAD idea. Whether its in looks or in personality, its actually very obvious. Like, I can't really take Rurouni Kenshin too seriously anymore because there are 2 characters in there that are like visual knockoffs of Venom and the Hulk >_> Please consider the characters that your story calls for and design appropriately. If you story really needs that cocky character who thinks everyone is beneath him, then design an character based on that image, not on the images that came before, like Vegeta from DBZ or Kanda from D Gray Man. Now, this isnt to say that you cant do it if you really want to. I'm just saying its not a great idea.
Now, if you're doing a parody of a certain character, then thats a different story razz
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Posted: Sun Dec 24, 2006 4:11 pm
(I'm not big on character design, personally. The more original it is, the harder it is to draw, and that sucks.)
You guys make it sound like this problem is really widespread. Maybe I don't see enough fan-comics, or maybe I don't know enough manga, but this doesn't really seem like a massive problem to me. Creating an original character (perhaps inspired by existing comics) is usually one of the first things people learning to draw actually do.
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Posted: Sun Dec 24, 2006 4:21 pm
Pretty much there are a lot of new artists in here that are interested in drawing manga, so its important thelp them learn where the pitfalls are. My first comic suuucked horribly because it really nothing mroe than a Ranma knockoff. Everybody does it at some point, but its important to move away from it.
Well, its kinda like what many people complained about with Teen Titans. The show had the American comics to rely on for story and the show was alright (pretty good in some spots) but there was a large group of people who were turned off by the cliches that kept popping up in the animation. The sweat drops, big veins, huge eyes, all those things we associate with anime are very cliche, and they get tedious to have to read, watch, and just plain look at after a while. A good manga needs a good story first, and good character design second. If your characters are very cookie cutter, its hard to make people care about what happens to them.
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Posted: Sun Dec 24, 2006 4:28 pm
I guess so. Well, I wouldn't know. But isn't it interesting that what's acceptable in Japanese animation is not in American knock-offs? Or does Teen Titans overuse them, which is another story entirely? I haven't watched it, so I don't know.
Anyway, I'll take your word for that. I'm just starting out my first comic too, so I'm actually guilty of that. Fortunately, the one I'm ripping off is extremely obscure (at least in the US, if I show it to anyone where I'm from they would probably notice it right away), so nobody's crucifying me for it, rofl.
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Posted: Sun Dec 24, 2006 7:30 pm
Gonbe I guess so. Well, I wouldn't know. But isn't it interesting that what's acceptable in Japanese animation is not in American knock-offs? Or does Teen Titans overuse them, which is another story entirely? I haven't watched it, so I don't know. Anyway, I'll take your word for that. I'm just starting out my first comic too, so I'm actually guilty of that. Fortunately, the one I'm ripping off is extremely obscure (at least in the US, if I show it to anyone where I'm from they would probably notice it right away), so nobody's crucifying me for it, rofl. I think the problem with teen titans is that they chose to animate it in an anime style, but they decided to use every stereotype in the book. They got better, but still... Well the thing with comics that are rip offs, its hard for them to be original afterwards. I ran into that wall, so I'm trying to put cones around it for other people razz
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Posted: Sun Dec 24, 2006 7:40 pm
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Posted: Mon Dec 25, 2006 12:39 am
RedSparrow I uh don't like how this is becoming sort of an anti fanart thread. The purpose to say that you should make interesting and new characters for your own stories. Drawing fanart is something completely different. In fact, a lot of famous manga artists in Japan were first scouted because they drew fan doujinshi. So, if you're drawing a doujinshi, its okay if the character looks naruto, but dont draw naruto for your original non-naruto manga. >_> Now, I have to say that using an existing character for a template for character design is a BAD idea. Whether its in looks or in personality, its actually very obvious. Like, I can't really take Rurouni Kenshin too seriously anymore because there are 2 characters in there that are like visual knockoffs of Venom and the Hulk >_> Please consider the characters that your story calls for and design appropriately. If you story really needs that cocky character who thinks everyone is beneath him, then design an character based on that image, not on the images that came before, like Vegeta from DBZ or Kanda from D Gray Man. Now, this isnt to say that you cant do it if you really want to. I'm just saying its not a great idea. Now, if you're doing a parody of a certain character, then thats a different story razz I am not at all saying that people shouldn't draw fanart manga. I myself draw manga using Naruto characters and FMA characters. I'm sorry, maybe I should've made that more clear that I only mean this for ORIGINAL manga
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Posted: Mon Dec 25, 2006 12:41 am
Gonbe (I'm not big on character design, personally. The more original it is, the harder it is to draw, and that sucks.) You guys make it sound like this problem is really widespread. Maybe I don't see enough fan-comics, or maybe I don't know enough manga, but this doesn't really seem like a massive problem to me. Creating an original character (perhaps inspired by existing comics) is usually one of the first things people learning to draw actually do. Maybe we're just looking in different places. And its not just manga. Its characters in general. Your OCs, you know? They're just recolours
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Posted: Mon Dec 25, 2006 1:00 am
Hmm, I guess we are looking in different places.
Hoolay, you just unstickied your topic.
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Posted: Mon Dec 25, 2006 1:14 am
(( Do you want it restickied?
Edit: I'll sticky it anyway~ If you don't want it restickied, just go ahead and edit the post~ ))
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