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Natti's Guide to Creating Characters


Preface

Before we begin, it's important to note that designing and developing good, original characters is a process that takes a lot of time and effort. It's impossible to come up with a great character in just five minutes. Even if you can get a good idea and base line down quickly, you'll find yourself making tweaks and edits for days, weeks, months, even years after the initial creation of the character.

That being said...it's OK if you don't get it right the first time! Nobody is perfect; everyone needs to learn. If someone gives you advice or critique on your character, especially if it's a newer character, don't freak out--they're just trying to help you make your character better.

.oOo.

One: Types of Characters
A very brief but important section explaining the four different types of characters. Though this guide focuses primarily on the first type, the other two are also mentioned and expanded upon elsewhere in the guide.


Type 1: Original Characters (OCs)

An OC is its purest form is exactly what it sounds like: and original creation that one makes up that have no connection to fandoms/commercial characters.

Do not give your OC an AS character page. Though creating some OCs is definitely encouraged, AS is not the place for them. Take them to dA or another art site.


Type 2: Fancharacters

Fancharacters are what you get when you make up an OC to live in the world of a fandom you like. As I like to think of it, there are three types of fancharacters: primary fan characters, who have a direct relation to an official character (Steele's son, Kodi's friend, etc.); secondary fancharacters, who have a direct relation to a primary fancharacter, but not necessarily a canon character (Balto's daughter's mate, Jenna's sister's pup, etc.); and tertiary fancharacters, who have a direct relation to a secondary fancharacter, but not necessarily a canon character (Niju's father's brother's sister, etc.) To learn more about creating fancharacters, see the section five.

FANCHARACTERS ARE THE ONLY TYPE OF CHARACTER WHO SHOULD GET A PAGE ON ANIMATIONSOURCE,
most particularly primary fancharacters. Secondaries generally work, too, but tertiaries are a bit of a stretch and their relation would probably be seen as rather weak.


Type 3: Fursonas

A fursona is an animal character created as a representation of its creator to replace them in drawings and other media. They are often, but not always, created because a person is uncomfortable with their ability to draw people and therefore doesn't draw themselves as, well, themselves. They do not have histories and development like other OCs because they are simply an alternate version of their creators. To learn more about creating a fursona, see section five.

Do not give your fursona an AS character page. Take them to dA or another art site.


Type 4: Alter-egos

An alter-ego is like a cross between a normal OC and a fursona (though they don't have to be animals) and they can also fit into the fan character category. This is essentially when you make a character that represents or is based off of you, but lives in another "world" and has a separate backstory.

Do not give your alter-ego an AS character page UNLESS the world it lives in is that of one of the Sources and it can also be categorized as a primary or secondary fan character.


.oOo.


Two: Design
This is the first thing that people around here think of when it comes to creating characters. However, there is a lot more to designing an original character than throwing down some marking and colors.


Character Outline

Like I said, there's plenty more to a character design than its markings, so we're going to hold of on markings and first conquer the first part of character design: the multi-step process of creating the outline of your character.


Step One: Learning to Draw

Having a basic knowledge of anatomy will help you TONS when designing a believable OC, regardless of how realistic or cartoony you decide to draw. "Learn the rules before you break them". Study the basics of how something looks realistically before you try to stylize.

It's OK if you're not a great artist. Try your best and keep practicing in the meantime--just remember that until you grasp the anatomy, doing so ought to be higher on your priorities than stylizing. There are also other options for people who enjoy developing characters, but don't draw; see "Characters in Writing" further in the section. However...

DO NOT RENDER.

I know some people simply do rendering for fun and do not mean harm by it. However, it is NOT a good idea if you want to design a unique, original character. Why? Because rendering is, essentially, tracing over a character and recoloring it. This may give you different markings, but the structure will be extremely similar if not exactly the same (depending on who's rendering) to the original image(s). This completely takes away a huge chunk of your character's design by copying that of the image you rendered. You say that you're not good at art? Well, as I mentioned earlier, you could 1.) practice your art, and/or 2.) try writing your character is a story instead, and/or 3.) ask another artist if they could help. I, for one, would be happy to give you a custom sketch to color if you describe to me what you want, and I'm sure there are other artists out there who would be willing to do the same.


Step 2a: Stylizing

Once you grasp the basic anatomy of your subject, you can begin the process of stylization. To start, find the prominent features of your subject and exaggerate them. Let's look at a few examples:





See where we're going here?

"But wait! There's more!"

Now we've stylized the anatomy, but out characters still look very generic. Structures such as these would work well in animation or comics as unnamed background characters, but a named character needs something a little more. So what do we do? Well...


Step 2b: Incorporating Personality/History

I place the design section of this guide before the history and personality because this is the part that most people are most eager to see. However, it's best to come up with rough ideas of the history and/or personality BEFORE putting a design on paper because knowing such can help you come up with a more expressive and personal character. In some aspects, exaggerating features to fit the personality is more important than sticking strictly to the anatomy. Let's take a look at piece by Stephensilver, who works with character design professionally:


http://stephensilver.deviantart.com/art ... -128440430

These characters are all wolves, yet look how different they are in structure. You can take a guess at the diverse personalities of each one just by looking at them.

Now let's see what we can do with our own designs that we just made in the previous step. Let's make them look...




There! NOW we have some more characteristic builds! By amplifying certain features, we have given them a look that more strongly conveys their personalities.

So what traits should you exaggerate in a character to get the personality you want? Well, that quite depends on the character.

Let's take a look at a few of my OCs.



First in the line, we have Chi the pomeranian. His tiny eyes, ears, and legs help amplify his long fur while his round shapes give him a friendly appearance.
Second is Saimur the domestic mutt. He also has smooth, friendly angles, but unlike Chi, his longer legs, muzzle, and ears give him less of a "goofball" appearance. He's not much of a fighter and his slim build shows that he doesn't have much strength...
...unlike the third, Raejin the wolf. Raejin is a "hero"-type character with a strong, sturdy build concentrated in the front: large chest, chin, and front legs. His hind end, ears, and eyes are smaller to help convey his size.



In this image, we have a comparison of Saimur and the stray mutt, Scratch. Scratch is more of an antagonistic character--an aging street dog with a grouchy attitude. His face is much more angular and stretched in comparison to Saimur's.

Make sense?

Personality isn't the only thing you can consider, though. Think also of lifestyle and age.



Scratch and Casser (left) are both street mutts, so they're both really thin. However, Scratch has much more life experience than Casser, so he's more beaten down, with more of a "broken-down" and scraggly build with scruffier, more matted fur and a half-missing tail. The age makes quite a difference...and not only in his messiness. The age of a character can have a huge effect on their proportions:



Each of these characters are drawn to the same hight, but it is very obvious what their ages are. Remember--children are not just small adults and elders are not just adults with lines under their eyes.

Well, that just about concludes what I have to say about structure. When you reach this point with your characters, give it a test by seeing if your design works with the "silhouette rule"--when you draw your character in silhouette, does it still look like that character, or does it just look generic? If the former, then great job! You can move on to the next step! If the latter...keep working.

And now, let's move on to what you all REALLY want to hear.


Markings and Coloration

These two aspects of design are so closely interwoven that it's a bit difficult to talk about them separately. However, I would like to say a brief word on markings before I really start hitting-hard coloration. To sum it up with a stamp from dA:



Don't underestimate the effectiveness of simplistic markings! Though there are some good characters out there with complicated patterns, don't let the internet fool you into thinking that more markings make a better character. In fact, my personal advice would be to keep things simple. Extremely complex and intricate markings not only make your character much more difficult to draw, but they also distract from the emotio/expression of the character in the image--and that's what's really important.

Now, as for color...let's begin with some basic color theory.



This is a color wheel. You've probably seen one of these before. Colors opposite of each other on this wheel are called complimentary colors. These are used against each other for a strong contrast. When overlapping, they darken each other, as shown below:



It's ok to use a color complimentary to your character's main color scheme for small things that you want to bring out--eyes, most commonly--but you don't want your entire character to be just complimentary colors. Doing so will make your character look random and messy. Instead, pick one main color to base your scheme on and then use different shades and hues to make your design.

Also, a few other terms to be aware of before we start adding color to characters:


Saturation: This is how bright a color is. The more saturated your color is, the brighter it is. The less saturated, the duller/closer to gray it is.

Temperature: This is more than just the heat of the day! Colors are divided into two categories: warm and cool (well, technically, three, as pure/untinted grays are neutral, but let's just worry about warm and cool.)

Warm colors include all shades of red, orange, and yellow. Characters with lively or active personalities may benefit from warm colors.
Cool colors include all shades of blue, green, and purple. Characters with calm or reserved personalities may benefit from cool colors.
"Natural"-type colors, such as brown/tan, tend to vary their temperature depending on their saturation. Those with higher saturation will appear warmer, while those with lower saturation will appear cooler. Because of this, they tend to work for just about any personality.


Let's try this with some of the characters we made earlier. We'll start with our wolf.

We know he's a gray wolf, which, of course, means that they commonly include gray schemes. We also know that, personality-wise, he's a pretty cool guy, and if we were to associate "cool" with a color, we'd probably think of blue or another cool color. So, let's try an low-saturation blueish-gray scheme. Wolves generally have yellow eyes, but let's make his orange to pop out against the blueish fur. We'll make the markings using common wolf markings: dark muzzle, dark back, dark tail-tip, pale chest, pale legs and tummy, etc.



-gasp- But Natti, that's a blue wolf! Isn't it a sparkledog?

A very good question. There is actually more to a sparkledog than just an unnatural color--see section five. This character is not a sparkle, but rather over-saturated, in other words, tints of "unnatural" colors are exaggerated--a trait very common in cartoons. For point of reference, Jenna also falls into the over-saturated category.


Let's move on to our chihuahua. This guy's a bit of a jerk, even if he's too small to be more bite than bark. The first color you think of when you think of an "angry" color is likely to be red, but a reddish chihuahua would be much more difficult to pull off than a blueish wolf, so instead, let's make him a more common tannish color. It should still be on the warm end of the scale, though. Let's also make his eyes a warmish brown. We're also going to keep markings minimal in order to focus on his fantastic facial expressions.




Next we'll take a look at our Siamese. We'll make his markings short and pointed to keep consistent with the rest of his shape. Let's also take advantage of his exaggerated brows, making them darker than the rest of his face to emphasis the look of eyebrows. Because of his characteristic breed look, we'll stick to natural-type coloration on this one, but let's allow the piercing blue eyes to both contrast the orange-esque tones of the fur and to portray his cynical personality.




Lastly, let's color our Persian. This is a friendly, playful fella, so we'll want to stray away from the grim black of our original reference photo. Persians come in many various shades and patterns, so let's pick one that would work for such a playful guy. The bright patches of a calico pattern may do. This is also an instance in which over-saturation may be on your side; I used a very bright orange to suggest his bright attitude.


Sorry for the redness...it looks a lot more orange on the actual paper. My scanner doesn't seem to like that shade of orange--it always makes it red. Same thing happened with the wolf's eyes. Oh well.


Designing Characters via Writing

As it turns out, a character doesn't necessarily have to be drawn to have a unique visual design. If it did, what would become of all those fantastic book characters that we like to read about? That being said, writing is a good alternative to people who enjoy developing their own OCs, but are less comfortable with drawing. As I'm sure you could imagine, characters created via writing are going to have their personalities and histories worked on much more than their physical appearances, but that doesn't mean we don't have an idea of what they look like in our heads, and much of that idea comes from how the author describes them. The trick is knowing how to describe them.


.oOo.


Three: Personality
While design is often the first thing though of when making a character, the personality (and the history, for that matter) is equally, if not more, important. We've already seen how it can impact a design. Now let's learn more about giving your character a more through, unique personality.


Basic Traits and Setting the Base Line

Kind. Sweet. Mean. Cunning. Smart. Sassy. Shy. Outgoing. Short-tempered. Playful. Calm. Cautious. These are all examples of basic traits on which most personalities are built. These are great when you're first coming up with concepts for your OC, but a list of traits like this does not a developed personality make. A personality includes more than a list of traits--rather, it is a description of how the character behaves and therefore can be very complex and intricate.

When creating a personality for your character, think about not only the basic traits, but also WHY a character possesses them and how they effect the character's interactions and behaviors. This can also lead to a further developing of the character. For example, is your character naturally shy, or did she have some sort of bad social experience that made her wary of others? If the latter, you may also want to include her caution and possibly distrust of others. Perhaps she is very secretive and hard to get to know because of this. Or, is your character mean because he has an inflated ego, or because he feels he needs to prove himself and can't think of another way? If the former, maybe you could add on about his cockiness and self-admiration or dig into the roots of his superiority complex. Of course, others probably don't like that attitude, but perhaps he's just ignorant. If the latter, go the other rout. Why does he feel so inferior? Does he have a relative who outshines him at everything? Or perhaps he's just overlooked as a nice guy, so he compensates by being mean, in other words, it comes from being an attention seeker.

See what we're doing here? Just giving a little consideration to the possible reasons behind a trait opens a whole slew of new traits and behaviors. Don't stop at just a list! Don't be afraid to go more in-depth!


Also, before we move on, a brief word on "characters with flaws". No one is perfect--meaning that no character is perfect, either. Don't forget to add a few not-so-"sweet" traits into the mix, however, they don't have to be a random blaring fault. Rather, you can mix them in with positive aspects, for example, a character may be honest, but perhaps sometimes that straight-up honesty can be brutal and he offends others unintentionally. Perhaps a character is very kind, but that kindness goes too far and the character becomes a bit of a pushover ignorant to bad situations. Etc.
And remember, a character with nothing BUT faults is just as bad as a character with no faults at all. Even if your character is a bad guy, give him some good traits, as well. Say, for example, he's very steadfast in his beliefs and he'll do anything to keep them--even if he goes about it in the wrong way.


Personality Types and Classifications

This section discusses a bit about the Meyer-Briggs personality types, which some of you may have heard about. While it's certainly not a requirement to categorize your OC into one of these types, knowing the basics about them can help if creating a believable character.

The Meyer-Briggs system categorizes personalities into 16 types based on four sub-types.
The first set of sub-types is the most commonly known: introverted (I) and extroverted (E). Introverts get their 'recharge' by being alone--they prefer their 'inner life'. Extroverts, on the other hand, get their 'recharge' from being with others--they prefer their 'outer life'.

The second sub-set is intuitive (N) and sensing (S). Intuitive types prefer to interpret and imagine whereas sensing types prefer to stick with what they can more concretely learn with their own senses.

The third is thinking (T) and feeling (F). As you could guess, thinkers like to let themselves be led by logic while feelers prefer to be led by emotion.

The last is perceiving (P) and judging (J). Judging types tend to be more organized and plan-centric. Perceiving types are more spontaneous and flexible with their plans.

For more in-depth information on each of these sub-categories, please visit the links in each description.


Making Your OC Dynamic

A "dynamic character" is a character who changes throughout their story, for better or for worse. By contrast, a static character is one who stays just about the same throughout the story.

Dynamic characters are ALWAYS more interesting than static characters because they give the watchers/readers a chance to observe the character learn, grow, and change according to what life has thrown at him or her. Through this, they can establish more of a connection to the character and your OC becomes more believable, like a real individual.

To make your OC dynamic, take into account what happens to him or her throughout her story and, like we did earlier, think about how it would affect him or her. How would it impact your OC? Would she learn to trust more? Would he become more cynical of certain situations? etc.


Warning: Mary Sues and Gary Stus

"Mary Sues" are sometimes described as characters (usually female, with "Gary Stu" being the optional male alternate) who are "perfect"--they are invincible and have no flaws. However, Mary Sues are not just necessarily characters who are "perfect"--rather, they are characters who are cliche.

In the world of fiction, there are hundreds of thousands of characters from hundreds of thousands of stories floating around. With so many of them, few ideas are truly original anymore, and therefore, it's OK to have a few cliche traits incorporated in your character providing that you can balance them out and describe them believably. However, collect too many of these cliches and you get, quite frankly, a pretty stinky character.

One (hypothetical) example of a Mary Sue here on BS might be a character named Sakura. She's half wolf half husky just like Balto, and wait guess what, she's his long-lost sister, too! She was also orphaned as a pup and fought like a boss to stay alive, so she's like, super tough. She's also a super-awesome sled racer with natural talent, and she totally bumped Steele out of his lead position in championships. At the same time, though, she sometimes likes to check up on her wild wolf pack which she's the lone alpha of 'cuz she's just that cool. She's also the prettiest girl in town AND in the forest so she has a lot of admirers so of course she has a mate and lots and lots of puppiez. She's totally sweet and nice but insult her or her friends she'll rip your fur off!

Well, this charrie here is just chock full of cliches. Let's see what we can list:
Japanese name, wolfdog, main character's long-lost sibling, orphan, super tough, lead dog, lone alpha, prettiest girl in town, sweet-but-kickbutt, etc.

Let's take a look at another one. Blood Moon is a silent and sneaky jet-black lone wolf with 10 million mental problems. He was outcast from his pack as a pup because of his scary black but he didn't care because he hated them anyway. He can take down a whole caribou by himself and also he has magic powers like Nava and Aleu. No one dares stand in his way because they know he'd totally whoop their behinds. He named himself Blood Moon because he's such a dark and evil guy and he likes blood. He is totally insane but awesome, right!?!

Now, what are the cliches with this one?
"Tough" name, lone wolf, black wolf, excessive mental problems, outcast, super-strength, magic powers, "kicks EVERYONE'S butts", insane.


Take a look at these lists. Certainly when standing alone, these traits wouldn't be so bad if they were explained reasonably. You can still have two or three of them included in your OC while still making him or her a good and believable character. However, as was done here, compiling too many cliches and providing little information in-between will just make your character look like an obnoxious stink-pot that nobody will be interested. Be wary of these and cliches when you add them. If you use them, sprinkle them in with care and with lots of explanation behind them!


"Character": A Literary Definition

Browsing through the glossary of my literary textbook for a school assignment, I stumbled across their definition for "character". Though the technical definition was short, they had a lot to say about it that I thought would be good to share:

"CHARACTER: An individual in a story or play.
A character always has human traits, even if the character is an animal, as in Aesop's fables, or a god, as in the Greek and Roman myths.
The process by which a writer reveals the personality of a character is called characterization. A writer can reveal a character in the following ways:
-by telling us directly what the character is like: sneaky, generous, mean to pets, and so on.
-by describing how the character looks and dresses.
-by letting us hear the character speak.
-by revealing the character's private thoughts and feelings.
-by revealing the character's effect on other people--showing how characters feel or behave toward the character.
-by showing the character in action.
The first method of revealing character is called direct characterization. When a writer uses this method, we do not have to figure out what a character's personality is like--the writer tells us directly. The other five methods of revealing a character are known as indirect characterization. When a writer uses these methods, we have to exorcise our own judgement, putting clues together to infer what the character is like--just as we do in real life when we are getting to know someone.
Characters are often classified as static or dynamic. A static character is one who dose not change much in the course of the story. A dynamic character, on the other hand, changes in some important way as a result of the story's action. Characters can also be classified as flat or round. Flat characters have few personality traits and can be summed up by a single phrase: the loyal sidekick, the buffoon, the noisy neighbor. In contrast, round characters have more dimensions to their personalities--they are complex, just as real people are."

-Literature: The Reader's Choice; Alabama edition; "Handbook of Literary Terms"; page 1191.


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Four: History
The history of a character is a vital part of it that can really make or break its believability. Developing a history is so intertwined with developing a good personality, however, that most of what I have to say on it has already been said in the "personality" section, so this one will be very brief.


Like a Story

The general plot of a character's history is the summary that you generally see in a character's bio. When writing this out, you don't need to go though the mundane task of listing every single thing that happened to that character from birth until death. That's just boring and something that nobody will want to read all the way through. Rather, focus only on the most important aspects--especially turning points--of the character's life. What was his/her favorite memory? The most stressful? How did he/she decide what they wanted do to in life? How did they meet their friends/mate/spouse/enemies/teacher/etc? The list could go on.

We talked before about dynamic characters. This is your chance to make that happen. Connect your character to his or her events. How do the events impact your character? Do they want to make him or her change? Why and how so? How does he or she react?

Lastly, if you're creating a character from a time period in which you did not live, do a bit of research on that time period. Historical accuracy will certainly help bump the believability of your OC.


.oOo.


Five: Extra Notes
A handful of final points on making characters that didn't quite fit into the other sections, but weren't detailed enough to get one to themselves.


Fursonas

Fursona (fuhr-SOH-nuh): noun; an animal character that represents its creator.

Fursonas are the only characters in which you don't need to bother with the history or personality because the history and personality are already there--they're YOURS. All a fursona is is a character that you use in place of yourself in drawings and other media.

In designing your fursona, be sure to make it LOOK like a representation of yourself. But note that the key word there is representation. You don't have to stick rigidly to, for example, your hair color or something to make it look like you. Instead of just making stuff to look pretty, go for something deeper. Choose your colors and markings and/or/maybe accessories with a reason. My fursona, for example, is a white kitten with blue eyes and a rose pendant. White represents purity, the kitten represents being young at heart, and the rose represents love--all very important aspects to me personally.

Lastly, remember that the species of you fursona is not limited to wolves or dogs! Of course, if you want a wolf or dog for a fursona, that's absolutely ok, but there are plethora of other animals to choose from. Take a look at a few!


Sparkledogs

To put it simply...
DON'T MAKE THEM.

But of course, in order to avoid making a sparkle, you must first understand what it is that constitutes a sparkle. "Sparkle" is a nickname given to highly unrealistic characters, usually wolves or dogs. Common traits of sparkles include bright and/or neon coloration; unnatural coloration; tattoos; piercings, glo-sticks; leg warmers; multiple necklaces/bracelets/other accessories; big and/or scene hair; stars, hearts, swirls, or other markings not found on the real animal; long fangs and/or claws; emaciated-looking build; etc. Not all sparkles have ALL of those traits, of course, but those are, as I said, some of the common ones.

Now, in section two, I mentioned that there is a difference between an oversaturated character and a sparkledog. The difference has only partly to do with coloration (if fact, it is possible to have a sparkledog made up of only natural colors.) An oversaturated character is one with realistic marking patterns, but hues that have been brightened to appeal to the cartoon world, such as Jenna's red being based off the copper color of some huskies or our wolf's bluish-gray being based off of the gray shades we see in wolves...though note that even those extra-saturated colors come from real inspirations. We would not have, for example, a green wolf, no matter how saturated it was. A sparkledog, on the other hand, has random and very unrealistic markings and is usually in any bright color regardless of species. Take, for example, this image by Troll Berserker in which she compares two character designs using the exact same colors:


post1478280.html#p1478280

So just what's wrong with sparkles? Why shouldn't we make them?
Well, for one, to be quite frank most of them look quite hideous. Secondly, regardless of what their supporters say, they don't show any "creativity", but rather a lack thereof. True creativity in character design is being able to take the limitations presented by your species and being able to work with them to get a good design--not dumping colors and accessories over a base that hardly looks like the species. Trust me--ask any true character designer if sparkles are a good idea. The answer will be NO. If you want to make a serious and legit OC, do yourself and the rest of the artistic community a favor and avoid the sparkles.


Names

First off: make sure the name that you choose is understandable for the place and time of the character's life. Those of you who are into anime, as cool as you think it sounds, do NOT go around using random Japanese or Asian names on characters who simply have nothing to do with Japan or Asia (and vice-versa; try to avoid European names on Asian characters if they live in Asia. I've seen this too, but it's not nearly as common.)

And that's not limited to Asian names, either. Basically, just do your research and find out what kind of names were used in your character's place/time. If your character is in a made up world, use a made-up name--not "real" ones of any culture.

After you do that, when thinking of a name for your character, think about it a bit.. At one point or other, you'll come up with a name that just sounds right. It may not be the fanciest or coolest name around, but characters do indeed seem to have a way of naming themselves. You'll know when you've got it right--at least, that's how it's always worked for me.


Fancharacters

Remember: when you create a fancharacter, creating a fancharacter has to have been you intention from the beginning. Creating an OC and then throwing it "he was friends with [insert canon character here]" just to get him/her accepted on the Sources does NOT cut it. That being said...be sure you know the fandom in which you're creating them for, and try to make them as canon-like as possible.

If you're making a Balto fancharacter, for example, be sure that in design and story, the character could actually pass as a canon Balto character.For example, let's take a look a design:



This is a nice character, right? He has realistic colors and those markings could totally found on, say, an Agouti husky. So shouldn't he work for a Balto fancharacter? NOPE.

While this design may work for an OC, do you really think a design like this would fit in with designs such as this, this, and this? Not at all! It's FAR too complex in comparison to the others. Though it might pass as realistic, the design would stick out like a sore thumb in the Balto universe.

Let's try again:



Ahh, there we go! Still the same idea, but a design that fits in much better with the Balto universe.

Be careful when you have fancharacters that interact with canon characters. For example, don't have some character walk in and claim to be Balto's best friend from before the Serum Run. That just makes no sense; don't you think we'd have heard of such a character? You shouldn't just have a character barge into the canon story like that. Try to make it believable.

Last but not least, don't have fancharacters be your only characters. They're really fun and all--I have several myself and I love them all--but if you can't also come up with original characters, you're really limiting yourself. Have fun with your fancharacters, but try out some original ones, as well. ;)
(Note: having an OC =/= making a page for said OC. Please reserve the Source pages for the fancharacters only.)


E: Offspring Characters
And here's where mates and children come in. I love creating offspring characters, but it's also something that can be difficult to get right.

When designing offspring characters, be sure to take genetics into account. For example, Balto and Jenna's pups would be 75% husky and 25% wolf, meaning that they are much more likely to inherit husky-like traits than wolflike ones, and before anyone mentions Aleu, remember that she was not only just one in six, but even she did have her share of husky traits. That curling tail, for example.

Also, in creating these designs, remember that pups/children aren't merely crosses of their parents, but also their own individuals. I'm sure you don't look exactly like one of your parents or an odd mix of them, right? Sure, you may have dad's eyes or mom's nose or something like that, but overall, you are YOU, not them. Remember that in your characters...the more you can make them look like their parents WHILE still making them obviously their own individual, the better your offspring character will be.

That being said, don't design offspring characters just to give your characters children/pups/etc. Treat each offspring character like its own individual character--which it is. Just because you made it as some character's kid doesn't mean it has an excuse to be underdeveloped.

Bottom line of this: Offspring characters are NOT just pups--they're characters, too! Treat them as such!

F: Characters in Original "Worlds"
Sometimes it's fun to create an entirely new "world" for your characters, such as in KayFedewa's The Blackbood Alliance, which is so popular around here, or WolfPearl's Wurr, which I mentioned earlier.

Creating this kind of setting can really be fun and creative, but all I can say for it is to make your new world as thorough as possible. Now it's all up to you--the culture, the situations, the styles. Be sure to think it ALL through!

.oOo.