Feral Heart

Game & Forum Discussion => Game Discussion => Topic started by: Bawfle on August 04, 2013, 12:10:16 pm

Title: Making your character
Post by: Bawfle on August 04, 2013, 12:10:16 pm
How do you make your characters?

Well, how do you make your characters? Do you pick a theme then make your character about it? Watch a movie and make a character to match the character back ground?

Here's how I make my characters. When I want to make a character I think of my most favorite realistic colours (Aka; Brown, goldish brown, creamy brown..) for the pelt, under belly & the realistic markings. After that I add any of my semi realistic colours (Red, blue, lime, purple..etc..) and use them for additional markings or make them into something like eye colour, tail tip.. whatever xD.

How do you make yours?
Title: Re: Making your character
Post by: Silhouette on August 04, 2013, 01:25:29 pm
I personally just adore putting natural patterns in places where they do not belong or do not naturally occur. For example, I have Oddball. Save for a bit of a border collie face-patch and ticking on the nose, she looks likely a mostly normal African Wild Dog....except rather than her color scheme being different colors of brown black and white, the brown has been exchanged for blue. My main character May is canine but has ocelot, leopard, and cheetah markings in addition to green eyes and head mane/tuft.

The "oddest" looking character I currently have is my canine [who is a mix of both real and fake species. She is the daughter of one of my character's and a friend's character] Cloud. Cloud has a genetic condition [and its a real and rare genetic occurrence although unlike Cloud in the real situation the other siblings aren't alive/do not have a personality of their own] known as genetic chimerism. That is to say, her siblings fused together to make one offspring, which is Cloud. Consequently she has a split color face, nose etc. So when I had both character's family background at my disposal on top of the genetic chimerism, she turned out like this.

A picture of Cloud
(http://i582.photobucket.com/albums/ss266/Whitefang2331/Cloud_zpsc4d2c09e.png) (http://s582.photobucket.com/user/Whitefang2331/media/Cloud_zpsc4d2c09e.png.html)
Title: Re: Making your character
Post by: MadMoai on August 04, 2013, 01:27:51 pm
When I make a new character I usually have a species of animal in mind, although it's not always canid or felid. After I have an animal picked out I arbitrarily decide the colors and design based on what I think looks good, and depending whether the animal has any distinctive markings I may or may not base the markings on those.

Normally I draw my characters to get a feel for their design before I put them on FH. I don't remember anytime recently when I've created a character on FH first.
Title: Re: Making your character
Post by: darkknight on August 04, 2013, 02:08:48 pm
When making my character, I usually look at what I want their personality to be first. Don't really know why, but that's my process for any character I make, whether it be for personal narration or role-play. Then, I decide what breed I want to be. In selecting a breed, I sometimes exaggerate on their height depending on the breed if its a fantasy role-play I'm in. I often take into the color scheme of my character in other terms also. For example, I'll make a light brown wolf with a darker under-pelt. I have a muse for this pattern with my characters, I've grown to like it. Although, I don't do it as often as I used to because I don't like to have over two characters with the same color pattern.

I rarely make any character with abnormal colors like a green cat or anything in that nature, even for a fantasy role-play. I usually like to make those kinds of colors in the norm of neon or highlight to be more faded or blended over while the main color overshadows it.
Title: Re: Making your character
Post by: antherax on August 04, 2013, 03:13:48 pm
 I tend to make colorful characters, but I don't make them neon green, have black haired, canine who is a sparkle dog.
My characters look more like that VV
(http://i236.photobucket.com/albums/ff96/Needful/Anime%20Females/Fire%20Emblem/fire_emblem_souen_no_kiseki_concept.jpg)
I do have realistic characters, but I don't use them much, I like to make my characters imaginative. I never liked realistic.
But I make my characters from video games most of the time. I try to get the closest markings and bodyshape. The only time I have made realistic was for roleplays, but I hardly ever RP. I like to use my characters to explore and chat.
Title: Re: Making your character
Post by: hugrf2 on August 04, 2013, 03:35:17 pm
I've made a lot of characters. Usually in the first stage I pick a look that might fit the style.
I might imagine the character before I make him/her so I know how to make them to have clearer vision set on them in FeralHeart.
Or, if I'm recreating a character or just being random, I pick random markings and try to think out the rest by choosing what fits the character such as mane, tuft and tail.
I don't really think of the colors, I just choose them if they fit the character that is... spawning in my imagination.

I might even make a made-up species out of character creator to help me think of it better and clearer.
I honestly love all the options. It doesn't depend on realism to me all of the time though, it just depends on what it will turn out as.
Pretty much how I make characters most of the time.
Title: Re: Making your character
Post by: Vespian on August 04, 2013, 03:39:41 pm
I tend to make my characters vary in appearance, though their personalities have some similarities with each other. I prefer to use color schemes not many use and I do believe only one of my characters has a grey scale appearance due to the classic grey scale theme is used often amongst other players. My preferred color scheme would be hues of light brown/tan or a dark reddish-brown. Similar to how Vespian's and Malus' scheme is. However, when it comes to personality and character build, it's basically the same.
Call me original, though all of my characters seem to bestow a dark past. Like Vespian who had to slaughter his younger sister out of force, or Crier who was genetically created in a laboratory and bestows no known emotion, even Vile who's a prisoner of war and is haunted by his past, etc. Due to this, their personalities are either monotonic, sadistic, or depressed and somewhat suicidal. The same thing is with their character build. Other than a few scars and stitches, they all bestow rather healthy appearances. None of them is malnourished or deformed.
Simply put, all my characters are realistic to semi-realistic. I try to keep them not too unrealistic that way I can join most roleplays without having to worry over my appearance when it comes to regulations of the certain establishment.
Title: Re: Making your character
Post by: Torchick on August 04, 2013, 03:44:12 pm
Well i usually make a char that comes that moment in my mind and as i play with it i think maybe i should change this or that...As i change it I keep somethings i change others.. and at the end i have a character with all the characteristics  i like! ^^ but i dont make much characters so i dont confuse myself which one i want and which not..And btw that was an interesting theme keep it up :D
Title: Re: Making your character
Post by: Transatlantic on August 04, 2013, 11:16:04 pm
A lot of my ideas for characters usually come in when I'm listening to songs. uvu

I usually choose a breed (if I'm making a cat) to base the character off of, look up some references on it, and base the colour and the markings of the cat on it. Atlantic was the first character I made on this account, she took about 45 minutes or so to make. Making characters for me usually takes a long time, I want to make sure that it looks perfect. unu
Title: Re: Making your character
Post by: unnbrellas on August 05, 2013, 02:28:55 am
I normally qmake up a backstory or personality and then go from there. Or I will wolf-ify a charcater from one of my stories.
Then Id pick a color scheme. I prefer golden tans or pale greys, but I have a few black wolves.
I dont like having a ton of characters though.
Title: Re: Making your character
Post by: Tearless on August 05, 2013, 05:25:22 am
For animal characters, I generally start with a colour scheme I like, and then markings/details of appearance until I like the look of it and it all seems balanced and harmonious because I'm slightly obsessive about that. Then I work out backstory and personality, then go back and if necessary tweak the appearance again (in case I need to add or remove any markings/scars/accesories to match up).
Title: Re: Making your character
Post by: Kona on August 06, 2013, 01:35:30 pm
I go for realistic, and manage to spend forever on them. xD I have to have the pelt color perfect, and everything...I usually go online, and look at real pictures of what I'm making and go from there, and change it up a bit to my liking...
Title: Re: Making your character
Post by: Bawfle on August 06, 2013, 01:52:22 pm
These are awesome responses guise! I loved reading them!
Title: Re: Making your character
Post by: Warrior4ever on August 06, 2013, 02:00:27 pm
I don't make new characters often anymore (mostly because I already have around 30 x.x), but when I decide I want a new one I'll either have an idea already in my head or I'll just expirament with the colors on a basic model until I find some that look good. If I use the more random way, after I find the colors I'll think of a personality and scale the rest off of that. The problem for me is I don't want to delete my dozens of characters ._.
Title: Re: Making your character
Post by: jazminj323 on August 06, 2013, 02:06:43 pm
when im making a character i try to think of something unusual like a border collie chihuahua mix or a white lion. then i think of what this would make my character look like lets say im doing a border collie chihuahua mix and i wanted the bodie and size of a chihuahua and the coloring of a border collie. i would make my canine small with largepointy ears and a small nose and muzzle. then i would find markings that are fit for a border collie and use them. afterwards i would choose the colors
Title: Re: Making your character
Post by: SteampunkWolfdog on August 06, 2013, 02:08:44 pm
Mostly I make realistic looking characters, sometimes semi-realistic. So I tend to go for neutral colours like browns, blacks, whites and greys, occasionally throwing something a bit brighter in there just to add a bit of colour, like green or red. With some characters, mostly the semi-realistic ones, I add markings or colours that help to reflect their personalities or background. But the colours have to go well together. I hate it when people have a mixture of colours that clash, like bright blue and red. That hurts my eyes. >.<
I can spend ages reviewing a characters appearance, tweaking the colours or dimensions, if I notice that something isn't quite perfect or I change my mind about something. I remember spending about an hour making a character and going back and changing things before I thought it was ready to be seen by everyone. XD
Generally, I'd use a photo as reference for the basics of my character like body shape, muzzle length, ear shape and typical colouration.
One thing I avoid doing is if part of my character is black, I don't make it so the RGB sliders are all on 0. I'll put them on 5 so that it looks really black but the fur texture is still visible.