Tips for Designing Fan Characters or Other Characters

Article by The One and Only World's Greatest Drawer

These tips are mainly for Sonic fancharacters (especially the first, I can't name any other times where that would apply) but can be used to guide you to make any character or fancharacter.

Character VS Fancharacter-What's the Big Difference?
There is a surprisingly thin line between a character and a fancharacter. I have many characters from Eternity (a series I write) that could be classified as fancharacters, since they appear more in my fanfics than in my actual stories and have close ties with official Sonic characters.

My definition:
Fancharacter: a character created by someone intended to be used in stories about an exisiting series/franchise.
OC (original character): A character not affliated with a series (self-made or not) who is of one's original design.
Fursona: An anthro representation of oneself. Usually it has some of his/hers creator's physical attributes, and often its specie represents its creator's personality. (for example, mine is an eagle owl)

1. This only applies to those seeking to make a Sonic fancharacter, but :Don't and I repeat DON'T make your fancharacter a hedgehog.There's nothing wrong with hedgehogs,but they are waay cliched as fancharacters.I bet 3 in every 5 fancharacters are hedgehogs.This might seem kind of hypocritical,but I have a couple characters who are hedgehogs,but none of them are anything like a current Sonic character in appearance,style,or personality,and I hope to have pictures up soon to prove it.If you are absolutely desperate for a hedgehog fancharacter,try making them a similar animal,such as a porcupine or an echidna.I have a porcupine character named Hickory and he looks nothing like Sonic,in fact he looks like a red-brown snub-nosed kid Knuckles.Tenrecs are pretty cool too.They pretty much look like long-spiked hedgehogs(at least in my style, in Sonic-style they'd probably look very much like Shadow).I have a character who is a tenrec,and she looks nothing like anything Sega has ever seen.

2.Opposite gender versions of characters are also fun.I've noticed female versions of male characters tend to work much better than vice-versa.Sometimes outfits that are reminescent of a male Sonic character's markings are cool.I have a bunch of characters that do.

3.Anti-versions,now those are cool,if they are done right.I have loads of these off characters of mine and off Sega characters.A good way to come up with anti-version designs is to save an image of the character you want to make an anti-version of on paint,then invert the colors,and try to think of what the opposite personality might be.

4.Don't contradict canon. It's okay to create alternate timelines, but don't mess with what's already been established. One of the worst examples I have seen of this was when someone tried to make a sister of Shadow.He was cloned,for crying out loud! (okay, that's debatable, but you can argue that on a forum)

5.Try not to make your character intentionally better in some field than another canonical character,by doing things such as making them faster than Sonic,having 3 tails,being stronger than Knuckles,I could go on for days on things like that,but I won't. Also try not to (if you can help it) make a character that plays an identical role to an existing character. There are a lot of exceptions to this though, you'll just have to discover them along the way.

6.An easy way to come up with characters is to hybridize(that is,draw a character that looks like a kid of a Sonic couple you like)characters.I have a few characters based off what I think kids of couples would look like.They don't even have to be the same species as their "parents". With OCS, one thing to keep in mind is that you can hybridize an animal specie with a specie you didn't come up with (for example, you could have a Pokemon-animal hybrid; I've seen a few of these). While this is controversial, the character still will be an OC. These characters often look cool, too. Also, you can try to make your character resemble an anthro version of an existing (non-animal) character.

7. This has to be one of the most important of all the tips. Do not make your character (whether intentionally or not) a recolor/clone of another existing character. There are a few exceptions to this, though, such as if you are making a spoof character or if you made your character before the official one came out. I have had the latter happen to me a couple of times. If it does, there are two options other than the obvious one: make a new character.
1:Change some minor details about them, such as (some of their) appearance, personality, role, or abilities.
2:State that your character came out before the official character when you use them to avoid recolor accusations (yes, it's a bit of a pain to do that every time you mention them, but it's worth it).

7.Another easy way to come up with characters is to think of an animal that suits you (for me that was an eagle owl). Then think of your favorite color/s and try to incorporate those into your character. Then all you have to do is think of an outfit and you have your design.

8. When struggling to come up with names, look to other languages. I personally find Latin and Japanese work best, but I have a few characters whose names come from Spanish or French. THe only thing you have to worry about is mistranslations. I had a particulary embarassing one. I had a character called Neko the Finch (thinking that Neko meant "sunshine" in Japanese) until a friend of mine (who actually knew some Japanese) told me it meant "cat". I then just changed the spelling to Nikko.

8. Don't make your character too weird or have too much detail. There are a few exceptions, but often over-detailed characters not only are a pain to draw; they often look ridiculous. On the other hand, don't make your character too plain, either. Then they'll just be ignored.

9. Having problems finding a good outfit for your character? Don't throw away those clothing catalogues! Just take a look through the latest one to come into your mailbox. I find Victoria's Secret to be an excellent source of designs. Also, you can look to doll clothes (such as Bratz; I find the Barbie clothes to be too frilly for the most part; but to each her own) and even IMVU has some very unique and excellently designed outfits just waiting to be tried out.

10. This relates partially to Tip #1, but this applies to all types of characters. Try to choose a unique specie. Some of the more trite species include foxes, wolves, cats, and tigers. Not that they're off-limits; certainly not if you have good ideas; that was just a point that needed to be made. Since the vast majority of people make their OCs mammals, try birds or even reptiles if you want to stand out. While not widely accepted, you can also use mythical creatures, too; dig out your mythology books and look around!

Here is an easy template to come up with for fancharacters:
Name:
Specie:
Gender:
Age: (optional, but it's nice to have)
Height:
Weight:
Likes:(optional)
Dislikes:(optional)
Abilities:
Strengths:
Weaknesses:
Friends:(optional, but it's good to have on there)
Enemies:(optional, but it's good to have)
Family:(optional)
Love Interest:(optional)
Birthday/Zodiac:(optional)
Personality: (usually this is in sentence format)
Backstory:(see above)

This template can also apply to original characters.

I also take requests for drawing fancharacters. I take them from my DeviantArt account, phoenixflaym.