Hei/Hello everybody! I'm DarkLord98, but please, call me JT.
Anyway, onto the topic at hand, OC Creation. I'm not going to lie to you people, I hate most OC's that I see on the internet, whether it's because the art style is absolutely horrid, the character being either a literal copy-paste or a damned palette swap, or the character making no sense at all.
So, as someone who's seen the flaws and mistakes that people have made, I decided to start this little blog series dedicated on helping people designing OC's that actually fit the world they're in.
But before I delve into any specific anime's, let's start from the basics.
Name: The name of your OC should fit in with the rest of the characters, so no John Smiths in Naruto, unless they're for a "OC from our world inserted into a anime" fanfic, but I'll cover that later. Take a look at the character roster, and then try to come up with a name for your OC.
And don't make it something cliche'd, like Shadow or Hikari, or anything else that's just a simple word in another language.
Use baby-name sites to find a name(first and surname) for your OC.
Don't give your OC the same family name as a character in the show, unless the character belongs to a big clan, so don't make your OC a sibling of, let's say Killua from Hunter-X-Hunter, as we've seen his family. same thing with Naruto, Fairy Tail, One Piece, Bleach and all other franchises, so try to avoid the names Uzumaki, Uchiha, Otsutsuki, Monkey, Kurosaki, Dragneel, Heartfilia, Fullbuster, Dreyar, Ishida and so on.
Appearance: Now, appearance is something that can be changed quite easily, but that doesn't mean that you can go crazy with the OC's appearance. For example, if your OC has a un-natural hair color for their world, and they have dyes in that world, make it so that the OC actually dyes, and that their roots are a natural color, and for the love of all that is holy, don't try and pull any BS about a spirit turning the hair white.
Same thing with hairstyles, babies don't come out with drill-shaped pigtails, people have to work for that, so try to avoid anything that's overly complex, and if the OC does have a complex hairstyle, give a reason for it to be like that, a believable like.
Moving onto the colors of the OC's eyes. Keep it simple, don't throw any insane and impossible colors like crimson red, as that simply makes your OC into an un-interesting cliche. Go for natural colors and shades, as eye color isn't something that you can change easily. And don't throw any insane shapes into the OC's eyes, like cross-shaped pupils or something like that.
And as for skin, keep it natural, unless they belong to a race that has different skin colours, in which case, keep it in their limits.
And then we come to body type. Don't make your OC into a fucking model, unless they actually work to keep it in that shape. And try to draw the bodies so that they don't look like a weak wind would blow them over, and try not to make them look incapable of supporting their own weight, so no perfect hourglasses I'm afraid.
And finally, we come to the end of the appearance segment, clothing. Keep it sensible dummy. For example, let's say that your OC lives in a warm region, so they're probably not wearing any parkas or thick clothes, but T-shirts and shorts for example. Make their outfits look like they fit the world, and not stick out like a 2-feet giant surrounded by vertically challenged people. For example, if the OC is a fighter, don't put things like a corset, a skirt and high heels into their normal or fighting outfit
For the OC's casual clothes, pick ones that don't look like they need 2-3 hours of set up to even put on or take off, and are comfortable. For work clothes, pick something practical, for example, say that your OC is an assassin, so pick something form-fitting with dark colors, nothing that's bright enough to blind people, and nothing that will dangle from the outfit, so that it gets stuck on every possible thing.
Personality: And now we get to the meat of the OC, and it's what can make or break one. If you're making a OC for an established franchise, or just for a Role Play, make the OC's personality make sense, for their world, their personal history, occupation, social status and age. Don't make a happy-go-lucky idiot OC for a grim, crapsack world like Highschool of the dead{Zombies}, Attack on Titan{Titans}, Naruto{Child soldiers: check, control over the elements: check, The economy being based on Person 1 wanting Person 2 dead, robbed, mind-controlled or something equally bad: check, Assassin: sorta check}, RWBY{Let's see, child soldiers: check, soulless abominations that grow with age: double check, a hostile, partially justified, hypocritical racial movement: check, uneasy relations between nations: I'd say so} or Akame Ga Kill{Do I really need to give an example?}, and actually have them survive like that for long, although they can try to keep being like that to keep themselves from falling into despair.
And give them flaws, don't make them perfect, as all people have flaws, whether they like to admit it or not. I like to keep this little check-list where for every positive trait, I pick one negative one, and avoid picking the two sides of the same coin. For example, let's say that your OC doesn't deal well with people, but is very kind and loving with animals, that makes sense.
Background: This is most certainly tied very closely to a character's Personality. If a character comes from a financially troubled background, they're more likely to choose a money.saving option. If a OC comes from a rich and entitled background, they're more than likely snobbish, immature and used to getting what he/she wants. A person can't have come from an abusive family, and not have any mental problems, but they may have put up a Stepford smiler persona to try and protect their mind.
Relationships with other characters: Once again, this is tied to a character's Personality, but it's also tied to their Background. For example, you can't have a Blood knight be best friends with a Pacifist and make them have no issues with one another, well, save for the Blood Knight being happy that the Pacifist let's him handle the fights.
One thing that you absolutely can't do is have characters fall in love with the OC at first sight, as that will earn you a lot of hate and shit being thrown at you. And with some characters, you can't even have the canon characters be friends with the OC, especially if they're antisocial, or if they're Hisoka. Seriously, how could any well-balanced individual be friends with that guy?
Simply put, don't pair your OC's with a character that is any of these things that I am about to list, unless your OC is mentally ill and/or evil:
A: A mentally unhinged person that wouldn't have any emotional problems with killing the OC or a large amount of people
B: Characters that already have a romantic interest, or are married to a character already
C: A character that hasn't shown any romantic interest towards anyone
Synopsis: Yritä olla alkuperäinen, mutta älä yritä luoda liian erikoista OC:ta, koska sellaiset saattaa mennä liian kliseiseksi.
That concludes the basics, and next time, we'll move on to specific worlds, starting with the one that people make the most mistakes with: Naruto!
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