americangothic wrote:My characters are just normal, average, everyday people.
Except that they are vampires, werewolves and witches.
They are striving for normal. They dress normal, act normal, try not to stand out in a crowd. What motivates them is what motivates us as humans...they want love, family, friendship, romance, a safe home environment. I'd like to think that if I walked up to one of my characters on the street, I would never know they were paranormal.
Gothia
Same pretty much goes for my comic.
Edit: except Seth because he teetering on being a complete sociopath.
My characters are driven by 1) self-preservation or 2) regrets or 3) promises. or 4) revenge. Usually 2 or more of the above. None of that "love" crap in this here comic....
Alright! fine! We have that too! BUT ONLY FOR ONE GUY.
I dunno. I have sorta kinda developed a good personality for my main character. Somewhat of her parents. I have just introdused a new characyer, and about to another. I havn't really developed much of a personality for them yet. So if I met the main character, there would be big hugs and running around and screaming like a little school girl. But the other, they might just been standing there, drooling, going duuuuuuuurrrrrr.
Twisted hero worship, misplaced sense of responsibility, blind overconfidence, complete lack of culpability, seething hatred, and a feeling of enui caused by a world seemingly played out of adventures.
Sharp Hall. - Ya know... don't even go there. Very NSFW
There is certainly a lot of character development in WBK, and there's a backstory going on right now, explaining Vandi's motivations.
One of the themes in WBK is the things you don't know about people. That there are things hidden beneath the surface. Wether you are a happy air-head type (like Elia), a do-gooder (like Vandi), or tough (like Dores), that's not all there is to you. You'll see a lot of hidden things unfold as the story goes on.
There are always reasons for people to be one way or another. Sometimes they're subtle (like "my parents never loved me, and now I have low self esteem!"), sometimes more obvious (like "I caused the death of my best friend, and now my guilt makes me suicidal!").
I think character development is the number one thing that makes a story good. You have to make the audience care about the characters to care about the story, and having fully fleshed out and realistic characters is the best way to make that happen.
The main character in my strip was originally mean-spirited self-satire, though I don't think I'm as much like him these days. I'm still figuring out what makes him tick, actually. Elvira and Noam are easier, since Elvira is pretty much based on my teenage emotional life and Noam is just a wide-eyed, over-theoretical punk kid.
To figure out my characters better, I usually just think of a backstory and then keep it to myself forever (though I eventually wrote up Elvira's in an eight-page print story because it was therapeutic to do so.) Before doing that, though, I try to just use them in a few strips and get a sense of their reactions (they take on their own life pretty quickly.) Once I have that, I can do the whole backstory thing and make it all work out.
Regarding the poll: when my comic was still in the local university paper, I got an email from a freshman girl who said that she wished she had friends like my characters. I felt kind of bad about that.
Just updated a character database of mine, nearly 700 plus. Okay most of my stuff is in written novel type form, but were originally comics. One thing I noticed is over time, similarities pop up. For example, I tend to have a group of three people who are all bad guys. I never realized that I would create the same group over and over. I also noticed that they were based on the same three asses I went to school with. Hmm, issues maybe? Anywho, they would meet their fates and get reincarnted over and over and over. Different stories tend to bring out similar personallities. Now I just need to work on my generic henchmen for the comics.
Friction Fit Theatre. Updates 7 days a week after 3pm Colorado time.
My comic's characters are based people I knew from an online video game, and altered a bit for the storyline... So I didn't have to do much work on their attitudes. ^_^
My characters are driven by a desire to keep their jobs. Which is odd because I pay them almost nothing, and give them crappy gifts for the yearly anniversaries.
No, really. My characters are employees of the artist. Then again, the fourth wall doesn't exist in Reasoned Cognition. It's three walls and an audience and everyone knows it.
Crossfire: "Thank you! That explains it very nicely, and in a language that someone other than a physicist can understand..."
Denial is not falsification. You can't avoid a fact just because you don't like it.
"Data" is not the plural of "anecdote"
The motivations for my characters are pretty damned varied. When I first started the comic I really didn’t have a clue who they really were (despite the fact they had been around since I was in fourth grade) and I just kind of wrote them the same...but as time has progressed they've become more separate and different people.
I like to think that the thing that drives Tom is the want to protect his friends...but in the long run you cant save everyone (That isn’t a preview of the comic later...or is it?) and a lot of time it seems like he's just acting for the sake of moving forwards.
A lot of the time their lives are just like they are 'on screen' they act like they do and the progresses gradually. They do become more mature and evolved over the course of the story and later things start happening that really makes changes progress quickly.
I guess I play on stereotypical 'Anime' characters. But they are really so much more different then you would think. Hana is this thin, blond fashion obsessed girl...who has an 150 point IQ and could, quite literally, smash your head I through a brick wall without even trying. Tom is the stereotypical spikey-haird martial artist who will fight to defend his friends and family...but...well...ok...Tom's a stereo type. Is Schizophrenia normal for a character? He's got that. That makes he different I guess. Trust me, stuff just happens. Its dissociative identity disorder to be specific.
I really try to show two sides of 'good' and 'bad' in my comic. Right now you cant really tell, but some of the stuff later gets a bit hazy. I particularly like the background story I have for the main bad guy right now...I just don’t know when I'm going to fit it in. Its not that long, but still.
The comic is very character driven and I like to think that I couldn’t use any other characters in their place.
