Void characters and how best to make them.

Re: Void characters and how best to make them.
« Reply #25 on: Jan 05, 2014, 03:05 PM »
If you have absolute confidence that you can handle a character with 8 million details, that's totally fine. But in most cases it's just not recommended due to tight deadlines and beginners on the site should reconsider it.
Kittens wearins mittens

Re: Void characters and how best to make them.
« Reply #26 on: Jan 05, 2014, 08:09 PM »
hmmm... I do feel like it would also be important to point out that while conflict IS mostly necessary,(otherwise you can't have a conclusion!) it does not have to be interpersonal. Conflicts can also be with the universe or with yourself. As such, the fight does not have to be between the two challengers and they CAN 'just interact' nicely while making an engaging story.
Conflict with the universe could be, for a bad example, the two characters dream of opening a bakery. The conflicts would arise from the real -or wacky- hurdles in the way to that baked dream. Opening and managing a bakery is challenging, yo! You need starting money, baking talents, organization, location, promotioning, ect. It's about fighting against the plot, instead of the people, wrestling the events to have them go your way. In romantic stuff, it's finding love, or learning to know someone. In the action realm, it could a disaster movie or a survival thing, or maybe a treasure hunt.
An internal conflict could be that one of the characters wants to beat Super Hexagon (probably the best retelling of Beowulf) and the other is coaching them. Or they're trying to make a comic (we all know how hard THAT is) Or maybe the conflict is with the FEELS and talking about stuff is actually like PUNCHING THE FEELS IN THEIR FEELFACE?(nonliterally) It's about overcoming your own limitations, or at least trying. In action, that would be that anime moment where the character trains to become stronger and gets a new power, or even fighting that mirror superman that's a manifestation of his repressed agressivity or whatevs (literally punching the feelface).

Of course, they in no way exclude the possibility of interpersonal conflicts within, good stories often have a bit of everything, but people against each other ain't all of it either.

In this sense, I also don't think that 'Setup, Conflict, Resolution' and 'Theme, Message, Takeaway' are separate styles of writing at all, but both inherently present in any story. What you describe as 'literary plot' also needs the basic story structure to work (a setup to the conversation, a goal/conflict to drive it forward, preferably a satisfying conclusion that rounds it up/achieves something) but the conflict might not be interpersonal, and even punch comics have themes and messages, though simplistic they might sometimes be. (something like; Justice, awesome punches, punching for justice! still has it all, but of course there are also awesome punch comics with deeper meanings)
"I knew when I sighned up for Void years ago, Someday I'm going to prison for this site"  - Mister Kent, words to live by

Re: Void characters and how best to make them.
« Reply #27 on: Jan 13, 2014, 09:19 AM »
The end product, as effective as it is doesn't necessarily exclude the use of both metaphorical or physical conflicts. However I'm offering differing frameworks where each favor one or the other in the beginning in order to give a focus. It's always easy to cram just about every idea you happen to have "in", less so in execution. Good ideas tend to develop towards tackling both interpersonal or external universal conflicts/messages while others stick to a primary theme and what feelings people happen to get from them is completely up to them. Both approaches are fine. 

But more importantly, it's an approach. At the start of the day you can't be wrapped up in your own head basking in perfect-idea-land and hope that simply /thinking/ something is enough to make it a good comic. Sometimes those perfect ideas require broad and meticulous strokes of storytelling to chisel them out from the head block. And the opponent, whether natural, metaphorical, or personal needs to be the central focus in order to appreciate the concept of void battling.

 Good writing entails that you have been using every page to convey this point from the very beginning.

Re: Void characters and how best to make them.
« Reply #28 on: Jan 13, 2014, 09:27 AM »
BUT WHAT IF I WANT MY CHARACTER TO HAVE 8 MILLION BELTS AND ZIPPERS ALL OVER THEM?!

Great stuff. When Voiders make overly detailed characters they need to remember that Japanese comic artists have assistants, American comic artists tend to work in teams, and so on. It's just not feasible to have an insanely detailed character on Void.

I'm going to disagree with this because there are some characters WHO ARE A PAIN IN THE ASS TO DRAW (somadis im looking at you) and still manage to do just fine. Making complicated ass designs is up to the artist, and it is the artist's responsibility to go through with it or not.  It's your character, you can do whatever you want with it.

It should be a recommendation to utilize simpler design sense, not a law.




...but having a conflicting design/costume with your character's personality is completely different matter that i have other strong opinions on.

I believe the crux of my earlier point was that character designs need not be cluttered with useless details. Using Somadis for a second, It's easily arguable that all those rocks are completely necessary to convey the character's massive size. However Somadis' silhouette is still very strong. So strong that you can see him from orbit and make him out by his shape alone.

LuLu from final fantasy was not about all those belts and could have easily been nixed. In fact i didn't even realize that she was guilty of the 5,000 belt infection. I have since then stopped following this concept artist. 

But in void I can see drawing a destructively difficult character being a huge advantage to winning fights in the worst way possible. Subtler examples of this execution was Yosai's Orange. If you could draw that face you would be at knife point fighting this gal.

Re: Void characters and how best to make them.
« Reply #29 on: Sep 11, 2014, 10:47 PM »
BURY ME WITH MY MONEY !


[reviving this thread after having left it for a couple months, reading it again It seems to have literally nailed all the points i wanted to say- unfortunately TOO MANy points which is why I'm going to do another write-up. This time about EDITING. ]

Re: Void characters and how best to make them.
« Reply #30 on: Sep 12, 2014, 06:09 AM »
This is probably my favourite forum post ever.
STILL spoken about in disgraceful social circles

Re: Void characters and how best to make them.
« Reply #31 on: Sep 12, 2014, 06:10 AM »
TRUTH.

Re: Void characters and how best to make them.
« Reply #32 on: Sep 23, 2014, 09:10 AM »
Good stuff.

Re: Void characters and how best to make them.
« Reply #33 on: Oct 07, 2014, 06:44 PM »
By far and away the best post I've ever read on character creation and writing. Good job OP.

Re: Void characters and how best to make them.
« Reply #34 on: Apr 16, 2015, 04:13 PM »
I sure learned something!
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