Random question for those of you who come up with OCs: do designs for your original characters just pop up in your head randomly in the day? Or do you sit down and consciously and deliberately try to come up with them?

Usually I'll see something generic, and do my own take on it.
I've never seen one of those crazy autistic OC's and thought
>Wow, I wanna copy that

Start with a base design than slowly refine it over time. Only make them if I have an explicit need to.
Dont like making character designs that much.

>>7630018 (OP)
they always just pop into my head. im constantly thinking and generating ideas. Its getting them on paper thats the problem.

>>7630018 (OP)
I roll a new one with a character description generator and I make a bunch of possible designs and pick the best one

>tfw relatively vivid visual imagination but it’s always things like environments and more abstract images, never specific OC designs
Guys… I may not have the gene…

>"Hey wouldn't it be cool if [x]"
is basically the thought process behind most character design. The woman who drew your image probably likes witches and fashion so she thought "what if there was a witch who wore designer clothes?" and then she drew that

>>7630018 (OP)
yes to both. I often get ideas when I'm writing or when I'm lying in bed or in the shower which is annoying. its good to have a phone handy so I can write down the idea for the new OC.

>>7630018 (OP)
it depends, usually start with some sort of fan art or fanfic in my head and I started making additions and subtractions. Some times I started making up characters specifically to fill specific roles in the story and I expended their background and design over time.

>>7630018 (OP)
I think about their personality and story and relationships first. Then design based off of that.

>>7630018 (OP)
from time to time I try to come with an OC, I don't spend too much time on it I just start doodling and just center around a theme. I only use references until I hit a roadblock.

>>7630018 (OP)
btw
Hidari(OP artist) has a course about character design
https://coloso.global/en/products/illustrator-hidari-us you can find online easy
He designed characters for atelier, fatego, fire embrem and he's an instructor(Kyoto University)

>>7630402
This looks good, is it in the vct or do I have to fork over?

>>7630018 (OP)
I have one OC I basically evolved through 2 decades originating from a custom character eroge. It's mostly just ideas that evolve and get refined over time for me.

>>7630018 (OP)
Story dictates design, so even if its as simple as like maybe a mascot I make for myself I think about what that person goes through and their interests and reflect that in their design. Where that person comes from, how that person would talk or act, etc. Even if Im just making a thot/fap material. It requires thought but I wouldnt say Im thinking that deep about it.
I will say though that the more you draw and the more you observe from life and the more that you come to really know yourself and your tastes that characters will pop up in your head, when that happens though I wouldnt call it random its just kind of knowing what you want already.
Like heres one of my more generic characters with a simple premise but I kind of knew what I wanted once I thought of her, she was proper so I thought of a clean haircut, a more conservative and reserved clothing style, and knew how she would pose herself. Again it wasnt a deep design idea but it accomplished my goal.

>>7630416
vct?
telegram? yep

>>7630463
video courses thread, I've never used telegram

>>7630478
I'll try to upload it tomorrow or the day after.

>>7630018 (OP)
The characters I've come up with, like almost everything else I draw, exist within the context of my wider world building project and I typically develop ideas and lore for them etc as I go trough the designing process. Some start out as just random generic ideas or designs for what a member of a particular faction might look like and then spin out from there while others have more specific goals I have for them.

>>7630018 (OP)
I'm a hack. I take a preexisting character and draw it with minor/stylistic changes. Then I do it again and again until it looks original enough.

>>7630478
>>7631681

>>7631683
thanks anon love u *kisses u*

>>7631327
Don't care, didn't bother to read your shitty lore, your art looks like shit.

>>7631729
Op asked a question, I answered, cunt.

>>7631327
Why is the one on the right carrying yo momma's loose pussy on its back?

>>7631816
It is a sort of storage shell/saddle thing.

In this strip,I drew the demon head first.

A new sketchbook, time needing killing, I drew it in a globe for no particular reason, perhaps to render a glass like effect or attempt to. The character next to it was purposefully designed, a blending of two other characters of different anthromorph species, an impossibility without serious magical intervention. Suddenly they were having a conversation, but what about?

A story began.

But I did not know how big a story it would eventually become. I like doing One Shots,making up a scene from a story in progress,as a visual storytelling exercise,to give the viewer as much information about what this adventure is about,both in illustration of the scene filled with details that imply others,and the scattered dialog expanding upon the situations. But a second one followed this and a third. A new page of the sketchbook, a new chunk of story. A story I didn't imagine would happen : all I was expecting to do that day in the waiting room was doodle random crap. But the demon head interested me.

Why not a body? Why in a globe? Things I didn't consider drawing it,but decided to explain in the context of my comic ficdom. An interface,and that second character was the answer to Whose.

I had posted it for months here,but I believe the elephant cocksleeve of an Anon used a magic 4chan word to make it sink irretrievably. Oh well. But if you search for "The Annotated Snowglobe" in the archives, you might find it. And my pointless effort of explaining it. There is a story,it is in a form I would not sell to anyone, but I presented it as a lesson in telling a story,because from this initial skeleton of concepts other Media can be drawn from it. But as a design document it has merit,but you won't explain this to anyone in these boards. But since you are shopping for OC,you might find it profitable to dig up the archive.

>>7630018 (OP)
I just take things i like and pop it on the character, hair style and color etc, then i day dream about what their doing in their world

>>7631842
this is the ugliest shit i ever saw

>>7630018 (OP)
It's a mix of how I feel at the moment of creating them and or if I think my OC is lonely and needs some friends. They mostly based off songs or people I know in the real life so I guess that helps as well. I'm lonely in real life so I don't want my OCs to feel lonely then.

>>7631820
You need to redesign the pussy cave into something that reads as storage/saddle

>>7630018 (OP)
Usually I start with a parody of sorts. Or just a doodle of something. Then I just keep expanding.

I think of this Stephen King quote from his memoir On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft:

"If it’s bad, it goes away. If it’s good, it stays. The stuff that stays is what you’re supposed to be writing about."

Usually ideas just pop up in my head, and as I draw the character more, the design becomes more and more fleshed out
One of my favorite examples of this is my character Artemis Graves, same with juniper, he went from a twink to a 26 year old alcohol

>>7633689
Alcoholic*
Typo

>>7633689
Beautiful style!

>>7633694
Thank you! I love doing more cartoony faces on normalish bodies

I start with a story idea, and design a cast of characters that fit it. I don't really bother with just one character to throw in the void anymore. It's nice to have a cast of characters that all fit one theme/idea