A few posts back, I talked about designing a character/mascot, and how its features can tell a story or exude personality. I used L as an interesting case study since his real only distinguishing characteristic was his posture.
The thing to take away from that, was unique traits yield recognizable characters. Today I’ll explore the essence of unique traits.
It Doesn’t Take Much
What is a unique trait? A trait is a feature about a character that identifies them for who they are. Uniqueness helps them identify themselves among a sea of other characters. It doesn’t take much to be unique. Just a slight difference in variation, and you’re already different from the next guy. It also doesn’t take very much to make a character unique and distinguishable. Here’s an example. See how well you do in identifying each character that I’ve illustrated:
You’ll notice that the different colors in the headband really help in identifying who the character is. The hair also helps too, but it’s the combination of these simple elements that make them recognizable.
If you look carefully at the differences between Ryu, and Virtua Fighter’s Akira, there isn’t much. Just a different colored hair band, and different hair style. But there’s enough there that these become completely different characters in completely different worlds.
Let’s distill it even more, and bring it down to the most base of the character designs – the accessories:
If you can’t identify at least ONE of the characters associated with these accessories, you need to get out from under the rock you live.
Accessories can’t just be for anything. It has to be a part of the character. This leads back into my previous post on traits bringing out personality. For example, Chun-Li’s bracelets help her with fighting, and the oversized feature brings attention to her strength.
One thing to keep in mind also, is too many different features is actually detrimental to a character’s design. It becomes messy, and each feature ends up getting lost among all the other features. If you pay close attention, each character has about two or three unique main features at most, while the other features are more subtle secondary features that help complement the main features.
For example, Ryu’s most distinguishing feature is his red head band. His secondary support features are his red gloves, his messy brown hair, his ratty gi, and his signature frown.
Another thing you’ll notice is how incredibly simplistic these base features are. When the character’s features are too complex, it becomes difficult to “recall” the character. I’m sure most of you remember what Miku looks like, but many of you will have forgotten the exact details of Miku VN02 Mix.
I can draw Miku without needing any reference of her, but I can’t do the same with Danny Choo’s Mirai.
Miku vs Mirai
There are some differences in the level of mascot characteristics that make an effective mascot. Let’s take a look at the differences between Miku and Mirai.
Miku’s most distinguishing traits are her greenish twin tails enveloped by a black square with pink accent. She’s also got a grey vest-like top, and same greenish tie (with two black tie clips). Her pleated black skirt has the same green accent color, as does her interesting black sleeves, and high socks/boot things. She’s also got a sort of stripey belt thing hanging on the left side. Let’s not forget her microphone/headphone, her “01” on her arm, and “Vocaloid” emblazoned on her top.
These features are all as I remember off the top of my head. This image verifies it. Now, Mirai on the other hand, I have a little bit of trouble remembering.
The only thing that I really remember is she’s got brown hair, wears a school uniform that’s orange and white. Other details, like the bow, the double lapel, the frills under the skirt, the fold on the sleeve, and the location of the D emblem, as well as the two braids and “X” hair clip are “fuzzy” details that I can’t remember.
Why is this so? It’s because Miku is a more streamline designed mascot. Miku has several features of her that are completely unique, but also very in-your-face. Miku has “fuzzy” details too – she has green frills on her shirt collar. Her headphones have a magenta part, and a couple of smaller details.
What I am getting at here is that Miku has some very unique big details, where as Mira’s unique details are small details. Mira’s big details are not very unique if you compare it. This goes back to the Ryu’s headband and Chun Li’s bracelets. Those are big distinguishing details, and are also pretty much the only major details that these characters have, so your eye goes to it, and remembers it right away.
Here are some examples of big details that I drew. Name these characters if you can:
Of course, repeated exposure also has a lot to do with what makes these parts memorable. It goes hand in hand. But definitely having easy to remember traits are the main point.
Although my Otacute character isn’t an incredibly unique design, she has big details that make her memorable: the bright green “O” halo, the red kimono, the sakura blossom wings, and the massive brush. Her secondary details are the kimono prints, the ribbon-wrapped twin tails, and the super-high platform shoes.
So there it is, character design 101. Distinguishing traits that make or break a character. To take away from this – a character or mascot’s effectiveness is only as good as the social acceptance of the character. Distinguishing traits are one of the main ingredients on making a character memorable.
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Wow… this is interesting.
Never really think accessory in that way before…
^^;
It’s my job as an artist to notice these things, I suppose. It makes me happy that I can share my knowledge with people. 🙂
This is really very educational subject… recently im also trying to create a “original” character for fun. IMO Creating original characters is really really really so different from doujin work >_<
Hmmm… I never thought about that! I’m always seeing great doujin artists, and think that “wow, their art is amazing!” but never thought to remember that they’re also basing it on pre-designed characters.
Hope to see your design in the future! Maybe at the comic convention?
I guess this is why so many people complain about anime characters looking the same. It reminds me of an episode of sailormoon where both Sailor Moon and Sailor Venus had their hair down, you couldn’t tell them apart. The only thing separating the two were Sailor Moon’s twintails and Venus’s hairtie thing.
Yeah, Sailor Moon took it a bit too far. Their costume designs got more and more exaggerated as the show went on with all the lapels, and frills, and … everything! It became so hard to tell characters apart.
I noticed that SM is basically the girl’s equivalent of Saint Seiya. But SS had incredibly unique designs. It too had some difficulty near the latter parts of the manga/show too though.
A nice read, great article. Honestly, I didn’t know those bracelets belonged to Chun-li. I guess I’m not really familiar with street fighter.
No worries. Familiarity definitely does have a lot to do with memorability too. That’s why I brought up other popular examples like Mario, Mickey, and Haruhi.
Haha this is such an eye opening post!
Its really interesting how the creators have got you to remember a whole character just buy utilizing a couple of things
Crazy c:
lol! It’s all an analysis. People learn from each other and build on it to create better and more effective things. This is sort of a demonstration of that.
That was a fun read 🙂
well, you remembered more about Mirai than I did. All I could recall were the braids, rough hair colour and orange sailor uniform. I knew the logo was somewhere tho…
I don’t remember much about miku either but then I never really was a fan.
Ask me about Noel Vermillion from Blazblue or Rei Ayanami in her plugsuit and I’ll be able to do pretty well! I think…
strangely, I usually find it easier to remember the small things.
Familiarity definitely contributes to how much a person remembers about a character. But at the same time, the simpler the details, the easier it is to remember, even if the person isn’t familiar with the character. Like for example, what color is Ronald McDonald’s hair? Pretty obvious and easy to remember, even though we don’t see Ronald all that often.
I really like these posts, they make me become aware of things I intuitively noticed before but never payed much attention.
Thanks Miette-chan! :3
I try to angle my blog posts that way a lot.
Every time I read your informative posts and other posts i always think you’re a genius.
Thanks for posting! It was a nice read.
That’s quite flattering to hear! ^///^ I’m glad you enjoy my posts! 😀
This post was full of the juicy information anyone hoping to create a truly original character’s appearance unique. I appreciate your work! You should write a book or something on your knowledge someday! I’d definitely buy that! 😀
Take care buddy, and can’t wait for the next one!
-Jason
heya Jason! I think I might want to do that sometime. I definitely have thought about it. 😀
The red headband is Ryu, Snake is the blue headband, I think the white headband belongs to Akira Yuki, and the bluehead person with the yellow hair is Naruto. For the next one Mickey Mouse for the pants, Miku for the arm, Mario for the hat and mustache, Tigger for the tail, and I assume Miku again for the hair? Having something distinctive can make a character very marketable as well, just not as the character itself but from where the character comes from like a game or anime.
You get cookies for each right answer. :3c
I personally am a complete failure as an artists (stick people ftw?), but I do write novels, and as an author I can still see where you’re coming from. Those characters need to have their distinguishing features as well–the best example is probably in the Harry Potter universe, where Rowling juggles over 100 characters, and has to give them all something to be remembered by (Harry’s scar, Ron’s freckles and red Weasley hair, Hermione’s bushy hair, etc.).
So I definitely support this article.
And I love how the Mario ‘stache is just kinda floating in midair under the hat.
Arianna Sterling 🙂
It’s definitely important to establish character traits in novels, and equally important to bring up these traits periodically throughout the story so people can remember the characters. The methods are basically the same.
heh I liked Mario’s ‘stache too. 🙂
Sneaking away for some Internet while I’m in Seoul at the moment…
Another interesting post on spotting and identifying character traits. I think I didn’t comment on your other post yet (brain can’t work well under information overloaded condition), but I may go back and have a look at it again in another time.
You have a point how such little accessories do help making individual characters stand out from others – it’s also something you will help remembering the image of the character with (hm… Identifacation aid?).
However, these don’t always work well, such as rein not knowing those spiked bracelets are from Chun-Li (me too, as I only remember her ‘chignons’ which seem more recognisable to me), or how gumdamjehutykai doesn’t really take much notice of Miku’s accessories.
But gundamjehutykai’s case might be a bit different as he did express how he has little to no interest towards Miku, so it’s unlikely that he will pay attention to remember the little details associated with the character. This reminds me once in a particular time in secondary school asking people to remember the environments in a biology classroom that we were in, and those that on the biology teacher herself. We guys know the details around the classrooms such as a tennis ball with a dot on a horse skull’s eye socket because we don’t always like to pay attention to her class, whereas the girls would remember little bit of details on the teacher’s clothes because… They’re both female and they both like fashion. Okay I’m starting to drift a bit, but just want to say how whether we’re interested in a specific character does help in remember a character or not, though that’s a rather minor supportive factor compared to what you’ve mentioned. True that we don’t see Ronald McDonald *that* often, but we would remember at least roughly what he looks like, though I personally would just remember him on the colours more than the details themselves.
Okay train of thought ends here for now; I want to come back home in one piece or else I’ll be knackered and shattered by the time I’m home in Hong Kong this Sunday night!
My wife told me that Chun-Li’s chignons were more recognizable than her bracelets too. I figured as much, but it was too late! I had already finished the drawing!
Familiarity and frequent exposure definitely has A LOT to do with recognizability. It’s only natural. But, if you have a character with no unique traits, it doesn’t matter how much exposure you get, you won’t remember them.
The experiment you did in Biology class sounds interesting… usually, the females notice the general environment all around, while the males notice the main focus. This is due to genetics and evolution. Men were hunters, women were gatherers. Another topic for another time, I suppose.
Ronald and Mickey are examples I used due to the familiarity factor. They’re globally known characters with simple designs that is almost burned into our subconscious.
Pretty cool that you and I were both on trips at the same time. 🙂
Whoa, nice post there!
So that`s why ZUN also talks about same thing, accessories. Accessories is like character`s “identity”?
But i wanna ask, how to make an accessories become “icon” for the character? It`s like Ryu`s red head band. It is just plain red head band, but how could that red hair band become so special? I can`t think how to make an accessories become an icon for the characters. -_-
Anyway, that was a helpful post. Thx for sharing it^^,
(sorry for my bad English, somehow i`m still not used to it T^T)
Thanks k4g!
Yes, accessories are like the character’s identity, but you can’t overdo it.
An accessory becomes an icon when the character becomes memorable. Also, there has to be a REASON for the headband to be there. A back story, for example. It can’t just be an accessory for the sake of it. Take Vega’s mask for example. He wears one to protect his face. Ryu got his head band from Ken (if you check out Ken’s character design in Street Fighter Alpha/Zero, he’s got it tied to his long hair).