Of Inks and Pixels @inksandpixels - Tumblr Blog

Calling all artists!

If your commissions are open and you do draw OC’s, please reblog this post!

If you are not an artist but know of one, please reblog this and tag them or just mention their url in the tags!

And hey, even just reblogging helps! I will be keeping a comprehensive list of artists who can be commissioned to draw characters/OC’s on the blog!

fictionwritingtips

Building an Unforgettable Character

Character building is one of my favorite parts of writing a novel. I love seeing where they’re going to take me and where their journey is going to end up. Even though I plot extensively before starting a new novel, I always leave room for the characters to lead me somewhere new.

So, what’s the secret to building an unforgettable character? Here are some tips to lead you in the right direction:

They need to be relatable

If your audience can’t relate to your character, that’s usually a huge problem. We relate to characters like Harry Potter not because we’ve been to Hogwarts and practiced magic, but because we can relate to his pain and to his connection with his friends. He represents emotions that a lot of us have struggled with and he doesn’t quite feel like he fits in. His struggle to find himself is relatable.

Take some time to figure out what your character ultimately represents and don’t be afraid to bring emotion into it. We want to feel connected to your characters and we want to find something in them that matches something in us.

They need to be realistic

It’s important that your character’s actions should remain realistic. Not in the sense of remaining true to our world, but to theirs. Their actions should make sense in context to what they’re going through. If you’re constantly questioning why a character would do something because it just doesn’t make logical sense, you’ll have trouble respecting that character. It’s important that we understand their actions.

They need to be proactive

A good character is a go-getter. I’m not saying they will always make the right decisions or that they’re all good people, but all main characters/protagonists should be able to do things on their own. I’m also not saying they don’t need help, but they need to overcome the big challenges on their own or through what they’ve learned. They can’t just stand around waiting for everyone else to finish things. They need to take initiative at some point, and this should be due to their personal growth throughout the story.

I understand that this point does depend on the story you’re writing. Maybe your character is an unmotivated person. Maybe they’re lazy. This usually doesn’t matter because a story isn’t interesting if that person remains inactive. They can have periods of inactivity and become unmotivated during parts of your story, but ultimately that does need to change at some point.

They need to have flaws

Flaws will humanize your character and are usually what stands in your character’s path to success. A character that does everything right all the time and doesn’t have any growth because they’re already perfect is VERY BORING. They should fail and they should learn lessons. I’m not saying all their flaws should be fixed by the end of the novel because that’s not how people operate in real life, but character flaws should help build interesting layers.

-Kris Noel

peppapigvevo

Art advice from someone barely qualified to give art advice:

There’s no such thing as a “bad” color scheme; just color schemes that serve different purposes. If your aim is to make a piece chaotic or uneasy, maybe that hot magenta/steel blue/goldenrod/bright vermilion scheme works

On that note, don’t hold fast to color symbolism; red doesn’t ALWAYS have to mean passion, yellow doesn’t ALWAYS have to mean joy etc. Color language changes between cultures and people, so feel free to associate whatever color with whatever mood. If your intent and execution is clear, people will get your meaning

Anatomy is one of those things you definitely should learn, even if your personal art style is so off and stylized that your figures barely register as humanoid. It’s very much a case of learning “the rules” so you know how elegantly you want to break them

While you’re there, learn how to respectfully depict different body types, races, feature shapes etc. You don’t want to have to rely on hair style or eye color to tell your characters apart. Also actual people aren’t the pale thin art models we all are first exposed to

sergle

I JUST NOW REALIZED that ko-fi donations are marked as business transactions in my paypal account, and that each of them comes with the person’s address and a little “ready to add shipping info” tag on them so i’m going through every time someone has kindly given me a couple dollars in the past. year? and marking them all as “order processed” so I don’t get in HUGE trouble for not putting shipping information on these “orders” WHY… ARE THEY PROCESSED THAT WAY… why aren’t they processed as DONATIONS?