Vortex00 this a repost from 2013
I would encourage any artist to create their own original character(s) and develop them. It can be a character in a comic/manga, a game, and animation short series, anything.
It will be very useful to you for building value and I will explain why in a future T&A.
1. When not making your own original characters, you inherit all the backstory and personality traits of the copyright popular character.
Any game, or other media made with a popular and/or copyright character is limited by the world and title/franchise they originally appear in. Your own creativity with how far you can take it with fiction is limited. You will find people telling you what a character would say or do in your own creation!
Summary points about using popular copyrighted content:
Limited room for creativity and development of the character.
you inherit lots of fans, including the crazy ones.
You can get hit with copyright violations.
You cannot legally generate income from it legally unless you have approval
People tend to tell you how or what some character would do in that situation
builds you no lasting value
Summary points about not using popular copyrighted content:
Tons of room for creativity and development of the character.
you won’t begin with a lot of fans for it.
You never have to worry about copyright violations.
You can legally generate income from it
People can help you develop your character(s) and projects and provide ideas.
builds you lasting value
About Author
what program do you use to create characters?
To draw them you mean? I use photoshop and import them into flash for most of my games.
To create a character, all it takes is your own mind, there is no program involved heh.
oh ok i was wondering. i know a guy who does all his art through his ipad its kinda cool you should check it out
yeah I have seen several tablet art programs.
I have a wacom tablet that I use to draw which is very similar. I don’t think I need a portable way to draw. If I am away from my computer, chances are I don’t have to draw anything because I am either at work, driving, or shopping for something, or spending time with friends and family, etc.
I want original charecters t is the only way to expand the universe and build a bigger fan base for the product.
The great Stan Lee the Mr. Marvel Comic Spiderman said it best. You start small with just 2 characters the hero and his nemesis. Making sure you have users interest about them both. First you drew a image of your character. Than you create the surrounding plots of his view. Than you show his nemesis than introduce the main hero’s friends that he talk with. Building his character up, creating more characters that is part of what the main hero point of view. As the years past from novel/comic books. Than comes everything else the Live action Movie, games, TV shows, Cartoon deals, toys etc.
This is good advice indeed. it is always good when the nemesis also is not just just purely evil. but actually has a legitimate reason to be against the protagonist. wanting revenge or power or something like that is usually overdone. maybe they are both trying to save the word in different ways. it is kind of like how I have ARIA. Technically they are the “bad guys” since they are a part of GemCo but they see GemCo overall as something good as most people in the city do.
Both sides have their pros and cons.
If you are a fan and want to work with a existing character or produce material of him, because there not much at all of it, that ok. You inherit the fans too, what can help you if you succeed and then move to your originals. But as you said, there are limitations and mistakes will be noticed by this same fanbase, you have to know exactly what you are working with, not to mess up. The sonic example you used.
Originals are better because you can create a small number of characters and expand from it. You dont have limits and you dont own explanations about mistakes (well, you can always fix any, since you are the creator). And from these characters you can get known too, you arent sucking someone’s fame, but raising yours, heh. But there will be fame suckers in no time too 😛