Let's Build Characters!
Hello everyone and welcome back to another post of Cella's Cove! Today's post is special because I will be joined by two fellow bloggers and they will be helping me, as you can tell by the title, make characters! These two lovely ladies are Abby and Kristina. I will be walking you through a basic character creation for five characters and they will be aiding me in choosing certain characteristics.
So, what we have to establish first is the setting that they live in and exist in. Abby took care of that, since she is creating a plot line for our characters. Our setting is a modern day time and at a school, probably in the spring.
How does this relate to the characters?
Well, we know that their clothing won't mainly consist of parkas and uggs.
The Main Character
Our main character is more of the "smart girl" or a "book worm." Most nerdy girls usually wear sweats for comfort and don't really care about their appearances to others because they don't need to prove themselves to others. They may even wear merchandise of their favorite shows, movies, or books.
STILL - she is our main character! She is the one we have to focus on the most with appealing to the audience. If there was a colored silhouette or if she was drawn in someone else's style or turned into an animal, we would need to be able to recognize her.
Couldn't help myself but choose Bjork.
What I was thinking of a yellow t-shirt with a cute bee drawing in the center of it. Maybe, she wears leggings or jeans and has a sweat jacket on top, y'know just in case she's cold and for comfort. Her shoes would be sneakers, maybe a converse brand. The sweat jacket could possibly be stripped and she alternates the outfit with striped, colorful sweaters. She can have a necklace, maybe a choker because she likes to wear nice things occasionally. Her hair would be short brown hair too.
The Main Love Interest.
Now we have the main love interest for our main character. He is a jock, on the football team. His name is Jake, a bit of a common and basic name. More brawn than brains, this is a cliché rom-com plot after all.
Here's a little story: When Abby and I were getting close in our 8th grade trio, I HAD to be exposed to rom-coms, and I hardly ever watched them before. Maia, our third, and Abby would ALWAYS fawn over the perfect - and when I say perfect, I mean perfect - looking and I simply couldn't. Like when we were watching Romeo and Juliet. Romeo simply did not STRIKE me.
And that's the pattern in a lot of rom-coms, especially modern ones. Perfect looking, no flaws, good bod, chiseled sharp chin man who is the main love interest. That means, Jake, the main love interest for our story is going to look exactly like that. He will of course have the classic blue eyes and blonde hair and his attire will be boring. A varsity jacket, occasional V-neck solid colored tees. His body would be an upside-down Dorito as well.
And here are some ideas for what he'd look like:
Okay, okay, all jokes aside, here's a decent face claim.
The Sad Love Interest.
For the rebellious bad boy that is the love interest the audience wishes that the main character would have ended up with in the end, we don't want to go all out punk because, reminder, this is a straight cliché rom-com. So, let's look at a similar character from To All the Boys I Loved Before, Josh.
Sorry, we all know that Josh was a pretty good catch and he was a little bit of a bad-butt and cute. As you can see from this shot, he is wearing DENIM and his pants are ripped too. He wore flannel and a leather jacket, I believe.
Look, I know he doesn't look like a bad boy, but he has the vibes. The spiky hair, the bags under the eyes and handsome but not perfect AND typically a bit skinny.
With that in mind, we can kinda get a solid image of what OUR bad boy character would wear and look like. This character's name is Spencer so we kinda need a guy who looks like a Spencer. When I think of Spencer, I think of dark hair, black or brown. I'm thinking he's maybe Asian and wears a black t-shirt with a necklace. He wears jeans that are like a little baggy and a little tight. A red bracelet on his left hand would be nice. We're going to hold ourselves back with the earrings even though earrings would make him a super bad boy. Sorry- getting ahead of myself.
The Best Friend
I was thinking that our character's best friend is black and has beautiful curled locks. She, unlike her friend, does put more effort into her appearance and has a natural beauty that she expresses, while the main character more of hides her natural beauty. She is outgoing and a little geeky, which is how she came to be friends with our reserved main character.
So, she has natural curls and wears turtle neck crop tops, shows a bit of tummy cause she's confident and fun and wears jeans. I'd say she also has a belly button piercing too and that's another thing she likes to show off. She isn't a popular girl, but her outgoing dressing tells you that she is kinda close and knows a lot of people. She doesn't really have any enemies except for those who pick on her best friend.
The Mean Girl
Lastly, we have our mean girl, the conflict of the story! Her name is Natalie, so that means she should look like one. What I mean by that is a popular girl. I am kinda picturing a girl with tan skin and blonde hair. Maybe blue eyes as well. She's really pretty and likes to take pictures at the beach
When she is at school, she wears a white cardigan with a trendy magenta blouse and white pants. She wears a head band in her hair and has earrings and rings. She doesn't need much designing because it's not like she is some super villain. I do love me some good super villains though. So that's probably it for her!
Thank you to my two lovely assistants! Again, you can find them at their blogs here:
nnnnngh pingpong cat. great post as always. <3
ReplyDelete