Designing Citizens in Your OC Worlds
Have you ever thought about designing citizens for your OC’s world? Maybe you need some background characters for your story, or some people for your hero OC’s to save! Is it finally time to create some characters for your OCs world? Before we get started, if you need ideas for designing your main characters, check out one of these articles!
Now that we have that out of the way, let’s get back to designing citizens for your stories!
It’s nice to have some extra characters for your story, especially for a comic or animation! Your OC’s world might seem pretty empty if the main cast is the only characters the audience sees! So how do you design some citizens for your world? Let’s talk about it!
What kind of world are your OCs in?
First off, you need to know what kind of world your characters are in! The kind of place the characters live in can determine how their design will look. Weather, culture, time period and other things can all impact how a group of people might dress! If you need some ideas, you could consider questions such as:
- Where does the world take place?
- What time period does it take place?
- What kind of weather does the place have?
- What is the culture like?
- Are their common religions in the area?
Depending on your answers to the questions above, you can design your citizens based on that! Then if you need to, you can do research on the culture or other factors of the area! If your world takes place in a fantasy setting, you can base your citizen’s designs off of the worldbuilding you’ve done!
If you need further ideas, try looking at the people around you each day! Do most people dress casually? Are they in work uniform? Dressed formally? Observing the people around you can give you an idea of what the majority of people wear!
If you need ideas for your world, there’s an article here about using genre for worldbuilding!
Make your main OCs stand out from the others!
Another important thing to consider when designing your citizens is making sure your main cast stands out! If your main cast of characters look like all the rest, it might be hard for the audience to distinguish between them.
Depending on the design your important characters have, you can design your citizens around that! Whether your characters are in a fantasy setting or a realistic one, you can still design your citizens in a way that will put the main focus on your important OCs! If you need some ideas you could:
- Give the citizens a different hair color or style from the main cast
- Give the citizens a less detailed outfit than the main cast
- Give the citizens a different style of outfit for the main cast
- Give the citizens a different color palette than the main cast
Giving your citizens a distinct look from your main characters will make your main ones stand out better! Depending on your story, you could give your citizens a more interesting design than your main OCs. If a main character is supposed to seem normal or they’ve been transported to another world, the citizens might have a more detailed design instead!
Using different color palettes for your characters can be a great way to give each one a unique look! If you want to learn more about picking color palettes for your OCs, check out this article here!
What will your citizen characters be used for?
You’ll also want to consider what you’ll use your citizens for! If you have a few that have some importance in your story, you’ll want them to have a distinguishable design from the other background citizen characters!
If some citizens are purely to fill up space while others might help your protagonists, the ones that help could have a more detailed design than the others! Even if it’s simple, a few extra details will help your audience remember them if they appear multiple times! If you need some ideas for what you could do, you could:
- Give them a pin or charm
- Give them a unique necklace
- Give them a unique hair color
- Give them a unique color palette
- Give them a unique eye design
The citizens that have importance can still have unique designs, without outshining your main cast! It could get confusing if some of the more important citizens have too similar a design to the rest. Adding some distinguishable design details can help!
If you need some more ideas, try this article here on giving your OCs unique details!
Use variety in your citizens' designs!
Just because your citizens are for background characters, doesn’t mean they have to be boring or all look identical! Giving different citizens diverse designs will make your world feel more real!
When designing your citizens, you can utilize different physical features to make each one unique! If you’re not sure where to start, you could try:
- Different face shapes
- Different eye shapes
- Different nose shapes
- Different body types
- Different hairstyles
- Different hair textures
A variety of different features in your citizens’ designs can make the world your OC’s live in feel more alive! Try mixing and matching different features to give your citizens distinctive designs!
Picking out eye designs for OCs is another fun way to create a unique look for them! If you want to learn more about eye designs, check out this article here!
If you want to see some cool background characters from the users of Unvale, check out…
Creating citizens for your world can seem daunting at first, but it doesn't have to be! You can give them all a distinct look, while making sure they don’t outshine your main OC’s!
If you need some more design ideas for your characters, there’s articles on using music for OC designs, choosing hairstyles for OCs, choosing makeup looks for OCs, and more!