How to Choose Your OC’s Personality!

Ever finished an OC design…only to realize you don’t know what kind of personality your OC has?! Whether you like to pick a personality for a character before you design them, or pick one after, sometimes it might feel difficult to come up with something more than just “shy” or “extroverted.” Before we get started, if you need some other tips for your OCs, check out one of these articles by my co-writer!

• Common Strengths and Weakness to Give your OCs!
• 5 BIG Questions to Help Develop Your OCs!
• Tips on Writing Hero and Villain OCs!

Now, back to choosing personalities for your characters! Personality is a pretty complicated thing, so how do you figure out one for your OC? Let’s talk about it!

Choose a personality based on your OC’s design!

One way that can help you think about your OC’s personality is by considering the design you gave them! (If you haven’t designed your character yet, feel free to skip this section!) There are lots of different aspects of a design that might hint at what kind of personality a character might have. For example, you could consider…?

• How does the OC wear their hair?
• What kind of clothes does the OC wear?
• What kind of accessories, tools, or weapons does the OC have?
• What kind of color palette does the OC have?
• Is there any obvious shape language in the OC’s design?
• Are there any design motifs within the OC’s design?
• What expression does the OC usually have in the art of them?
• Are there any other design factors that could help you decide on a personality?

Depending on your answers to the above questions, you might discover some details of your OC that can help you pick a personality for them! If a character wears baggier clothing as opposed to something more form-fitting, they might be a more chill character, or they might be really shy. A character with sharp shape language might be more energetic, or they might be a bit more prickly.

Using the already-existing design of the OC can be a great way to choose their personality! That being said, depending on the purpose of the character, you could even do the opposite. A character with a design that seems more reserved might actually be really extroverted, and a different character with a design that seems more fun and happy might actually be really mean!

Color symbolism can also tie into the personality of a character. If your OC has a design but doesn’t have a color palette yet, try checking out this article on how to choose one for them here!

Choose a personality for your OC by considering the personalities of your other characters!

Another way you can choose the personality of your OC is by picking something based on the personality of your other OCs. You might consider different character dynamics and see how the OC would interact with another character. Whether that be a best friend, or an arch nemesis, there’s plenty of different ways you could choose!

Depending on what kind of character dynamic you want, choosing different personalities can help establish the dynamic. You might give a protagonist character a personality completely opposite to the antagonist as a way of making them a mirror of each other in the story. You could do something similar with a friend or love interest dynamic as well! If you need some ideas, you could try…

• A best friend duo with polar opposite personalities
• A pair of lovers who have similar personalities but different vibes
• Friendly rivals who have personalities that bounce well off of each other
• Arch-nemesis characters who have personalities that mirror each other
• A hero and villain with the same personality

There’s plenty of different character dynamics that you could use to decide on what kind of personalities your characters have!

If you need more ideas for writing character duos, there’s an article you can find all about the topic here!

Try using a personality test to decide on a personality for your OC!

If you’ve been using Unvale for a while, you might have noticed in the traits of character pages that there’s the option “Myers-Briggs Type.” The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, also known as just the MBTI, is a type indicator for personality types! The MBTI has 16 different categories for personalities, and each one is a combination of different traits that the individual prefers.

By learning about the different aspects of the personalities, you can choose what would work best for your OCs! If you need to see the different traits of the different MBTI types, here’s a brief overview!

• Introverted or Extroverted (Is energy focused inward, or outward?)
• Intuitive or Observant (Is focus placed on possibilities, or concrete facts?)
• Thinking or Feeling (Is rationality prioritized over emotion?)
• Judging or Prospecting (Is structure preferred over flexibility?)

You could use the different characteristics to decide on what your OC might be! If you still aren’t sure which to choose, you could try taking the test on your character’s behalf! You can make up answers that you think your OC would choose, and see what result they get! If you want to try out an MBTI personality test for your characters, there’s a free one you can try here! (The site also has lots of resources for understanding each personality type!) If you’re not too interested in the MBTI, there’s plenty of other type indicators you could try, too.

Personality can be influenced by many different factors, such as culture or a person’s upbringing. You might consider the backstory of your character when choosing their personality! If you need some ideas for developing an OC’s backstory, check out the article: Backstory Building Questions for Your OCs!

Try using a character alignment chart to decide on a personality for your OC!

Another thing you can use for your OC’s is an alignment chart! If you’ve heard terms such as “lawful good” or “chaotic evil,” those are from alignment charts! The DND character alignment chart is a popular way of categorizing characters based on how they interact with the world. (It’s also another option in the traits section of a character page on Unvale!)

The character alignment chart divides the categories based on whether the character is good or evil, whether they do things lawfully or not, or whether they’re neutral. If you need to see the different alignments, there’s…

• Lawful good
• Neutral good
• Chaotic good
• Lawful neutral
• True neutral
• Chaotic neutral
• Lawful evil
• Neutral evil
• Chaotic evil

A chaotic good personality might have a kind heart and want what’s best, but they might do so in ways that result in destruction or collateral damage…the end justifies the means to them! On the other hand, a lawful evil character might have questionable goals…but they’ll accomplish them in a way that’s technically within the rules. Using an alignment could be a good way to get a feel for what your OC’s personality could be! 

If you’re looking for something less serious, there’s meme character alignments you can find as well. Meme templates often cover funny scenarios and how different OCs react to it. (Unvale has a few for you to use too, which you can find here!)

Communities to share your stories and get advice from!

Looking for a place to either share your stories, or to get some advice from your fellow creatives? There’s plenty of communities on Unvale that might help! Be sure to check out…

• The Writing-Advice Community! Need some advice for writing your story? Make a post in the Writing Advice community so that your fellow creatives can help!
• The Writing-Share Community! Want to share your writing, but you don’t need feedback on it? Make a post in the Writing Share community!
• The OC-Lore-Help Community! Need some help figuring out your OC’s lore? The Lore Help community can, well, help! Make a post for fellow OC creators to help give you ideas!
• The Yap-About-Your-OC Community! Just feel like yapping about your characters? Leave a post in the Yap About Your OC community!

Be sure to check out the cool OCs and stories from your fellow creatives too! There’s lots of awesome stuff for you to find! (Also, If you want to talk about your OCs’ personalities, feel free to share with us in the Blog Community!)

If you need other ideas for your OCs, there’s articles on avoiding Same Face Syndrome, designing secondary outfits, and choosing shape language for your characters!