Tips for Visually Designing Character Growth for Your OCs!
Want to show off your character’s growth, or regression, through their design? Learn some ideas for how you can visually show off your OC’s growth with their clothing, color palette, and other aspects!
Whether you’re writing a webcomic, or planning out an animated series, your characters probably won’t have the same design for the entirety of it! Characters change and grow over the course of their story…and oftentimes, their design does too! Before we get started, if you need other ideas for your OCs, there’s also articles on…
- How to Build an OC with Friends!
- How to Avoid Same Face Syndrome When Designing Your OCs!
- Tips for Designing Secondary Outfits for Your OCs!
Now, back to talking about design changes! One way you can show off the progression of your character’s story is by changing the character’s design over time. So how do you decide on what to change about your OC’s design? Let’s talk about it!
What are the important aspects of your OC’s starting design?
First up! You’ll want to figure out what aspects of your OC’s design are most important to their character. You’ll also want to keep in mind what parts of your design you like best! If there’s details within the design that have special meaning or specific symbolism, you can keep those in mind. If you need some suggestions for what to consider, you could think about…
- How does the OC wear their hair?
- What kinds of clothes do they wear?
- What kind of accessories do they wear?
- Does their design come with a specific aesthetic, or motif?
- What kind of color scheme does their design have?
Once you have an idea, you can think about what might change! A character might decide to start wearing a different style of clothing, or they might cut their hair. There’s lots of different aspects that might change.
You’ll also want to keep in mind how the important aspects could change based on the character’s arc! It’s a good idea to keep in mind whether your OC grows as a person, or regresses! You can alter certain aspects of a design based on how the character’s arc goes.
How can your OC’s outfit represent growth?
A big aspect of a character’s design is the outfit they wear. Their outfit can demonstrate aspects of their personality, or their job in the story. There are lots of different ways you could change up an outfit to represent character growth! You can change the outfit itself or change up specific details in the design. If you need some ideas, you could consider…
- A uniform could be changed to fit a new job, role, or rank!
- A more form-fitting outfit could be changed to a looser one to represent a change from more uptight, to more casual!
- A baggy outfit could be changed to a more form fitting one to represent a change from anxious, to more confident!
- An outfit could change from casual to more fancy to represent a change in status!
- An outfit could become more ragged over time to represent the struggles of the OC!
Depending on what kind of change your character goes through in the story, you can use certain aspects of their outfit to represent character growth. You might use a specific accessory, or maybe the clothes the character wears. The character might end their story with a new outfit entirely!
You’ll want to consider your OC’s struggles, and whether they grow from them or not. How can you incorporate that into their outfit? You could also consider any changes in personality or beliefs as well. There’s plenty of different ways you could change up their outfit to show the audience how they’ve changed!
If you need some more ideas for your OC’s outfit, there’s an article all about the topic that you can find here!
How can your OC’s motif represent growth?
Next up! Motifs! If your character has a design or color motif, you can also use that as a way to represent growth! You can look into the symbolism of the motif and see what it usually represents.
Then, you could change how often the motif appears or change the motif entirely! It depends on the meaning behind the motif, and what you want it to symbolize. If you need some ideas for what you could try, you could consider…
- A motif changing from one kind of animal to another
- A moon motif changing to different phases of the moon
- A star motif that becomes brighter or more dim
- A color motif that shifts hues
- A plant motif that changes from one type of plant to another
- A gemstone motif that changes from one kind of stone to another
Symbolism is a great way to silently tell your audience something about your character! It could be done with a motif related to nature, or animals, or celestial things! There’s lots of different ways you could use your OC’s motif to show off their growth as a character!
If you want to use a color motif to show off the character's change and you’re not sure how to pick a color palette, my co-writer has an article about how to do so! You can find it here!
How can your OC’s hair represent their growth?
Another aspect that can be used as a visual representation for growth, and one of my personal favorites, is hair! Hair is something that grows and changes over time, just like what happens with a character arc!
The way an OC wears their hair can tell you a lot about their character, so it can be a perfect way to showcase change! If you need some inspiration, you could consider…
- An OC might initially use their hair to hide their face but start wearing it tied back as they grow more confident!
- An OC might grow out their hair as they grow as a person!
- An OC might cut their hair as a representation of their regression!
- An OC might dye their hair to show newfound confidence!
- An OC might start wearing their hair more neat as a way to show their maturity!
- An OC might start leaving their hair messier as a way to show them becoming more relaxed!
There’s plenty of more ways hair might be used to show off character growth as well. You could play around with different hairdos, colors, or even the shape language of the style!
If you’re looking for more ideas for your character’s hair, there’s an article about choosing a hairstyle for your OCs!
Does your OC have special details that could be used to represent growth?
Finally, special details can be used to show growth through a design as well! Unique features are a good way to show off character growth, especially if your OC is a fantasy or sci-fi one.
Whether the character has magic powers or natural animal features, there’s plenty of options to alter the details to show off the results of a character’s arc. If you need some ideas to consider, you could try using…
- Horns growing out to represent growth
- A broken horn to depict loss or regression
- Glowing features to represent a character’s magic growing stronger
- A gradient in the hair or on the limbs to represent a change in character
- Wings becoming more tattered over time to represent a struggle for the character
- A character becoming more monstrous over time to represent a negative character arc
- A human character slowly looking more magical as the story progresses to show off newfound strength
There are more options than the ones above for you to choose from too! It’ll all depend on your character, their story, and the character’s arc. Have fun deciding what you think will best fit your OC!
If you need more tips for how you can add cool extra details to an OC design, there’s an article on choosing unique details for Your OC!
Share your OC’s character growth on Unvale!
Want to show off your OC’s character growth and their later design? Be sure to share your OC here on Unvale! If you need a space to share your projects, there’s communities like ConceptPurgatory or OC-Concepts. Share your creations there and be sure to check out your fellow creatives’ projects too! Feel free to also post your OC’s character growth in the Unvale-Blog community as well! We’d love to see your characters!
If you need some ideas for other aspects of character creation, there’s articles on how to start writing your OC story, common strengths and weaknesses to give your OCs, and 5 big questions to help develop your OCs! Happy creating!
