How to Develop and Improve your OC's 

I'm glad you realised the alligator was the dope one and brought him back.

I'm glad you kept the glasses on the Crocodile character (who I think is named Lockjaw), cause God damn that is the dumbest and funniest thing I've ever seen.

Now there are two things I want : 1- Rework my OCs and improve my art 2- A "freelancers" comic series

The crocodile looks like it's about to scream out "FIGHT THE POWER!!"

There’s this RU-vid artist call HilariouslyScary, and she shamelessly admitted that her original universe started out as a Code Geass fanfic.

Jack: something entirely new of your own creation Screen: crab man thing pictured My brain: something entirely new of your own crustacean

Me, at my OCs: "y'all are worthless" _turns around and sees my DBZ OCs, one from Fusions and one from XV2_ "Except you two. I love you and would do anything for you, as you are my beloved daughters"

I want to tell a story about my OCs but I just can't begin to even explain how much of an impact their existence has had on me

Heck yeah! It's improvement time! Edit: Ok, after watching this I kinda want to redesign some of my old Sonic characters.

The perfect video doesn’t exis-

Honestly I’d like to hear more about the Free Lancers, as like you said, there a “very unique and exciting cast of characters”.

1:12 "what starts off as a naruto self insert may eventually transform into a completely unique character with its own world and story" this is SUCH a great thing to mention that i dont hear very often and its so relatable to me, i have several story lines that spawned from fandom ocs, specifically tons of marvel ocs that i shipped with canon characters when i was 12 that turned into entire plots! cringe culture is dead and your favorite story might have even existed because of something like this :^)

When I was really little, I would love drawing pokemon, and then I draw full POKEDEXES of fanmade mons. Just a few days ago, I redrew one of my favorite and most memorable (to me) fakemon as his own unique character with a some design changes. I’m really glad I remembered that character for all these years, because he’ll definitely be a great addition to the story I’m building!

Stupid inspiring video to watch - definitely makes me reconsider some character design concepts I have kicking around and is a genuinely compelling case to keep on learning; thank you.

It's a croc in shades, can't get any cooler than that

It’s really hard for me to find ways to get critiques on my original characters because either there’s no one interested enough to care or its just a bunch of kids off the internet who just want to troll people and diminish them of their worth. It’s why I haven’t posted anything and only done some minimal sketch work on some characters because I feel like I’m wasting time making something I’m passionate about, only to find out, if I wanted to make my comic with these characters, it wouldn’t grab any attention and be a total bust.

i would 100% read a freelancers comicor or watch a movie with them, i really love their designs and the personality conveyed through them. seeing the process they went through to develop is really cool. the subjectivists are one of my biggest inspirations tbh

0:58 "warrior cat sonas" > cat is holding a gun with sunglasses lmao -under 500 views gang-

You know-- this sort of video makes me regret constantly throwing my ocs into the trash. Very rarely do i keep designs or ideas that ive done and i only ever try to make thing aesthetically pleasing. Ideas dont come easy.. And when they do i throw them out. Its so difficult for me to stick to one thing when drawing

Yup, still have a character I actually made as my Minecraft character. 10 years later she is totally different, but in a good way!

I don’t draw but I write books and this definitely helps. I’ve kept so many of my roleplay characters and realized how much they’ve changed from “chosen ones” to mercenaries using crazy powers.

"Why was it rainbow color?" Because nothing is stronger than pure gay energy. #letsberealhere

My favorite (and main) OC of all time originally started out as a OC for a Roblox game called Databrawl. After a long time, I started to get tired of the idea and I was annoyed I couldn't change the world to be something new. So I created a new world of my own. My character went from living in a computer like techno world to a medieval world full of strange creatures and magic. I also completely redesigned the character (with only keeping his name and bits of his old design like his iconic red tie me and my friends would use to represent him) so he would be something new and exciting. That was about a year ago, and I'm still actively involved with this world.

After watching this, it made me have a flashback to the drawing I made in October when I was 14, (If I could recall) It was a cobra with pumpkin blasters literally based on undertale sans...now I feel like I wanna remake that character!

Huh... This is some pretty good advice... I've got to admit I've got several 'Fandom Ocs' that have evolved and broken free of their Fandom Roots to be their own thing in my original stories... Even now I'm shifting characters from one story to another to see if they fit better in Story A then Story B etc. Thanks for the vid, really helped. :)

Hey I saw what you did at 3:45, just wondering if you would ever consider doing a video on Hazbin? I think it would be really interesting to hear all your opinions on the character designs and how they've changed and evolved as well as how that suits there role in the story. Haven't finished the video yet either so not sure if you'll bring it up again

11:06 i feel called out (the homestuck part)

This Lockjaw character is quickly becoming one of my favorite designs from you. He’s glorious.

This video gave me horrible flashbacks of my MLP "fan oc" phase

Yesss the timing couldn’t be better! I’ve been thinking of redesigning one of my ocs My four main ocs started off as just copy’s of Rebornica’s nightguards comics- I didn’t even bother changing their names- Jeremy I’ve changed up to be a chimera with a illusion charm on him to have the appearance of your standard nature fairy- though he doesn’t even know about the charm until accidentally killing his father, the alchemist who made him in the first place Vincent’s changed to instead of just being a serial killer night guard to being a large draconic demon that can change to look like a human- and toned down the murder to just getting revenge on who killed the soul he’s made from Scott and Mike Basically didn’t change personality wise.. Mike looks basically the same but I’m working on redesigning him- like Vincent he’s also a demon but resembles a humanoid gargoyle Scott’s changed up to be an alchemist who got a lycanthropy curse but he’s rather fine with it- I mean hey, it’s free research- he can ask Vincent to wright behaviours down for him

This really speaks to me! In my spare time, I’ve been redrawing characters I’ve had since I was 8 and putting them all thematically into a Major Arcana based on their personalities and stuff they did during the stories/tabletop gameplay I’m super amateur and I’m only doing it in pencil rn but dedicating myself to completing the project (advice I got from this channel) has made me really think about branching out and how to match my characters to their internal and external traits

Thank you so much for this vid! I have had OC's that I have been changing around since middle school and now I'm 27 and I have changed their function, background, and story, but I still have kept why I want them around and their "intent" in their "settings". Thank you again for making this, and this year I'm probably going to change them around again. But They have helped me learn how to better tell a story, how to know when to let go of an idea that's not going anywhere and how to see how something can be shaped into something else. Keep on doing what you're doing for us fellow artist out there!

I need a story for this ASAP. Your characters are really intriguing, and I want to know more about them!

Oh I know this one so well. One of my OC's started out mega cringy (thought it was deep back then) and I have still kept some core elements from her but I had to give her a whole new backstory and overall design because the old one... nope...

I think what I needed to learn is that even if I like my character's designs, I still have to push it even further then it is right now.

Dude, I LOVE your talk sprites

This was really encouraging to watch, it made me think of my Pokemon OC who was shamelessly a character I took from a game I really enjoyed at the time and made him 10, but looking back at the improvements I've made to him since then has really shown me how much I work has grown.

That last sentence really got me. I've been working on a set of characters for a while now, but I've never been sure how to deconstruct them or point out what's objectively wrong with their designs because I've gotten used to them. But I'm going to work on a few new character sheets now that you've inspired me and see what works. I can always go back if I don't like anything new. Thanks, mate.

I saw hints of this in the drawing of them all in suits, but lately I keep coming back to the question: what can be gained by reimagining a character in a very different genre? I tend to really enjoy that sort of artwork. It's been on my mind since I got back into Zoids and pondered drawing the Chimera Dragon if it were a a fantasy creature of flesh and blood rather than a mecha.

Man, this is super wholesome! And really inspiring to go back to some of my old designs :)

This was such an inspiring video!! How about making a video about the designs of the main human characters in the pokemon world? Maybe redesigning gym leaders or professors? Just an idea

Oh heck, Your stuff improved like hell! Gg!

Okay, but now I really want to redesign my old gemsona.

Boy do I resonate with this video a lot. My primary character (Who I refer to as my Flag-Ship) is essentially the face of everything I do because I'm so proud of what he's become. What started as an EXTREMELY bad NiGHTS OC grew into his own thing through years of work, rework, and refinery. I often have to remind myself when I feel bad about pulling up other characters to practice things I struggle with (Proportion, hands, etc) that I trace to begin practicing and try to recreate the results using the guide less and less, not to steal a character and pass it off as my own. It's been slow going but I plug at it and videos like this really renew my vigor. Truly, thank you. It's creators who make videos like this that help keep the dream of making Life Breathing Magic (The name of.. whatever I plan on doing with these characters, currently it's a story but I've been playing with the idea of the possibility of reaching for larger things for it) alive and well.

11:08 "a homestuck troll" *shows a picture of a fan-kid*

Perfect timing as always! Youre my favorite art channel ❤❤❤

I'm glad to have watched this video. It makes me want to dig through my old drawings and see what I can do with the characters I made way back then today.

This is one of the most inspiring art videos I've seen all year. Thank you for putting video this out. Seriously.

Had a blast walking through your timeline, thanks for sharing! Absolutely love how much you've played with Gallant and Lockjaw's design. Inspired to dust-off some old sketchbooks when I get home :')

I’m late to this video but I honestly needed this one. I have so many characters and story ideas I wanna revisit and it’s refreshing to see good artists go through this kinda overhaul process as well!

Dude that jump from your 2015 art to 2016 is impressive. I just started working on digital and it is soooo freaking hard! So much respect to ya man.

3:36 I concur with the bottom text And this is super great advice! Thank you so much 😊

dude I think this is a great endeavor of the creative process, I think I really like when you switched back to a croc it gave him so much more personality and yeah it really evolved into something amazing looking, I really just wish I could bring my thoughts to life in this way.

this was one of my favorites :) i'd love a follow up with the whole cast showing off one of their favorite OC's timeline and progression

Thank you, this is so inspiring! Now I have to dig and improve my old OCs

Great video! My two main OCs started as fan Stands, and lately I’ve realized that for these two to improve and get anywhere I need to draw them! I’m working on a turnaround now, because I just have to fail and let them be flawed. Eventually, I’ll get to the point where I drastically improve them

I remember reading something from Alan Moore about creating V for Vedetta where he said he was inspired to make the main character from Batman, Terminator, the Punisher, Darth Vader, and various other pop culture characters. Art builds on itself as time goes on, that's why grim fairytales and Greek myths are a lot less complex and nuanced than the movies and cartoons we're writing today. The key isn't originality for the sake of originality, but to know why your characters are taking the influence that they are. Like you say in this video, having self-awareness about your ideas and making sure everything has a purpose instead of just throwing things in that you think are cool.

I have about 195 ocs and i really love developing them, a lot of them had some pretty big changes since they were created and i even have around 20 ocs i made with a friend for Undertale and actually a lot of other ocs came from Undertale aus we made and it's very wholesome :3

Thank you for talking about the importance of fan oc. I find that creating fan characters is a pretty good exercise for trying to find themes in character designs and trying to put them in another character without creating clones. Thank you again, I absolutely loved this video. (And the Freelancers are rad!)

I've been working on a series of story ideas and many of the key characters but I'm having a hard time working on it cause of my job. But you guys are ready helping me alot with your vids. Thank you :)

This was a great informative video,thank you Jack! :)

I will admit, I'm not really an artist, but I have to heavily thank the video I just watched for helping me out with some ideas I've had for new characters recently. These ideas and principles work beautifully for the character designs that go through my head whenever I try to conjure a character, and the arcs they may go through whenever I present them to my friends and convey them through the sessions I play, so I have to heavily thank you for enlightening me with this little video. I have this old character who (and yes, I vehemently regret their design) pretty much just looked like a reverse color palette Frieza with some cybernetics, but I think going back to them and changing them based on the character they are might work excellently. Thank you, and I can't wait to see what you have in store for the future!

Great video! When you talked about how keeping the fan oc design/keeping the original design, it honestly brought me back to when I was trying to have a fixated look for Eiji. My plan for him was that he was going to be a snake creature in which after being experimented by cruel scientists on had the ability to make a human appearance, but with the price for his sight and voice. His role in the universe he was supposedly put in was that he serves as a cook for the young Grand Duchess who so happens to be his friend as repayment to her late parents for taking him and his sister in. *His sub role was that he serves as some kind of spy along with a couple others due to him learning various types of martial arts and a magic ability which he can make eyes of any shape and size on almost any and every surface but limited on range* I was going a little too off topic there but like I said before, it reminded me on how I created him. When I was creating him, I already had the idea he was going to be a blond and that he wears a blindfold as his eyes were kinda gouged out, but I was kinda stuck on what his overall design was. Then at one point I suddenly remembered one of my other oc's design who's backstory was related to scientists as well, even though it was almost 4 years ago I still remembered( Reason why I said it is because I'm pretty bad at remembering certain topics ). I decided to take that oc's first design as Eiji's design and in all honesty, I really liked how he turned out And uh, kinda sorry if it was pretty long to read. Just thought it would be nice to share something like this, hehe. Also, the universe he lives in is actually one main Universe in which is pretty much a modern fantasy era and multiple Sub-Universes that is either modern or fantasy or both like the main Universe, and the best way I could describe it is a giant cobweb with a big rain drop on the middle and multiple small and medium ones on certain corners.

My two main characters for my thesis in animation were heavily inspired from Nat and Trevor from Smile For Me. I developed them so much afterwards that you would hardly be able to notice any similarities between them. I like taking little details from irl people when I'm creating my own characters, and these two characters are based off of myself and 3 other people I heavily interviewed and developed a bond with during the concept phase of my thesis. I loved the video, and I'm considering sharing it with my Design for Animators students that I'm TAing for this semester at Massart. I'm sure they'll find inspiration from an alumni who shared his design process :^)

The character I use as an icon and persona started as a bright pink rainbow scaled Undertale OC. She then got turned into ink, went through several reconfigurations, and is now one of my favorite characters to draw when I want to practice movement. An old version of her is still my RU-vid icon. I should draw her digitally again for a new icon maybe.

I found it quite late, but this video is a master stroke in the internet tool chest for creating. I personally am horrible at drawing most things, particularly humanoids (and so I don't try), but this video is still inspiring to me as a writer since it helps me realize the cringey 2D cutouts I started writing with don't reflect poorly on the more thought-out, real characters I've made. You guys deserve more subscribers and I'm happy to see you still make such high quality content for creators everywhere.

Love your freelancers! Specially Lockjaw haha really like the first drawing you did. Gives them a very superheroe like vibe thanks to it's similarities with the marvel style. They are amazing, and each time you do them different, but "truer" to yourself, which is awesome.

You've really grown this was fun to watch

I'm so glad this video exists, I'm really happy with the characters I've been working on for the past few years, but with how often I completely change and rework them, I had to wonder if the idea had been left in the oven too long, if it was even worth pursuing any longer. But I'm excited to get excited about it again haha!

Thank you for the inspirational video! I have also drawn OCs for most of my life. Took a break from it, now drawing fanart. Your video convinced me to get back into drawing my OCs. Well thought out video, realy enjoyed it.😃

im 17 now and i finally got attached to a group of ocs. ive been making only fanart for years, with only some ocs scattered here and there that i never got trully attached. now these ones i got really connected with and i am even working on writing backstories and small comics for them! while they still are ocs for an already existing universe, I cant wait to see how they'll develop over the years!

Quick heads up for all of you proud members of the OC Gang; the Subjectively Patreon has a character critique tier! For $15 a month, you can get very in-depth critiques on your character designs and how they can be improved. I’ve been a patron for about 3 months now and I’ve been incredibly satisfied with their help, and as a result my OCs have become even better than before!

i recently got back into art, and i needed this i saw it years ago but it didnt really apply to me like it does now, ive been drawing two weeks straight and was running out of steam but this really helped especially the coming out of your comfort zone bit cant wait until my next drawing.

He gotcha when he said this would be about our ocs😂😂😭

My current characters are fantasy/dnd inspired, I've been searching for critiques and character development videos. This one has really helped me, I don't have many art friends so hearing that holding on to old drawings and critiques is really helpful. I struggle with balancing completely original beings and spoof characters, but I'm a hoarder and can't get rid of characters. I feel like my story (yes I'm making a novel rn) wouldn't work without them. Though it is fun and interesting to see old drawings and old backgrounds.

I'm working on some concepts for a comic right now and I have a pitch coming up. This came at the right time!

I really enjoyed this video and its inspired me to go back and look at some old work. However it just sort of devolved into defending self inserts and showing your older work--not that I dislike these things. I liked the journey through your work and seeing parallels in my own path but I don't feel like I've learned how to actually improve my characters.

an artist never stops growing, i know i haven't, been drawing since i was 11 back in 2001 and i can say that my art is much better than it was then. I still have many of the drawings, in a box, but it's in my room so if i ever wanted to i could open it and take a look. i like to look at my old work to get inspired and to, much like you, redesign some old oc's. back in about 2011 i just got into this big kick of creating my own fake pokemon, despite not being able to replicate the art style well. many of those Fakemon have since been redesigned to be characters i use regularly, including one of them becoming a main character. the character is named Serpentina Viperess, but everyone just calls her Tina, she is an anthropomorphic snake or Gorgon, heavily inspired by Greek Mythology, I have a Minotaur character as well named Stampede X3 I like improving my characters when I can.

This video was very fun and inspirng , I am getting back into drawing (mostly pencil and paper with some digital) during the Covid 19 Crisis and I want to thank you all for the positivity you show espically to new 'artists' lastly I use PaintTool Sai version 1 and thanks to this video I found out FireAlpaca is really cool and helpful as I found PaintTool Sai diffuclt when begining , Awesome Video take care everyone hugs :) 💜

For someone starting out in the digital art world, this is really inspiring. I’m not a formally trained artist but I have been drawing and creating stories since I was a child. I just started working on a few OCs for a modern fantasy love triangle story and now I’m determined to keep working on them and perfecting them. :)

I come back to this video whenever I am feeling down about my own drawings because it is so inspiring to see how much his art changed

Dude, these are awesome! I actually am working on my own animated series on discord! This is my first time here on your channel, and you got something cool here my guy! (and no, I am not an animator nor a really great artist. but I've got something neat with my show.)

I wouldn't call myself a "artist" per say but I am starting to draw, and right now getting the idea on how body structure works. Facial expression and poses are my tough ones right now, and I do want to specialize in action poses. Scenes that convey a fight, a bloody battle where the hero refuses to give up. I am learning and want to do everything I can to learn more.

My favourite oc of mine was originally a sonic the hedgehog self insert, but he's become the hero of his own original story. This video is super inspiring, and genuinely relatable. A great watch! Also the group shot where they're all in tuxedos is absolute fire, don't @ me.

I’ve avoided making ripoffs pretty well so far, and I’ve gotta say it’s real hard to look at a cool character in a video game or movie or something and not copy and paste it with some aspects changed. But it’s worth it to take some inspirations. Judgement from Hyper Light Drifter inspired an original interpretation of the concept of death. That was the first thing I really just copied and pasted and recently I’ve redone it and it’s not very fun to look back on art that’s an almost exact copy of something but it is fun to evolve it into something you haven’t ever seen before, whether or not similar ideas exist somewhere else without you knowing. That said, this is one of the first videos I’ve seen on this channel and I think imma just sub real quick because it seems like I could learn a lot from these videos.

Videos like these are so helpful

could you show us how you do that lineless triangle style of colouring?

My first character started as a RWBY oc for an rp thing, never actually finished the oc and rp'd with them, but they became the first character in my own original story, which, side-eyeing the 14 other characters now in that world, may have spiraled out of control

Yeah I’m running into the same problem and I’m glad. Though for some reason the rainbow design really reminds me of shera so I really liked it. Though I’m glad you explored your own style. Copying can really stunt you cause it’s surface level like aesthetic.

Thank you always had high hopes for my OCS but now I'm going to have higher hopes cuz of you

Every inch of this is fantastic.

Thanks man. Thanks to you i looked back and forward at my cast of characters. Thanks to you i want to develop them further. Again, thanks man Edit: btw my heros are curently in the ,,experimenting” part and it made them even better.

I can't draw for shit and I have no imagination what so ever, but I always enjoy seeing this process unfold of characters slowly becoming more and more developed. Like Alivra Savelievna, a twitter artist I follow and have become friends with. Watching her slowly flesh out her own caricature into her own character with her own goals, fear, aspirations, emotions is just such an enjoyable venture. Sometimes "why" it happens is even better to me, like how this artist's character who is the embodiment of self aware edge is friends with blood bag. A literal static IV holding one blood bag, all because she was challenged to draw her character with her BFF, misread it as BBF, and instead of trying to figure what BBF was just decided it meant "blood bag friend" and rolled with it. I guess I just enjoy seeing how people be creative and wacky and rolling with it as it changes and morphs into something else.

Pretty great vid overall. I thought the “calarts” examples and Hazbin jab were stupid as fuck, but they were so short that they don’t matter at all. Happy to see more peeps encouraging others to rework old original characters

The pokemon surf music hits me in the feels

I like the knight and especially the crock they all look preety sweet!

Two kinds of OC's: 1. Edgy sonic recolour 2. *_cat gun_*

This video explains progression so well. For every new iteration you'll change something, be it big or small. Sometimes you think the previous art was better, it doesn't mean you're getting worse, it just means you're trying something new. As I learned through another video, skill isn't a stairway always taking you a step further. It is more comparable to fruittrees of achievments. You'll start of picking from one branch first, only to skip to another and another as your interests grow. But be careful, the fruits you picked but don't use or care for will be spoiled and you'll have to go back to that tree and pick them again if you realise you still want to have that part with you. I don't think I explained that too well. Anyway have a good day.

smackin me right in the serotonin with that dope ass pkmn music in the bg, thanks v much

I never had a OC , for the last 13yrs I've been drawing it's always been fanart. Though I've been playing DND for a year now and I have a handful of OCs. Now I draw so much of my OCs and my parties OCs ( and draw 100% more now too!). It's so amazing having this little character you build from the ground up , watch them grow and giving them personality.