YOUTUBE OCS VS PROFESSIONAL CHARACTER DESIGN 

"You can't rush art." -that old guy from Toy Story 2

"scars on the face can look a little cliche" me, having a scar on my cheek: im finally a generic brand adventurer oc, hell yeah

Professional character design: *well thought, complex, everything has a purpose...* Oc i design for fun: Give him cat ears!

I'd say Genshin Impact has a good balance of "rule of cool" and practicality. For example, Barbara is an idol and adamant worshipper of Barbatos at the church in Mondstadt, so she's not dressed like someone who's ready for a fight. Venti's design has a lot of things that the wind flatters, like frills, capes and whatnot, which ties into his fondness for 'that which is light and breezy' Zhongli's also dressed in a pretty straightforward embellished suit, which ties into his almost businesslike execution of tasks and discussion around things. Given he's a character in a city of trade, exports and business, that fits pretty well.

Good to hear that I'm not the only one who takes actual years to settle on a character design

pov: you don’t have consistent oc’s and the ones you do have you feel guilty about because they are based on fandoms so it doesn’t feel real and good enough to you-

"very loose sketches of the scenes that im imagining in my head" me, a maladaptive daydreamer: **rubs hands together**

You know, the moment you mentioned that you thought the teeth around his hood looked like a bear trap, I immediately thought of how foreshadowing they would be if his demise was, in fact, a bear trap snapping around his neck

To anyone struggling with character design or anything art related: Character design takes awhile. So does learning art, keep trying and don't give up! It's hard, but you'll get there! It took me 5 years to get to where I am, and I still have stuff to learn. Keep it up!

I read poodle instead of doodle in the title and was very confused the entire time she made the character sheet. Go, no reading comprehension I guess

Can we just talk about how her voice sounds so much more confident than a few years back?

Unless not having any scars or marks while everyone else does is part of the narrative, right?

I've always started with the character sheet and just spend hours thinking of what they'd wear and why- I think its super interesting to start with sketching a character in a scene first though and I wanna try this! Perhaps thisll help me with characters designs for my comic! Always love watching lavendertowne videos. They always inspire me to keep trying different things and have got me thinking a lot about my own art. I've hit a creative wall recently and this video really did kinda help :)

I remember when I was 11 (I’m 15 now) I had a character, he had black hair and a red dog tail and ears. Then when I was 13 he was a female furry because I had a furry phase, now she’s a normal human but she has a beanie with dog ears on them as a wink and a nod to the old design. Since her first design was male she’s a trans woman, I’m also trans so she’s a bit of a comfort character. She also has a more appealing colour palette now-

As someone who makes a lot of D&D characters, it was helpful to learn your process for a character whose personality and story you don't know right away when designing. As I find I make a character they never show their true colours until at least the first couple of sessions. So it's always the biggest struggle figuring out the look and design before getting to properly meet them!

This is super helpful! I love all the details you put into your sketches they look so awesome :)

Redesigning super old characters is fun It feels like the characters grow with you

I feel like in almoust every story there is that one character that the author just struggles to design cause they don't know much about them. (Well for me anyway)

When you mentioned the "rule of cool", it reminded me of the struggle I have with sticking to realistic things. That's the thing that's the hardest for me to... let go of ig. I want it to justify my culture so much that now, I struggle with giving my characters a good balance of realism and aesthetics. They seem too real, not fit for a fantasy genre. I wanna give a modern take to it, just like most comics do. For example, shorts or leggings under the bahag, hoodies, chokers, a mullet inspired by the actual hair style, etc. I'm working hard on it and hopefully in the next 2 years or so, I already have my story all planned out so that by 2025, my comic is out.

I love how flexible her artstyle is. Like this looks very different from unfamilliar but you can still easily tell its her!

The lil “Hey everybody it’s Lavendertowne” animation at the start is just so cute every time

i never had to overthink what my characters would look like or who they were i would see them in my dreams or music would inspire me i saw a certain shade of pink and that inspired me to make one of my favorite characters

Deffinately going to apply these tips. A friend told me once that with steampunk its the functual aspects you need not the asthetics so dont go throwing random gears on, i guess it works the same way as lavendertowne mentioned.

One of my characters (I was redesigning) has ‘perfect’ skin but actually hadn’t really lived a life before the start of her story. She was stuck home for the first 12 years of her life and couldn’t use any technology. Basically very VERY very sheltered childhood.

CAN WE TALK ABOUT THOSE SCENE DRAWINGS OMGGGGG THEY’RE MUY BONITA

Love how the old OC name is Vodka

"A girl who values being cute, but their personality is totally different." mitsuba~

Who else has practically zero experience in actual character design and is beating themselves up for not being as good at it as someone who literally majored in it in college?

Dnd has actually helped me a lot with character design, like it gives you really good questions to ask about your character and when you roleplay as them you may end up behaving a bit different than you expected. Not to mention the character changes in ways you didnt expect since there is some chance involved in dnd.

Basically, I once created characters by using gacha life and then I usually now redesigned them again(in gacha club) and then redesigned them again when I was drawing them until I got their final designs for the characters

Meanwhile we have LavenderTowne soothing our ears with her voice inspiring us to continue drawing despite the current block or challenges… we have Ethan Becker on the other hand yelling at us “Don’t you ever, ever do that!” While Ross Draws continues his color dodge spree.

Conversely, I think it could also be kinda cute if your character has a scar that others around them timidly speculate about but when they finally ask, they're just like "Oh, this! Yeah, I got that a couple years back when I accidentally ran into a tree branch!" Also, if the character has a 'cute dork --> hmm, hiding something? --> something dark' progression, it could be really cool to bring that back up. The audience would never expect - after hundreds of panels and many _clearly_ important plot points - that the little "joke" on page, like, TEN or something would actually be important.

I’d like to know where I could read her comics! They look so interesting just looking at the characters and the potential lore behind specific facial features and clothing items!

if i give my characters scars i will give the dumbest story as to how they got their scar the story will just be like: “they hit their head too hard on a table when they were younger”

The healer knocks me dead every time she’s so cute

A cool video concept would be if you took previous “cute girl” character designs and redesign them in a more professional light

I clicked faster than LavenderTowne could say "Hey everybody"

I love how when there's shading near his eyes, the scar on his cheek looks like tears streaming down from his eye

6:39 he just went from, "Haha funny joke!" to, *insert cricket noises*

Hey I dont think you'll see this but, I really really want to thank you. I have been watching you for a while now, especially in the cold days at night, with tea and my sketchbook. You always made and still make me feel better, it feels like you are a friend talking to me. It really helped me at gloomy days, I hope you are living a great life, and take enough breaks. I want you to know that you are doing amazing :D

Me whenever Hailey makes a new character design video: ahAaA tHAtS my sh!T

I personally enjoy this kind of content a lot, it's really interesting (for me, at least) to see how you design characters and things like that, it gives me just that little bit more inspiration to draw.

I suck at making human character designs that still look unique and recently I needed to cause I wanted a human character so I just made a pinterest board of a bunch of people who looked similar to how I wanted her to look and that helped.

As an aspiring cartoonist, I love seeing the actual process of a professional! When you said that you start out by just drawing the character in scenes and showed your messy concept sketches, I was like "Hey! That's how my brain actually works!" and it made so much more sense than all the other character design videos I've seen.

I'd love to see more content like this. Not only do you give good advice on designing a solid character, but you give a real example of how you get there. Seeing how a professional does it is much more helpful :)

Lavendertowne inspired me to keep drawing and not to give up so tysm : D

Started joking around about a character design with a friend, sort of just as a fun fantasy, that was five years ago. Now we got a fully fleshed out series that we're working on and planning on releasing in a few years. Your advice really helped us finish the designs of the characters

I love videos where you just explain and show you doing your job! It gets me motivated to draw and create stories and reminds me how satisfying finishing something can be

I just want to express how much I love this channel, I just finished reading all of Unfamiliar and it's absolutely insane to me how much time and effort Haley puts into her videos and how much she's improved over the years! These past few years have been rough for many of us but these videos are a light in the dark for young, aspiring artists like myself and I'm forever grateful for the fact that I have access to such helpful, inspiring, and entertaining content.

OK Your drawing are always a masterpiece ✨💜😍💖

I absoulutely loved this kind of style from you. It made me start imagining up my characters in a monster hunting kind of world and what would change about their personality or looks or how they interact with different ones of my ocs and that made me happy. I would adore seeing more videos about you doing your job over prompts solely for RU-vid. It just gave me happy calm vibes.

As an aspiring Character Designer myself, I think this was great! I really love all the effort you put into your ocs! They look so good and I feel like this has helped me a lot!

About the spider fang things, I think the word was 'mandibles'. (It's not. It's palps. Credit to Sedona Chapman.)

My process is quite similar to yours, only that I design my characters while writing them. It's impossible for me to finalize a design without at least 1-2 volumes worth of script. Normally after the idea for the project I want to do, I start by drawing my main cast (separately and together) and writing down a very bare-bones guide for writing their personalities (often based of an anime trope). I do this so it's easier to imagine them in my head, while writing the outline. After writing the outline, I look at my designs again and I redo them to match the more developed personalities I've given them, the world I made and the other characters. I, then, do this one final time, using my scripts as references for fully developed, well rounded personalities as a guide to creating nuanced design that speak to me. Then I design the supporting cast to compliment the main cast, which is done in 1-2 sessions depending on the size, before moving to storyboards. After storyboarding, I make a list of all the characters, locations and props that appear and draw model sheets for anything that appears more than once. Main characters get several pages, including (one for turnarounds, one for facial expressions, one for details and each important prop gets its own page, side characters get two pages (one for turnarounds and face, one for props), episodic or rarely present characters might just get a sketch of their body and face. The whole process from concept to model sheet can take me 4-6 months, since most of my time is spent writing during that period.

AGHHH PLEASE SHOW MORE OF THESE CHARACTERS they are so interesting and pleasing to look at, I’m obsessed with them

This is incredible you are so good at creating characters they look so aesthetically pleasing , cohesive and just great I love them 💕

For an example of a good balance of “Rule Of Cool” and Realism (within the story) would be My Hero Academia! All of the designs are really interesting and unique, but they still fit in practically! [EX: Bakugo’s grenade wrist things]

I'm so glad that other people use their doodles as character designs (:

I would LOVE more of this type of content. I’ve been trying to design some comic characters for the first time and these types of things are really helpful

your content always gets me in the mood to create things and i'm really grateful for you doing what you do!!

I cant BELIVE I haven’t said this sooner but your new animated intro is so FRICKEN CUTE I love it

"I would really appreciate it if you let me know if you are interested in this type of stuff where it's more just like me straight up showing you how I do my job-" Yes

Honestly probably one of my favorite videos of yours in a while

i really like these kinda videos, esp as someone who's just about to start her first year at art school

the third gal is so fucking cute, i love her design so much. i’m already super hyped to see how this story will go. :)

I know that the topic is here to design, but,It’s videos like this that encourage me to just focus on writing a comic. But yeah, I’ll probably make some mistakes. But if you don’t make a good design, or try to write the story, then it never gets read.

"couch colors" gets me laughing every time

I loved hearing your process of liiike this and about the progress on this story! Can't wait until it's available to read!

I have a hidden-world story, and a significant portion of the main cast just wears t-shirts and sweats/jeans. They are characters who don't often put much thought into clothes, and are supposed to share similarities in personalities. And two of them are kinda inspired by one, so I guess it makes sense. I was originally gonna make a "haha, my designs suck" joke, but my subconscious keeps accidentally making this stuff work.

Hey, so I'm trying to make my style kind've like you're style but a bit more of my own so I was wondering if I would be allowed to refrence you're art while drawing. (Not tracing though, just you're art to the side trying to work towards more of you're style but with my own twist)

i love learning behind the scenes and the making process of things and could be where you add extra info that couldn't be shown to drive the plot/timing but influences what is happening

Thank you so much for showing a video like this of you going through multiple character designs and how they connect! I always love watching your videos, they give a lot of insight and I appreciate all the time you take to make your content!

I don’t know if this sounds a bit dumb, but would I be able to do concept art AND animation?

I literally just watched an older video of yours talking about character design! Thanks for this!!

I do really like the videos where you show us your process! Especially when you talk through things you changed or didn't go with, and your thinking about why. It's easy to say "oh this is why you do this" but I feel like I learn more from artists explaining why something *isn't* working.

I'm happy you're finally getting around to work on this idea. Good luck!

I really enjoy these kinds of "project videos" they're very interesting to watch. The regular character design videos are entertaining, but videos like this one where you put alot of thought and time to the character and their purpose are the ones i personally enjoy the most.

Everyone: there’s no such thing as a cute- Iavendere towne: no :)

This was super interesting and helpful, thank you so much! I have this trio of characters whose designs came to me extremely easily (I had them figured out in a few days), and then, for a new story I'm working on there's this character of mine that I can't seem to come up with a good design for and it's driving me insane, haha! I'll definitely try putting them in a proper setting for an illustration to see what would work composition wise; I think that's such a good idea and a great way to figure out what's working and what doesn't! Thank you again, Haley, you're the best!

Okay I'm loving this!!! I love seeing you work on more serious stuff, if that makes sense

Ok but the little monster hunter girl is sooo cool! Like I want a plushee of her.

I can already tell I'm gonna simp for the guy when the comic comes out

This is probably my second favorite video that you made, and it actually helped me a lot! Please do more of these types of videos!

I would definitely love more videos of this sort! I was actually really exited to watch this video because I just started the character designs for a brand new project, and it was pretty helpful, as always. Thanks for making all this great content :)

These kinds of videos are actually my favorite! I’m in the middle of brainstorming a comic so it’s insanely helpful to see videos like this.

This was really interesting! I like to hear about the more thought-out character designs rather than seeing you rush them for the sake of the video. And I'm interested in this story you're working on.

Definitely my favourite video of yours! Love the paper sketches and concept art!!!!

I love that kind of video, really helps understanding the way characters are created

i definitely wouldn't mind you posting these types of videos, they're really insightful, especially since they allow us to look into a real process of developing a webcomic!

your art style reminds me of my childhood tv for some reason but tbh I think thats a good thing

love seeing the character design process like this!!!

I love this… seeing the process you go through for comics seems like a reasonable way to work. I will definitely try this. 🤩 I hope you do more of these videos 🥰

me watching this: *slowly puts ocs in trash*

Video idea: redrawing fanart for your comic

these designs look incredible and they fit incredibly together! great job hayley!

Thank you! These videos are always so refreshing to watch :D

TYSM, character design rlly does not come easy for me and I struggle to find refs that fit my idea for an oc, even on pinterest

LavenderTowne's art is so beautiful! I'm really inspired by her art style. It gives me magical vibes💫

I absolutely cannot wait to see this!! It looks super interesting and complex, definitely something I would enjoy :)

This was so helpful thank you!!! Your art style has improved so much wtf