How to make a character popular. How to create and develop interesting characters

Many ficwriters ask the question: “ how to make a character interesting»?

Let's try to figure this issue out.

We all love to read works on ficbook, like them, send gifts to the authors, or write admiring reviews. Many newcomers visit the page popular author, look with envious eyes at the number of gifts and think: “damn, I’ll never achieve this.”

Hey newbie, pull yourself together!

Give yourself a mental (or not) slap in the face and start creating.

Your work won't be interesting if you write about girls who are looking for true love and dream of living on the shore Cote d'Azur, or men with a midlife crisis. And even better - these are ideal main characters who are drowning in a drinking binge because of unhappy love.

Sounds boring, right?

How many such works do we know?

That's right, sit down - 5!

In order for your main character It seemed interesting to make the reader fully feel your character, to give him some unique quality. Let's skip the moment of introducing the character itself (name, age and character). This has all been said and written before me a hundred times, I think I won’t say anything new. If you want the reader to terrorize your personal message every two minutes with messages “where is it on sale?” or spent ten hours rereading one chapter, then I have only one phrase - there must be heroes interesting.

Descriptions

1) Try not to describe the girl in a standard way, telling what her “ Perfect eyes blue color, in which you can drown or choke at just one glance.” The only thing I want to choke on is the same text. It's all a template. Show it through another hero - what he experiences when looking into the heroine’s eyes, what emotions and thoughts come to mind. Then the melody will play differently.

It is no secret that the most informative and eye-catching thing is a person’s face. And the main thing that is reflected on him and expressed in facial expressions is emotions.

Descriptions vary. If we look through Tolstoy, Turgenev or Goncharov, we will notice that they described their heroes from a receding hairline to the big toe on the left foot. Never forget that we are ficwriters, not Russian classics. You can present the character to the reader in detail, but do it gradually. Let your second character notice a mole behind his right ear or a scar on his foot. But present it in such a way that this small detail is noticed accidentally. The leg should not be exposed and brazenly spin around in front of the face shouting: “Look, see?!”

Most often, authors describe their character's eyes. Why? Because eyes are the mirror of the soul. And what just happens in these eyes: either they change color through the chapter, then they are associated with food (why food?), or they burn like two coals in a fire.

In general, here you can swing to the fullest. The main thing is not to bring the text to the point of absurdity. Re-read sentence two, three, or even more, write several options and choose the best and most suitable one.

Hobby

2) No one will be interested in reading a story where the main character collects stamps or coins, buys the most expensive cars, or has an endless wine cellar. But, if you are a sworn numismatic and see at night how your character collects coins, then change the strategy - make a character atypical.

How do we represent a numismatist? A middle-aged man with glasses on his hooked nose. With a dim table lamp in personal account you can see a small receding hairline and gray hair. There is nothing interesting in his life except the coins that he dreams of every second.

I'll fall asleep now, that's the truth.

Do typical atypical. Let your big guy, the hired killer and the threat of all the streets grow violets on the windowsill, and let the formidable teacher, from whom you only hear: “sit down - 2!” shaking over his beloved chihuahua. And finally, give this damn dog a stupid name.

The most important thing is that the “zest” is chosen correctly.

Situation

3) Each person behaves differently in a given situation. Someone will walk past a fallen old woman and not even look in her direction, someone will help her up and silently leave, and someone will completely lift her up, take her home, and even offer compensation for her tripping over a pebble.

So, let the hero behave unpredictable. The eternal villain, who dreamed of enslaving the world, suddenly finds an abandoned child and becomes caring father, or a young dreamer who sleeps and sees that she is being kidnapped by Superman turns out to be that lecher!

Heroes usually have one thing distinctive feature, but are you the author, or who the hell are you?! Destroy this system, show the reader your character from the other side. The main thing is not to overdo it.

Don't you know what I mean? Let's take another example.

You created an interesting character with everyone the best beautiful ones qualities. And then the hero had the urge to make lemonade. He takes out a glass, ice, water, sugar, reaches for a lemon... But it’s not there! There is no lemon in the refrigerator! He dresses lazily, takes money, goes to the store, buys a lemon, and in five minutes the lemonade is ready.

I'm sleeping again.

This story is boring, like my life. There is nothing interesting in it, just a sequence of events.

Now let's look at it from the other side.

The main character wanted lemonade. He takes out a glass, ice, water, sugar, reaches for a lemon... But it’s not there! He realizes that he wants lemonade more than winning at the skating rink. Everything would be fine, just get ready and go to the store. But our hero turns out to be a social phobe! Now he has to overcome his fear and make a plan for going for the lemon.

Such a character, and the plot itself, no longer seems trivial.

Character

4) Add a little negativity. If your hero is handsome, smart, attractive, well-mannered, charming, a jack of all trades, every woman dreams of falling at his feet, then he will bear little resemblance to real person. None of this is appropriate unless you decide to write a Mary Sue.

Give him a few vices. Write in your usual manner, adding his ideal qualities along the way, and then hop, and rain from a clear sky. Veil the plot in such a way as to show that the character also has “skeletons in the closet”, and even more than one. He can already open his own museum!

Draw up a biography on a separate sheet of paper, try to think through all the facets as best as possible. Make sure that an exemplary boy has his own dark past.

Eccentricities

5) Good, and most importantly interesting characters turn out to be eccentrics or even crazy.

Let us remember the wonderful story of Lewis Carroll “Alice in Wonderland”. Why do we all love this story so much, besides the endless moral?

That's right, again - 5!

There were interesting characters. Hookah smoking caterpillar, disappearing Cheshire Cat, “out of my mind” Mad Hatter and many other bright personalities.

Not convinced yet?

Everyone's favorite Luna Lovegood from Mom Ro's Harry Potter. A very mysterious and strange character. I want to get to know her again and again. And I'm sorry that so little time was spent on her and Xenophilius Lovegood. Harry and Neville are perplexed by Luna, she infuriates Hermione, Ginny sometimes has difficulty holding back laughter in her presence, and Ron openly calls her crazy. This character with radish earrings causes bewilderment, but attracts with incredible energy.

And Sherlock Holmes? At night he plays the violin and injects himself with morphine.

Weirdos the characters are colorful, eccentric, paradoxical, self-willed and a little grotesque. Who would be interested in reading about a character who is always whining about life? Come up with a unique trait for him and bring it to the point of absurdity! Creating a character with quirks is fun and interesting.

But, of course, when creating a character with quirks, you can, dear author, fail. It may turn out to be implausible, unsympathetic or stupid. It's hard to know if you went too far in trying to bring the character to life. It's always risky.

Those who don't take risks don't drink champagne, right?

And finally, I will say that try to find a few interesting facts from the life of your hero. It is unlikely that the reader will be interested in everyday life. To make your characters interesting, give them intriguing backgrounds, intelligence and original views, and some quirks. Don't be afraid to take risks, create fresh, non-standard images.

Today in this article we will answer the questions:

How to create a three-dimensional hero? What determines the “volume” of a hero? What makes it alive, unique and makes readers empathize?

What is depth and how to work it out?

First, let's decide what the depth isNOT is.

Depth is NOT:

• characteristic;
• peculiarities;
• quirky and eccentric features;
• not a dominant character trait.

So what is depth?

A bright character is distinguished not by one, but by many features and traits, many of which may contradict each other. It is from this contradiction of character traits that depth is born.

We put forward the thesis:

Depth– this is a contradiction.

This is the simplest, but most important thing to remember when we talk about volume.

The contradiction may be:

• inside strong character (internal conflict, which is born from two contradictory features; for example, in Macbeth it is a conflict between ambition and guilt);
• between characterization and true character (brave fat man, kind ogre, charming thief);
• between character and behavior (For example, let's remember Tolkien's "The Lord of the Rings". Aragorn is a king by vocation - he comes from a family of rulers, and the throne belongs to him by right. But he rejects his destiny and puts on the mask of a ranger and a wanderer).

Contradictions must be consistent, logical and consistent. If you position the hero as positive character, any of it bad thing must be justified, understandable and accepted\forgiven by readers.

Most shining example multidimensional character -Hamlet.

Here is a partial list of his controversies:

• religious - blasphemer;
• loving and gentle – heartless and sadistic;
• brave - cowardly;
• calm and cautious – impulsive and imprudent;
• ruthless - compassionate;
• proud - feels sorry for himself;
• witty - sad;
• tired - energetic;
• reasonable - confused;
• sane - crazy;
• simple-minded - sophisticated.

The main character does not have to have such a huge amount contradictions. But there should be at least 3-4 of them. U minor characters– 2-3 contradictions. Passengers have no more than one.

The main character should have the greatest number of contradictions of all the characters present in your work.

Even more than the antagonist (or equally). If the villain has more contradictions than the hero, he will automatically replace him.

Why are contradictions needed?

It is very interesting for readers to observe ambiguous, contradictory characters. They arouse interest and attract attention. The more interesting the contradictions, the more intriguing the hero you will get.

Examples of character contradictions:

1. “The Lord of the Rings” by Tolkien. Frodo.

The little hobbit is brave and selfless.

2. "Breaking Bad." Walt.

Compassionate - cruel.

3. “Jeeves, you are a genius!” Woodhouse. Jeeves.

The servant is smart and a gentleman.

4. “Frankenstein” by Shelley. Frankenstein.

A terrible monster - with a sensitive heart and a thirst for love and understanding.

5. " Green Mile» King. John Coffey.

A huge black slave - kind and compassionate.

Conclusion:

The depth of characters depends on how strong and justifiable the contradictions in character are.

The skill of creating contradictions not only makes your character more interesting and multifaceted, but will also directly affect the plot component of the work.

We invite you to the next stream of the “Characters” course:

👉 Target– in 12 lessons, create characters that will intrigue, amaze and surprise. And the main thing is to influence the reader.

This article describes the process of creating a character for the game engine. The article is primarily addressed to those who are interested in the process of developing next gen models, as well as to everyone who wants to look behind the scenes of modern game making. I made the character for my portfolio, I switched to characters quite recently, we can say that this is the first character brought to mind. Because the this work- my personal project, I set the triangle limit to 20,000, textures to 2048*2048, the work was planned under PBR.

Pipeline

First of all, I’ll tell you the plan I followed, an approximate pipeline. The pipeline or production sequence for creating graphic content may differ from firm to firm, and from artist to artist. Here is the pipeline that I followed, excluding the first 2 points, because... I took the finished concept and the last 2 as a basis.

1. Verbal description
2. Concept
3. Modeling/sculpting general forms high-poly model (HiPoly)
4. Retopology of the HiPoly model (creation of final HiPoly geometry for detailing)
5. HiPoly model detailing
6. Retopology of the HiPoly model (creation of a game lowpoly, which goes directly into the engine)
7. LowPoly Unwrapping (creating texture coordinates)
8. Baking maps: normals, ambient occlusion, color map (transfer information from HiPoly to LowPoly)
9. Creating textures: Diffuse, Specular, Gloss, Normal
10. Render in engine
11. Character rig and skin (skeleton rig and binding to mesh bones)
12. Animation

Concept

But enough of the boring lists. Now about the creation process in more detail.
I found the concept on the Internet, and I wanted to make it in 3D. Later I discovered that this character had already been realized in 3D more than once.

Scultping

But all the same, I did not abandon the idea of ​​​​implementation, I just decided that I would rework some details a little, and would not completely repeat the concept. First of all, I decided to sculpt the entire model in one piece in ZBrush. ZBrush - (brush, zebra, zibrush) is a wonderful program that allows you to “sculpt a model,” which is qualitatively different from other three-dimensional graphics programs, where we influence the model through vertices, edges and polygons. Here we have a brush with various properties and with the help of a tablet you can perform quite delicate operations, like a sculptor or clay artist. Using the brush allowed me to initial stage to cut off errors with basic masses and proportions; with a simple model in a brush, I could very freely change the proportions and look for detailing options. It turned out that sculpting hardsurfaces (as inorganic objects are called in modeling) was not easy.

Even though the model turned out to be clumsy, the idea was embodied, and the matter moved on.

Several iterations of the search, and a form was achieved that satisfied me.

Retopology of HiPoly model

When it seemed to me that the model was ready for retopology, I switched to another program for creating final geometry for sculpting - Topogun and 3ds Max. The essence of retopology is that a mesh of another is built on top of one model. Retopology can be done by many 3D graphics programs, such as ZBrush and 3dsMax. However, retopology there is very inconvenient (although some retopology is done in a brush) and has little functionality. Topogun is a program created for retopology and has many advantages over combine editors. There are also disadvantages, after ten hours of working in it I came up with a number of improvements, but who cares about them :) An important disadvantage: the lack of a normal auto-backup and frequent crashes of Topogun. The peculiarity of the new topology was that it was prepared for anti-aliasing (Turbosmooth), so there are almost no triangles, I tried to use quads (square polygons).

An example of the new grid next to the old one.

In Max I fixed all the bugs and made the geometry clean. Retopology was long and tedious, because... I exported each detail from brush, then rebuilt it separately in Topogun, then transferred it to 3dsmax, edited it there and imported it back into Zbrush. Part of the model was made directly in max (for example, knee pads).

In the end, the model was almost completely meshed into a new, clean mesh and loaded back into Zbrush.

This is what a remelted mesh looks like inside Zbrush.

Final detail

Tired of the lengthy mechanical process of retopology, I was glad to switch to detailing the model. Then everything is simple - I increased the number of polygons of the model and added details with brushes. I was not happy for long, when the polygon of the object exceeded 12 million, the computer began to feel a little dull and this brought discomfort.

In the end the model looked like this.

Retopology, LowPoly creation

It's time to make a mesh for use in real-time renderers (game engines). Again Topogan, now the work was carried out entirely in it, in Max I corrected only some of the geometry jambs. The work was for a portfolio, so I didn’t skimp on the triangles, although I know that I could have saved a lot of money. At this stage I already tried baking the Normal map to see if the details were transferred adequately. It was at this stage that I realized that we were no longer on the same path with Topogun and already in the next project I abandoned it in favor of 3dCoat. But that’s another story...

This is what the new grid looks like.

LowPoly model assembled in max. Now it's time to UV Unwrap.

Creating Texture Coordinates

Until now there was no need for texture coordinates. However, after preparing the LowPoly model, you need to create the correct UV coordinates in order to bake the maps and to be able to texture the model. I did the UVs in 3dsMax, I find the built-in editor quite convenient. I used to use third-party programs before, but when I properly mastered the UV editor in 3dsMax, it turned out to be quite powerful...

Proper unwrapping ensures simple and correct texturing, map removal and can affect the quality of textures.

This is what the layout of the UV pieces looks like.

Baking cards

The essence of baking maps (in this case) is to transfer information from the HiPoly model to the LowPoly texture. I baked using the xNormal program - an excellent program, it handles baking much better than combine programs. I baked a tangent space normal map (information about the surface topography that adds fake detail to the model), ambient occlusion (self-occlusion map), got a cavity map from ambient occlusion, and also got an object space normal map using the xNormal utility from tangent space normal map.

This is what the model looks like in the engine with normal map and ambient occlusion. Engine Marmoset Toolbag. There are still baking errors that were corrected in Photoshop.

Creating textures

Now that the maps that could be obtained using information transfer have been prepared, we need to prepare maps of diffusion, specular and glossness. Previously, diffuse, normal and spec maps were usually enough, now PBR allows you to create glossiness effects, and not just information about the strength of reflection. There is a great Photoshop plugin that makes creating and editing all these maps easy - dDo. This is an amazing program that essentially allows you to control several card parameters at once through masks. It took preparatory work, so that I could work with this plugin; by the way, I used it for the first time in my pipeline. The plugin allows you to parametrically add various surface effects such as scuffs, stains and dirt, so it turned out to be very suitable for this job. Having generated the main texture details, I finalized it manually in Photoshop.

The resolution of the textures I worked with was 4096*4096, the Photoshop file quickly grew to 6 gigabytes. I was glad again that I have a pretty fast computer :)
In the end, despite the fact that I redid the texture several times (because Photoshop killed the file several times), the textures were created.

And finally, the final render! Although essentially this is a preview of textures, I did not load the model into a real, adult (UDK, Unity3d, CryEngine) engine. For each engine (as well as setting, location and individual color scheme games) most likely required some texture tuning.

Actually, that's all. Thank you for watching, ask questions in the comments, maybe something will be interesting.

P.S. This is my first article on Habré, so if I did something wrong, please let me know.

I also want to immediately note: regarding the realism of the armor, questions to the concept artist, also do not forget that the art component is often more important than functionality and realism, although ideally, of course, this should be combined.

Finding a character image is an interesting and responsible activity, especially for those who are just starting out on the path of an artist. This is an instruction for those who only have an image in their head that they want to draw. Your character is created in several stages. It’s better if you write each of them down on paper.

So, how to step by step?

Stage 1. General features

Here you need to determine the gender, age, date of birth and occupation of the hero.

First of all, we need to decide who we want to draw. “Your character” can be either a five-year-old girl or a seventy-year-old man. When deciding on gender, remember the concept of social education, as well as gender reaction to the hero. In addition, there are purely feminine character traits that are not characteristic of the male population.

Stage 2. Character appearance

At this stage, you need to decide on the character’s external image: eye and hair color, hairstyle, height, weight, build, outfit.

Eye and hair color is a very sensitive issue. But most artists advise choosing hair color depending on the type of activity and intended character, and making the eyes contrasting or, conversely, similar in color to the hair.

If height and weight are within normal limits, then they do not play a special role.

Stage 3. Character character

It’s better to start with the character’s temperament: what will the hero we want to draw be like? “Your character” can be a bright and energetic choleric person, a melancholic person constantly with his head in the clouds, a calm phlegmatic person or a balanced sanguine person. After this, it is necessary to work out the positive and negative traits character of the hero.

As a result, we get a complete image that is easy to draw. Your character will be more alive and original if you take care of every detail of his image.

Heroes and characters play a key role in the narrative - we look at the world through their eyes, we live with their feelings, we empathize with them throughout the story. However, in order for the image to be complete and “alive”, you will have to work hard on it, inventing and writing out all its elements.

So, What does the image of any character consist of? Two main parts – appearance and inner world. And each of these parts, in turn, consists of several interconnected elements.

Creating the appearance of the hero

1. Visual appearance.

Common elements of the visual image are the color of the eyes, hair and skin, height and weight, build, facial features, the presence or absence of any limbs, gait - stooped or with a straight back. Additional items – unusual shape ears or lips, hairstyle, scars, lameness, glasses, moles, mustache-beard, freckles, etc.
Appearance is a sign. And our consciousness is filled with stereotypes that respond to signs. Just as with the iconic word “apple,” we imagine the image of the fruit and its taste, and when describing a hero, we associate his appearance with his character.

For example, many will immediately consider a plump and short man to be a good-natured person, a red-haired and green-eyed woman to be a passionate and freedom-loving person, a limping black-eyed man with a scar to be definitely a bandit, a blue-eyed blonde to be a short-minded angel. And so on.

When choosing the color of eyes and hair for a character, we not only focus on our own ideal, but also subconsciously attribute to him the traits of a stereotype. And you can play on this, making the plump “good guy” the main villain, and the blond angel the imp, surprising readers with the surprise of perception.

2. Clothes and shoes.

We dress ourselves based on our character traits (in everyday life), out of necessity (season or work), out of fashion, out of national characteristics or features of the subculture (emo or goths). We dress and shoe the characters according to the same principles. And we also choose the color and cut of clothes and shoes, accessories like scarves or hats.

To knowledgeable people, clothing and its color will tell a lot about us - about our character, preferences and fears. When working on the image of a hero, knowledge of psychological characteristics - at least color range- can be very useful. It is also useful to study local subcultures - they are symbolic, and based on them you can create something of your own.

3. Auditory and kinesthetic (tactile) perception.

TO auditory perception First of all, it concerns the timbre of the voice. And you can play on the correspondence and inconsistency of voice and appearance, diversifying the image and surprising the reader.

Auditory perception of an image also includes all sounds made by a person: coughing, grunting, sniffling, exclamation, laughter. And a person constantly sniffling or blowing his nose causes a certain emotional reaction that will complement the image. As well as the vocal characteristics of national speech characteristics - the well-known dialect “okanye” or “yakanye”, “swallowing” of the last syllable, etc.

The whole range human emotions reflected in the voice - in a surprised exclamation, in a rise in tone when angry, in a stutter when embarrassed, in a cry when dissatisfied, etc. The Russian language is rich in descriptions of emotions, you just need to choose the right ones for your character.

Kinesthetic perception – these are feelings from a person. Smells, intuitive perception, aura sensation. There are well-known common expressions - “he gave off an aura of danger”, “he had heavy energy, and he was overwhelming.” And there’s no need to talk much about smells, and that’s understandable. And you shouldn’t neglect these sensations, they are an integral part of the character and

Literary course "Creating a hero"

Suitable for those who are starting to write a book, and for those who want to finalize and “revive” a ready-made hero.

In 14 days you will receive all the necessary theory and step-by-step instructions. practical tasks. At the end of the course you will have in your hands full story hero. You will recognize his motives and come up with bright plot twists, which will show the development of the hero’s character in the best possible way.

4. Emotional and behavioral reactions.

Facial expressions, gestures, changes in movements or complexion - all this beneficially complements the character's appearance. Without them, he seems cardboard, drawn, unreal, lifeless.

Emotional reactions – this is, in fact, an emotional response to one’s own or someone else’s words, to behavior, to an unexpected meeting, to the feelings that one character experiences for another, to the attitude towards what is happening.

Thus, characters turn pale with anger, red with rage, pink with embarrassment, and green with melancholy. They smile joyfully or maliciously, wince with displeasure, squint in suspicion and make grimaces, teasing.

Behavioral reactions– this is visible behavior: in gestures or movements, habitual or changing in different situations.

Habitual reactions- these are mechanical movements, those that the person himself no longer notices, but does constantly.

Some people like to twirl a strand of hair around their finger, some like to pinch their earlobe, some like to scratch their nose or heel, while others reinforce their words with gestures and waves their hands when speaking. This also includes gait and sitting - on the sofa or at the table (often found: “habitually lounging on the sofa” or “habitually sitting up with your feet in a chair”).

Changing reactions– these are changes in habitual actions or in actions depending on situations.

Thus, a person slouches when there is a cold wind, shudders and looks around when shouted sharply, shakes a finger or shows a fist, stretches or rubs his tailbone after sitting for a long time, speeds up his step when he is late, etc.

Of course, in the initial description of a character, all these elements cannot be taken into account, but they can be gradually developed, weaving them into the plot on occasion. But first they need to be invented and collected into a single image. It can help with this - for yourself, for those around you, for random passers-by.

Any person is already, consider, a ready-made character in a work, from whom you can copy the appearance. Just like borrowing the inner world that will be discussed.

We invite you!

Daria Gushchina
writer, science fiction author
(VKontakte page