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Vibrantes — Character Consistency - A Massive Tip Collection
#anatomy #anime #characters #comic #consistency #eyes #face #female #head #male #manga #nose #resource #shoujo #shounen #studies #tip #tutorial #webcomic #samefacesyndrome #learnuary #projecteducate
Published: 2018-01-18 21:00:02 +0000 UTC; Views: 37203; Favourites: 457; Downloads: 0
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Anime and Manga Week
My protagonist during concept phase.
During my journey to try to bring my webcomic to life, I have been extensively studying and focusing on cool action poses, interesting backgrounds and fancy shading... only to find that there’s nothing more frustrating than not being able to draw your own characters properly.
Let’s face it, as much as acquiring any fundamental skill will help you in the long-run, in the end your characters are the heart of your story and nothing will happen without them. In order to tackle my biggest issue, I have accumulated tips, tricks, and folders of tutorials that I’ll summarise here for other webcomic artists in training.
DISCLAIMER: I consider myself an intermediate artist; my art is far from perfect even with these helpful tips. Even so, I do encourage you to experiment and test these out and see if they work for you! Do be aware that all the characters shown here are works in progress for my webcomic, and that they belong to me.
So let’s get to it!
1. THE CONSISTENCY TRIAD: EYE-NOSE-MOUTH
The measurement to rule them all!
There are many elements that make up a character design and make them unique from one another, but under all the details of cool clothes, crazy hairstyles and shiny eyes, if we were to reduce the main elements that repeatedly make them look the same (for good or for bad, aka Same Face Syndrome) are the measurements between eye, nose and mouth.
Even if you drew the head slightly bigger or your front face doesn’t accurately 3D-translate to your profile face, if the eye-nose-mouth measurement is the same, your character will be read as the same character without disrupting the narrative or even being noticed at all.
Now, it’s still possible to create two different characters with similar measurements without causing Same Face Syndrome, but we will talk more about that further. For now, this will be our starting point!
So here is a quick list of guidelines from simple to complex that you may use to get used to your character’s measurements:
1.1 TRIANGLE
Sometimes trying to guess by eye how our characters should look like in perspective can cause some gruesome errors making them look completely different as soon as they turn their heads. It's very easy to get a little confused by all the details that you have to put in the right places, but one way to make it a little easier is using guidelines with simple shapes. You can easily use a triangle to better visualize how your character's features should fit in their faces. Like this, instead of having to track where all the details should sit in perspective, you only need to track the triangle's shape. It doesn't take away the need of knowing basic foreshortening and perspective, but the amount of information one must keep track of is definitely reduced.
1.2 PLACEHOLDERS
Another approach that I find more intuitive is simply replacing the eyes and nose with simplified placeholders. It's much easier to control the spacing between circles and squares than of an already detailed eye. The smaller amount of information also helps you to better visualize the overall shape of the head.
Since this is the one I use, here is a super quick step-by-step on how I use it.
1.3 THE SMILEY FACE
If you want to summarize the info even more, sometimes just a simple smiley face is all you need to get a sense of the overall shape of the head and spacing between facial features.
1.4 THE BEE
When I began my studies, I realized I would always make the chin too long or too short, so I started marking the chin with some guidelines (I thought it made the drawing looks like an insect, so I called it a bee just to sound cute haha... It's probably an ant, though). Later I replaced it for two circles but based on the same thought.
1.5 REAL SKULL (Sort of)
If you are having a hard time picturing your character in different angles, making studies based on real skulls can give you a good 3D sense of the face. You can find further references on this in the end of this article.
2. AVOIDING SAME FACE SYNDROME
Same measurements should not mean same visual impact!
There is much discussion about the extent to which Same Face Syndrome can be considered an artistic flaw, or a narrative flaw, since your reader would struggle to differentiate one character from the next. The discussions tend to range from consolidated style and practicality to even lack of skill or creativity. It’s not the intention of this article to discuss this further, but as the tips herein are a reflection of the problems I tried to tackle for my own comic, I need to at least state briefly my opinion.
I personally think that different characters bring a lot of richness to the narrative, and these stories tend to be the ones I resonate the most with. However, I do think that practicality is a very convincing argument in this matter, specially when considering any type of sequential art. Even so, I would still argue that it is quite possible to have the best of both worlds. It's true I do not have yet the skills (nor the assistants...) to achieve a character roster as diverse as Kentaro Miura in his work "Berserk", but I'm usually satisfied if I can keep my characters simple but yet with a visual impact of their own.
So here are a few tips on how to keep it practical yet interesting on your characters roster.
As I have stated above, the facial elements I usually change are hair, eyebrows and eyes, but this is just my personal choice and you don't need to feel limited to that. You can feel free to try out different nose shapes, chin shapes, ear shapes or even mouth shapes depending on your style.
If you need a rule of thumb, the more elements you change, the more space you have to be subtle, and the less elements you change, the more drastic these changes will have to be. Whenever I'm running out of ideas for different shapes, I simply search for something like "weird eyebrows" in Google. It will give you... very weird stuff, but it certainly will enlight your creativity.
You also totally shouldn't restrict yourself to only age groups as I did, these "category measurements" are meant to aid as it fits in your story. You can also consider things like body type, character importance (maybe the important ones have different measurements from non-important ones?), character's beauty (maybe the beautiful ones have different measurements from the... ugly ones?), characters' race (maybe you want your elves to have very peculiar differences from your humans? Or maybe you want to keep consistency on a race you have created?), and the list can go on and on. Only your story (and you as an author) can tell what kind of category would make things more pratical to you, or even if you need them at all!
3. GENERAL ADVICE AND FURTHER REFERENCES AND LINKS
3.1 WHAT I HAVE LEARNED:
[-] Study real anatomy.
Every style out there is nothing more than a stylized reduction of the real thing we see everyday. Studying only the style you intend to go for is like pretending to know a whole book only by reading its summary. It can only get you so far, because as soon as you need to go deeper in the subject, you won't know what to do. If you are good at character consistency in certain angles but not others, there are high chances you don't know the anatomy of the head well enough, don't be ashamed to re-study it whenever you need it.
[-] Your character consistency doesn't need to be 100% accurate to start your story.
I have talked with a few artists on how they deal with character consistency specially when you intend to have a big roster, and most of them agreed that usually around 70%-80% similarity is enough for readers to not feel bothered about or even notice at all while they are engaged in the story.
[-] Draw older characters.
Although drawing characters of any age will obviously be helpful to improve your art, I would specifically suggest to try drawing older ones because, unlike children, adults have a much more defined facial structure and generally require more knowledge in anatomy to make them look believable. If you know how to draw older characters, drawing younger ones will later feel easier.
[-] Draw different styles.
Every style has their on approach on how to reduce facial features and I found that trying out other styles increased greatly my ideas when drawing anime characters. Besides, you can easily take their ideas and later "manga-fy" them to suit your style as you need.
[-] Start with characters you're not very attached to.
Most of the times we have very strong concepts on how our protagonists should look like and it can feel 10x more frustrating when we don't have the skills yet to draw them exactly as we want. So try beginning your studies with side-characters or just completely random ones so you can focus solely on making them look consistent and not on making them look cool.
3.2 FREE AND PAID LESSONS THAT HELPED ME IN MY STUDIES:
*Ctrl+Paint (free):
Exaggeration (how to exaggerate realistic features)
*Proko (free):
How to Draw the Head from Any Angle (Andrew Loomis method)
How to Draw the Head from Extreme Angles (Andrew Loomis method)
*News Master Academy (free/paid):
The Structure of the Head with Steve Hudson Part 1 (this was released as free sample in Youtube )
The Structure of the Head with Steve Hudson Part 2
*Aaron Blaise (paid):
Drawing Human Anatomy
*Skillshare (paid):
How to Draw The Head From Every Angle by Nina Rycroft - Part One
How to Draw The Head From Every Angle by Nina Rycroft - Part Two
How to Draw The Head From Every Angle by Nina Rycroft - Part Three
3.3 TUTORIALS BY OTHER ARTISTS:
Here I have selected some of my favorite tutorials by other artists that have helped me greatly in my studies!
(Click on the links to see the original)
*FACE:
[By Proko ] [By SD Kay* ] [By WMA ] [By Gina Vila ] [By Seiichi Nakamura ]
[By Proko ] [By Pete Emslie ] [By Jesulink ] [By Wysoka ] [By たまにお ]
[By Brian Lemay ] [By Albert Dorne] [By Innao ]
*HAIR:
[By WMA ] [By Fira's Art ] [By Fira's Art ] [By Anyeka ] [By Vanilla Waffles ]
[By drag0nia ] [By Circus-Usagi ] [By えびも ]
4. FINAL CONSIDERATIONS
Even though I’m writing all these tips trying to help other people and I consider myself a fairly dedicated student (heck, I consider myself a full no-shame try-harder!), I still see all the flaws in my art, so it’s important to always have in mind that studying/practicing is something that takes time to pay off. So be patient and roll up your sleeves, because you have some characters to bring to this world!
Have fun!
-Brant-Bi
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Comments: 58
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Really great collection of advice, thank you!
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Thank you, darling!
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I've just begun sketching out my first ideas for OC's and I'm so happy that I found this now. You will have saved me months of frustration! Thank you!
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AAHH that's awesome to hear!!
When I began drawing my characters for my story, the only advice I would hear was "draw them a lot", but there I was trying to "draw a lot" 20 characters! You can imagine how overwhelming it quickly became, haha. XD But mapping them out in more practical ways definetely take this burden out of your shoulders and make creating characters something fun again! I hope it can help you out too, good luck!
(And thank you for the watch and the mentions, you are so sweet!)
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
This will be extremely helpful to me as I embark on journey to design images for an upcoming project. Thank you so very much for sharing these tips and tricks. Never have I tried to do comic type drawings and what I am planning to do requires that I be capable of this type of art work.
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That's awesome! There is such a big range on how you can simplify the face to achieve a cartoon/comic style, it's quite marvelous but also can get you quite lost.
I hope these guidelines can help you manipulate these styles as you please! Good luck in your project!
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
Some of the tips where already familiar with me 
But still thanks for your other useful tips!
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No problem, darling! I'll be happy even if I could help just a tiny bit haha
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consistency is my enemy! Thanks for this, I'll work on applying some of these tips as I try to draw my characters more! : D
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Same, man! It's like my characters were a different person everytime they turned their heads xD
But using these guidelines helped me so much! I hope they can help you too!
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Thank you, I think they will! : D
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No problem, darling! I'm very happy if it could help you!
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This is a very useful resource, thank you for taking the time to put this together.
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I pretty much have a problem with drawing backgrounds. I know it's not on topic, but the background is just as important to the character as the character is to the background.
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It is! I do think that knowing how to draw characters allow you to start your story earlier, but backgrounds add so much more depth and mood to the story that no "awesome" character design would ever suffice to beat it. I love drawing backgrounds and I hear a lot how I'm basically "wasting my time because you don't need them", but I very much disagree.
Yes, maybe you don't need them to tell stories, but that depends on what kind of story you want to tell. If you want to tell a story about a "mysterious forest", but without actually knowing how to draw a forest, you just basically missed the most important element of your storytelling.
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I try to draw backgrounds, but I pretty much suck at it. I probably overthink the whole thing of the background and make things harder on myself. There are just so any details and so much math like where this thing goes, how high this thing is and not to mention depth. I just feel like I have too much space in my drawing and that my backgrounds look disproportional.
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I think what makes it look harder than it should be is indeed the whole perspective stuff, but it turns much more approachable once you learn how to use it and see it without needing rulers (I personally hate rulers...lol). I actually had a whole conversation with a friend in my gallery on how to start drawing backgrounds and how to start seeing people in perspective without grids, but if I would copy and paste it here to you, I would give you a big wall of text XD.
But since you mentioned proportion, maybe this tutorial can help you www.youtube.com/watch?v=sXDtrB…
He only draws people in this tutorial, but the things he says apply to anything you need to put in proportion. See if it helps!
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I did a sketch and my councelor insists that I finish it. I think I am going to turn it into a Xion sketch but I am kind of wary about the background.
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This may give you an idea of where I am at. and
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I see! So maybe it would help you more to start with characters before going to backgrounds. I think the video I sent you will definetely help you, it starts with very simple poses, nothing hard, and just move the character "inside" the background back and forward. I think it will definetely help you to start seeing that "depth" you are looking for.
I also recommend you to later move your studies from sphere to cubes. Since spheres are not distorted by perspective, they can be useful to understand proportions but not angles. Since cubes look very different depending on the angle you draw them, they force you to see perspective better.
This is a little example on how I started my studies:
- I first started with trying to put spheres in perspective. They say it's usually easier for our eyes to be able to see rounded shapes in perspective because that's how we natural see things in nature (in opposed to the square shape that tends to be human-made). Once you feel you are fine doing spheres of same size, try alternating between one small, one big.
- Once you are confident with putting various spheres of different sizes in perspective, try transforming them into cubes and rectangles.
- Once you are confident with your spheres and cubes, start trying to shape them into human mannequins! This will help you a lot to start seeing things moving in space!
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I recently uploaded a drawing. However, I need to get a new scanner. The app that I tried using wasn't working out.
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Thanks, I will do that. I think I have sort of an idea about it in regards to that line circular manniquen that I tried doing.
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
Awesome! Yeah, starting with those mannequins you did is already a great start! Good luck in your studies!
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I pretty much used a video and paused it as a source. It's a start though.
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Pal, this is an AMAZING resource, thank you so much for posting up with the LEARNUARY hashtag! Awesome!
Lorenzo!
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Thank you, Lorenzo! Your initiative with LEARNUARY was one of the things that really inspired me to try to help as I can!
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
So awesome to hear! Learnuary has exceeded my expectations in so many ways, it's been so much fun, really appreciated you getting involved!!
Lorenzo!
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
Hello!
I just want to drop by to say that I am glad I went before you on Thursday. You would have been a really tough act to follow! 
Joking aside, I think you did a great job with the article and you had some really nice ideas and examples! I also liked the fact that we had slightly different points of view on SFS and we were able to give people a combination of theoretical background and real-life application. I know you weren't counting on it (I mean, I wasn't, either... 
Great job with the article!
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
Noooo, man, I really LOVE your article! Before I even began mine, Iduna showed me your draft and it really changed my mind about SFS, so I decided to change my approach on mine based on it. I really like how you show the pros and cons of it in a very objective way, most people just pure bash it. Your article was very well-written and very enlightening. I love that they decided to put it together, the info really complement each other! *internet high-five*
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You did? Thank you so very much! 
I am really glad to be able to give you a slightly different perspective on SFS, too. Just like you, all I have been hearing is people bashing it and complain about how awful it is. But I grew up in the so-called "Golden Age of Anime" where... well, pretty much everybody had the same faces (and mouths that don't match their words.
But you are absolutely right. I am so glad that they put us back to back together! Cheers, mate!
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Nice, it seems that you know what you're talking about there. I honestly would have thought this was a guideline for written works, but I might have found someone to watch
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Thank you! I definetely think webcomic artists sometimes underestimate their studies in the writing department, so I always enjoy following writers in youtube to tackle matters like this from other points of views that are not just visual. But unfortunately since there's a lack on how to approach it when drawing, I tried to dissect my studies the most I could. I hope it can help!
Thank you so much for your comment and for watching me!
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Wait, you follow writers on YouTube? I write on DA, so you might like what I write as well. Whenever you can, check out my currently uploaded works 
Right now, I'm just starting out so feedback is welcome including new watchers (especially since DA's activity began to drop after 2012?)
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I'm not an English native speaker, so I cant really give a constructive feedback to anyone with their writing, sorry. 
I'm not very much of a Literature person, so I tend to not read many books in terms of fiction, but I follow this author called Jenna Morecci in Youtube (check her out!!) and her advices are super awesome and can definetely be applied to any type of storytelling. I totally recommend you to check her out, she also has a Patreon where she gives advices and reviews to her watchers, also a lot of people offer to be beta-readers in her youtube comments. I think a circle of full-time writers would be more capable to help you and get you in touch with the right contacts and connections!
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
Sounds interesting. I'll check it out when I get the time, thanks!
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
Really a great article
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Aaaaah, that's so niceee! Thank you, Iduna!
Specially for have invited me!
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
You're very welcome, I'm happy I did ^^
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Thanks for making this. I struggle with consistency and variation on my characters, and usually resort to assigning an actor or model to them to use as reference. These tips all look really helpful.
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That's also a very great idea, ChatLunatique! Perhaps it would be super fun to use the placeholders to make a "frankenstein" out of your favorite actors and models, and go mixing their features until you create a character completely different!
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I learned to draw very organically, and this "character consistency" thing seems to be another problem I never really had.
However, I don't think it's a huge deal...I've even watched a few animes with facial consistency issues. Like, the front and 3/4 views would be fine, but then they'd go for that profile and it'd be like "wait, what??" It's a bit jarring, but it's not something one can't get used to, and in the end you kinda just regard it as part of the character design. So people should practice it as well as they can, but I wouldn't worry too much about having a face 3D translate 100% accurately, especially if your style isn't realistic.
And about "same face syndrome"...In my experience, it's not the face that's the problem: a lot of anime characters literally have the exact same face as their cohorts, just with different colored eyes, and people can tell 'em apart just fine. The thing that gets people confused is usually the hair.
Sometimes artists think just slight differences are enough, but they honestly aren't. Like, what happens in an action scene or a water scene, when hair starts to fly everywhere/and or lose its original style? Things can get really muddy really fast at a crucial moment in the story where you'd probably want your audience focused on the plot, not struggling to keep track of who's who.
I don't mean to be rude, but those 4 boys you pictured in your 2nd- and 3rd-to-last drawing example are probably prime candidates for what you call "same face syndrome". The bangs of 3 of them are nearly identical (thick spike in the middle of the forehead, with auxiliary spikes at the sides) and their hair is almost the same length. Without color or clothing to help differentiate them, a little wind, a little distance, and a little artistic liberty could make them look like the exact same guy.
It's not really a criticism of the characters (I assume you have color and clothing in the comic they belong to); I just wouldn't use that lineup as an example of avoiding "same face syndrome".
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First, if you haven't, I strongly recommend you to take a look in the article before mine about the scopes of SFS and to what extend they can be negative and positive for sequential artists, everything you are saying has already been mentioned there:
Identical Strangers: The Same Face SyndromeAnime and Manga Week
What do "K-On", "Attack on Titan", "Love Live!" and "Sword Art Online" have in common?
They all made it to Crunchy Roll's 2017 poll of anime shows where characters have the same face.
Cast of Strike Witches 2 (2010) - I have no idea why this one didn't make the list...
A lot of people complain about "Why do all anime characters have the same face?!" In fact, there's an entry in the TVTropes website called "Only Six faces" and there's a name for this observation called the "Same Face Syndrome". Unsurprisingly, a lot of budding artists and would-be critics jump on the issue and start throwing this "syndrome" around like it's the plague to avoid. But... why does this "syndrome" exist and is it really an unforgivable sin?
The Many Origins of the "Same Face Syndrome
Second, I don't think you read all the article, specifically in the part I try to find a middle term and not a full attempt of going completely different. As I said, I'm specifically satisfied if my characters can be easy to draw and keep track of and still have a different visual impact. My example with the boys was how to get something in-between, that's why just after I actually recommend people to change more elements if they need an even further difference with the same measurements, thus why I put my two other characters in there.
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