Hello everyone!
The picture for today is another publisher picture. This time it's from a line of pokemon themed hoodies. This particular one is a Seviper.
I'm a person who sometimes wonders things so I've decided to do "On My Minds" where I will go on briefly or not-so-briefly about something on my mind. Today, it just happens to be OC's or Original Characters.
These are characters created based off of an establish universe, such as My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic (MLP:FiM) or the Sonic series. Your character shares a similar design to the characters of said universe, such as making a pony for MLP:FiM.
What I was wondering was what makes creating an OC a plesant thing; essentially, why make a new character. I was thinking on it for a while and came to a conclusion that it is because of the universe itself. I hold a deep belief that making an interesting world makes for a better story than making interesting characters. Now don't get me wrong, interesting characters are great, but the environment is a critical character as well.
Anyways, I believe it is these deep universes that make them interesting to create a character in. People get the idea of how they would react and rather than messing with the orignal characters of the show (Doing so would be making an OOC*). But, that is a trait a lot of shows have. I like Rick and Morty, but I don't have an OC for that show. So that brought me to another revalation.
It is the character design.
When making a universe of the show, the characters all have some kind of similar design with their creation. For MLP:FiM, there are just certain races that look a certain way(Pegasus, Unicorn, Earth, Alicorn, Griffin, etc). Their body types aren't very complicated so a base model is easier to create and therefore manipulate. In Adventure Time, all the pricesses and their respective kingdoms resemble something. Princess Bubblegum of the Candy Kingdom and Berry Princess of the Berry Kingdom look like a girl made of bubble gum and a berry respectively. Their citizens are similiar, the Candy Kingdom is filled with citizens based off sweet treats while the berry kingdom has berry citizens. Along side that, the characters themselves have a simple deisgn: noodly bodies with uncomplicated faces for most. This design lends to easy manipulation to creating a new character. The Pokemon series is an even easier example, as it has a huge selection of characters that have premade designs. An OC pokemon could simply be a Caterpie with a scarf or a twing in it's mouth. In this same vein, a fakemon could be created. Fakemon is a sort of slang term meant to relate to pokemon that people have created from scratch. These are another form of OC.
I've said quite a bit about having simple designs, however for a show like Teen Titans, where the characters are more complicated it is harder to justify right off the bat, but the idea remains the same. The Teen Titans are all human, or something resembling a human. They all look like human teenagers but with some amazing ability or skill. An OC for Teen Titans is just a person with special abilities or super powers. Though the visual design may be difficult, the concept itself is still simply a human with special abilities.
So, that's my two cents on OCs. They seem to come about when creating a new character is not only appealing, but also when said character is easier to conceptualize and or visualize.
I'll see all of you folks later. By everyone!
*OOC - Original Original Character. This is a recreation of the orignal character. Essential only changing the character's personality or their background and not their overall appearance.