rpanons | Unfunny wanky stereotypes

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Newbie anon here. I've never played an original character before, and I wanted to ask some advice.

What is the etiquette for making a character based upon the image of an unoriginal character?

Suppose you knew nothing of Alucard from Hellsing, but you saw an image of him and were inspired to make an original vampire character. The OC wouldn't be a rip-off or Expy of Alucard (because you know nothing about the character) but it would still be inspired by the character design and probably use the icons. Is this taboo behaviour for OCs?

I have a character in mind like this, but I really don't know what the etiquette is.

as long as you make it super-clear that your character has no relation to the pb? it's usually fine. though it might not be a bad idea to get some custom icons that specifically depict your character and any visual differences they have from the inspiration, and setting them up as primary icons...

(personally i just draw all my own icons but i know that's not an option for everyone & some ocs get flack for having drawn icons that aren't ~good enough~ even though that's the pettiest fucking shit.)

It's not "taboo" - but it's not considered a good thing at all, especially if you use ones from a well-known series with such a distinctive art style. It would annoy and confuse castmates of that character, and make you look like a lazy, unoriginal hack.

I've seen people try to use LeLouche Lamperogue and Alice Margatroid for their OCs and it did not go over well at all.

If you can't draw or commission art, your best bet is to go someplace like anime character database or model mayhem. In the former, once you find a pb you like of a series that got enough art, then play around with the photo-editing program of your choice.

Creating a character based upon what you like in a particular piece of art's fine. That's not even wankable. However, one of the other anon's advice is, I think, kind of critical. Let's take the Alucard example for a moment. Alucard from Hellsing is a well known, distinctive character and one of the two protagonists of a prominent series from the last ten years. Therefore, people who see his icons will expect to be dealing with that character, or at least an AU of him.

If you're going to make a character based upon a pistol-wielding smart-ass of a vampire who wears blood-red trenchcoats and sneers leeringly at everything, that's fine. However, you're going to be best served to pony up the cash on this one and find an icon artist willing to do a 15 icon set. If it's a first time creation, don't go past the 'free account' size until you really get invested in the character. Get yourself 10-15 icons that give you a reasonable range. Tell the artist that you want the character themed off of the inspiration of the canonical art you show them, but change key elements of the style so that it doesn't exactly look like that character.

If you, however, just use Alucard art with an OC that isn't Alucard or an AU, you're going to get confusion, wank, irritation and likely very little traction from players as a rule, especially from people who know the series. This is true of live-action characters as well, and one of the reasons why some of those get wanked on at times.

couldn't have said it better. if you're going to use a preexisting drawn canon for your PB, make sure it and the character are relatively obscure.

Thanks for the advice, everyone.

The character I had in mind is actually from a really obscure series that I doubt many people would have heard of. I like the concept but haven't actually read the series myself (as it was never translated into English) so to sidestep the issue I thought about making her an original character based on the concept instead.

But I think this might cause more problems than it's worth.

eh, that sounds more workable

if you're basing her off the concept of that character and aren't canon familiar enough to accidentally expy her, and if people aren't going to immediately recognize the character she's based off of/pb'd by (and they probably won't if the canon is untranslated), that sounds more doable

Unfunny wanky stereotypes

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