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Logan M
Logan M
1:25 AM
@Krazer @Eric Eventually someone is going to need to draw this character. I'm no expert when it comes to that, but my experience has been that if you want someone to draw a character for you, the more constraints you put on it the harder it will be to find someone to draw it and the worse the end result will be.
 
Eric
Eric
@LoganM We still need an idea of what we want. "Draw a character" is... yeah. Unhelpful.
 
Logan M
Logan M
@Eric Agreed. But what I'm saying is that we shouldn't put too many requirements on it.
Pick a few characteristics and leave the rest up to the artist.
 
Eric
Eric
Yeah. Agreed.
 
Logan M
Logan M
Basically, what I'm saying is that we don't want to be trying to design the character ourselves in chat. We'll all end up with different ideas for what we want, none of which will be exactly what gets drawn. We should come up with ideas for what attributes we want the character to have, and then let the artist interpret that however they want.
 
Eric
Eric
Well, we were more or less trying to determine those attributes. Differing between "ideas" and "attributes" is tricky, though.
 
Logan M
Logan M
1:36 AM
Also, I did a little bit of work in high school writing the story for an OEL manga webcomic, and from my experience from that, it's helpful to try to come up with a character profile for the character before you try to draw them. Otherwise all the characters end up generic and boring.
(Admittedly, generic may be what we want, but I still think it's not a bad idea)
 
Eric
Eric
Generic is good, boring is bad.
 
Logan M
Logan M
@Eric I'm not sure about that. Most good mascot characters that I know of illustrate how the product they advertise is different from the competitors.
 
Eric
Eric
@LoganM For example?
 
Logan M
Logan M
@Eric Okay nevermind. Most of them seem to just be sort of puns tangentially related to the product.
 
Eric
Eric
@LoganM Like Wiki-tan, right?
Or.. whatever.
 
Logan M
Logan M
1:49 AM
Let's just compile some examples to see what's common among them.
 
Eric
Eric
Alright. Let's start with the -tans, there's a Wikipedia article on them.
 
Logan M
Logan M
 
Eric
Eric
And the OS-tans.
 
Logan M
Logan M
OS-tan
The OS-tan is an Internet phenomenon or meme that originated within the Japanese Futaba Channel. The OS-tan are the moe anthropomorphism/personification of several operating systems by various amateur Japanese artists. The OS-tan are typically depicted as women, with the OS-tan representative of Microsoft Windows operating systems usually depicted as sisters of varying ages. History The concept of the OS-tan is reported to have begun as a personification of the common perception of Windows Me as unstable and prone to frequent crashes. Discussions on Futaba Channel likened this to the st...
 
Eric
Eric
We can also look at animals, I think. They tend to be cuter than humans.
 
Logan M
Logan M
1:53 AM
This is a good site for lots of tech ones: ostan-collections.net/wiki/index.php?title=List_of_OS-tans
I'm having difficulty finding any more that aren't already on that last link. I know there are others if we go to more obscure stuff, but it's pretty thorough.
 
Eric
Eric
@LoganM I think it's a good collection already.
There's males and females, even. The male ones are terrible, lol.
Like Doctor Norton.
 
Logan M
Logan M
There's also Imaichi-tan to get a good idea of what is not so moe.
 
Eric
Eric
I assume we want moe.
 
Logan M
Logan M
Most of the related links are decent examples too. Website anthropomorphism in particular is exactly what we're trying to do.
@Eric Yes. But that's sort of the point. She's a character who was designed to be "almost moe, but actually not". But then people came back and moefied her.
 
Krazer
Krazer
2:08 AM
Beako?
 
Logan M
Logan M
Also Dr. Norton is pretty creepy.
 
Krazer
Krazer
kinda reminds me of "Hinomoto Oniko"
 
Logan M
Logan M
@Krazer Beako would be a good example if it weren't for the fact that 90% of her fanart is NSFW lolicon.
Apparently there are now online "anime character makers" which are sort of customizable. Of course our character needs to be our own creation, but they're probably good to look at to see what is common.
For reference, here's one I made:
 
Krazer
Krazer
lol
If we get a list of specifications/characteristic I can try to whip something up\
 
Logan M
Logan M
Only slightly more serious:
 
Eric
Eric
2:21 AM
Someone's having fun. lol
 
Krazer
Krazer
here's a past design with an crab motif:
the bottom part is suppose to be a hairpin
 
Logan M
Logan M
Given that we're a site about anime, I think it makes sense for our character to be an otaku herself.
That might make it harder to make her moe though (although Lucky Star managed just fine)
Could always go the "closet otaku" route, which has proven to work many times.
 
 
1 hour later…
Eric
Eric
3:47 AM
We'll give this some more thought in the coming week, I have to head off. But this isn't an urgent matter just yet, so we'll brainstorm when we get the chance.
See you guys later.
 

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