Need Help With OC! Please?

[Princess of Bananas 56]

Hello there everypony, my name is Trom Bone. I am looking for some ideas to help me with my new OC! I would like for the cutie mark to have a trombone mixed with a few music notes as well. So, if you could help me with anything, such as color schemes, cutie marks, etc, I'd be so great full. 

 

Thanks for your consideration and I hope to hear from you all soon!

 

-Trom

[El Duderino 879]

Go into a paint program and mess around with some colors. It helps to physically see the colors when deciding on a color scheme.

[95% Chance 78]

There are generally 5 parts to creating an OC.

• Personality
• Appearance
• Color
• Cutie Mark
• Name

 

Going in order, and assuming you aren't creating a ponysona, personality comes first. This is usually where you come up with your OCs defining character traits, and how they act in different situations based on how they were raised, life experiences, inherent genetics, etc. But to try and boil it down, I usually ask the following questions: "When faced with new experiences, how does your character react, respond, and feel about it?" "How hard will your character work to achieve a goal and how good are they at doing it?" "How comfortable is your character around others?" "How nice (or not) is your character, and how do they regard others around them?" "How emotionally stable is your character, and how will they react when the unexpected happens?" Granted, these are very big, sweeping general questions, and creating a character will boil down to more specifics regarding the above questions, but they're good jumping off points. For example, the character in my avatar, Anchors Aweigh, is a quiet, stoic stallion, but is generally friendly and helpful. He rarely goes out of his way to converse with others, but will always lend an ear to listen if needed.

 

Appearance is probably the most nebulous concept to try and explain, as it's the most nuanced and up to the creator most of all, but I'll do my best to impart my knowledge on the subject. Most pony OC appearances are made up of 3 core pieces; those being the body type and gender, eye shape, and the mane and tail. The body type for mares generally doesn't differ too much between the average mares in the show, but select characters like the Princesses, and the model mare body type (like Fleur de Lis) are some outliers. Stallions seem to have the more varied body types, with the average ones such as Braeburn, workhorses like Big Macintosh, or Clydesdales like Troubleshoes. There's no hard and fast rule for choosing body types, nor is there anything saying you have to choose just those. The eye shape is (for mares at least) the most prominent way of gleaning personality and character just at a glance. Here is an example of how eye shape is important:

 

 

just by looking at their eye shape alone you can tell how drastically these two ponies' personalities differ. Using the above as reference, look at the mane of both. Generally you want to think of something that isn't too crazy that can also convey personality. The blue mare above seems to have a somewhat proper, almost reserved mane style, while the peach colored one below has a much fuller, more voluptuous mane that almost seems a bit wild in a way. Again, there's no rule for mane styles, and it's mostly personal preference.

 

Color is a huge, huge part of making an OC. A bad color scheme can absolutely destroy it just as much as a shallow personality can.

Picking out a coat color usually comes first, as it's the basis for what other colors of your OC come afterwards (those being the mane, eyes, and outline if you're using show-styled artwork). For coat colors, you want pastel colors, different shades (adding black), tints (adding white), or tones (adding gray) of pure colors. It should never simply be a pure color, as those are generally reserved for accents or clothing.

Next comes the mane and tail. They should always match. There is no exception to this, and if there are, it does not look good. Mane color should not be the same as the coat color, and the mane color should be complimentary, or analogous. I haven't found a combination of highly contrasting colors that work, so I tend to stay away from them. It's also much easier on the eyes, and seems much more natural. As a rule, try and stick to one mane/tail color, two at the most. Three colors only complicates the design and makes it seem erratic and unfocused.

 

I would suggest reading up on some basic color theory, as it helps immensely when picking out a color scheme for your OC. 

 

 

Here is an example of a primary color used for an article of clothing on one of my OCs. Note that her clothing all use colors that are next to each other on a color wheel, and that the scheme of her clothes eventually bleeds into her color scheme further along on the color wheel.

 

 

Next comes the cutie mark. Please, don't take something hyper realistic and stick it onto a flank then call it a day, it's very jarring. The cutie mark should of course relate to the special talent of your character, that much is a given. But you may not know that most cutie marks only incorporate 2 to 3 colors in their design. More than 3 will complicate the design of the butt stamp, and end up looking like a weird blotch. Simple designs are best when it comes to cutie marks, but should be informative enough to give a rough idea of what a special talent might be. Unfortunately, I don't have any examples of cutie marks I've made to show here.

 

And finally, the name of your OC. usually this will coincide with their cutie mark, but this isn't always the case. Nobody can name your OC for you, of course, and it's personal preference. But from what I've seen and researched, most pony names range from 2 to 4 syllables in length. (Twi-light-Spar-kle. Ap-ple-jack. Pink-ie-Pie. Big-Mac-in-tosh. Brae-burn. Sun-set-Shim-mer. And so on and so forth.) Names in that syllabic length tend to roll off the tongue easier, and are more pleasing to the ear. Granted, I'm not the expert on the subject, so take it as you will.

 

Hopefully I've been of some help to you, and I hope I haven't needlessly complicated the process, but I love seeing well created OCs. If you need any further help, you can always ask me directly and I would be happy to lend a hand.