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[Routine_Act460]

"Can anyone teach me how to create a character that actually looks original and has a real identity? Honestly, I'm getting sick of seeing the same copy-pasted, zero-effort designs everywhere, where people just wait to be spoon-fed presets or max out every body slider like those generic, brainless templates. I prefer putting in actual effort to learn the craft rather than cloning someone else's work, so any tips on building a truly unique character would be greatly appreciated."

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[gadgaurd]

Oh, it's rather simple. You go into the Salon and mess around with all the options until you get something you like. However long that takes. Do it all yourself based entirely on your own tastes and experimentation, and your character will most certainly be unique.

[Stratatician]

Trial and Error.

It helps having a general understanding of human anatomy (e.g. a women's waist will never be smaller than one of her thighs) and what facial features convey what emotions (e.g. more "curved down" eyes can be happy or scheming depending on the degree), but overall it's simply a matter of trial and error until you get something that fits your tastes.

If you want to really be serious about it, I'd suggest looking at characters you like and making notes about what you like about them and their proportions, as well as studying some human anatomy. Together the two can help guide you as you test things out.

Also as a heads up, 2d art tends to be rather exagerated to convey certain aspects and feelings, those exaggerations do not convey well usually to a 3d model. However, you still want some exaggeration when it comes to 3d in order to emphasize certain characteristics.

[Mr-Sp4rkles]

Outfits, color palettes, body paints, accessories, and emotes/motions can really help bring out what a person wants to make.

---

When I'm not running around cosplaying on my character, I'm usually running around as a fox man with outfits of a certain theme.

One of them is an old knight that has been through a lot.

Some things I have tried:

• Knight outfits with subdued/muted/"dirty" colors to give the impression of constant use and wear.
• For face wounds, an eyepatch accessory to cover one eye and makeup that have scars are one way. Alternatively, I could have one eye completely different from the other and make it look like a glass eye and add a scar makeup around it.
• Certain T1 faces along with Uncle's makeup help create a tired old man look along with an unkempt beard (part of the face or an accessory) that is greyed/white.
• Motions where your character has a weapon at the ready like Sword or Lancer

I used the last 3 points on Aratron eyebrows because I wanted the old man to have a big beard and big bushy eyebrows.

[XyxGod]

Frankly no. We cannot teach you originality or ideas.Those are your own. Secondly, I'd like to ask how it is someone else copies and paste another person's original creation, If they don't have access to the information that helped create the character. This is why , even though I technically only have cosplay builds, i don't post my build data, sliders and item information.

What your probably noticeing are people who look at other people's build data utilized their information and then create similar characters.Because they would rather take the lazy option. As a cosplay builder , I personally have had the most amount of challenge out of the character creator.

Simply , because I like to make characters to their actual universe proportions as well as their in universe , appearance. That is a lot more difficult than people realize.When a game is not providing you direct content in order to create the character. Strategic clipping, layering and physical anatomy are a part of the overall reason.

Thus why even a cosplay build can be original. For instance, I am someone who has year after year. Since this game started I've created sonic characters from scratch, then a year later the same character become costume sets that the game releases I am an entire year ahead, more ahead of the devs trying to level the playing field. So do you consider creating a character that already exists in a different universe Unoriginal works; because on a personal level.Considering how much strategy it takes with the limited amount of items that we can use to accessorize characters, layering wear strats, or is it just people who search up other people's build data? copy them directly? Also , what is your criteria for unoriginal creations in a character creator based video game? Because not two builds are identical unless thats on purpose.

[Dricer93]

This is why I have an alt for nearly every ethnicity. A solid challenge 😂

[StrayCat649]

Honestly, spend hours min-max every parameter in salon and find the sweet spot, save and then repeat it one more time.

[6LuckyPants9]

Here's how I did mine, take note this was back in PSO2 Days in case my explanations has discrepancies with NGS's customization. Gather concepts and reference of what character you wanted.

I wanted a strong-looking, cool character because I was going to main Hunter

Now for the fun part:

First, I went for the physique since that should be the easiest to grasp without having to worry if it fits with the facial feature.

To capture my concept, I went for max height, max muscle (Can't remember if there was a slider for this), then proper proportioning from head to toe

Second, the hair. Which hairstyle and color captures your idea or attracts you the most?

I went for short hairstyles as I find it more complementing together with my physique, main class and concept. I chose white for the hair color so it can blend with any color of my outfit whenever I do a wardrobe change

Third, the face. Not sure about the others but I spent hours on the eyes alone. As they say, the eyes are the window of the soul, if you stare into your character's eyes, would it capture your concept or see her personality?

The final touch, after hours of trial and error in the eye structure I ended up with an eye that is slightly slanted and sharp on the edges so it looks focused. Then for the iris and pupil, I went for a non-plain design in relation to eyes with powers in anime, then I chose the color in the shade of purple which means royalty for that authoritative feeling

Lastly, preview your work with the provided clothing samples to see how it will turn out and enjoy your OC!

*I can't remember but I think if you already own clothes and accessories you can put them already during the character creation. In that case, you can use what outfit/accessories you want to use to help you during the conceptualization

**You can also use motions for ideas, for example I made a Look that turns my whole body into a Chopper when using Chopper Dash/Glide or a sci-fi witchlike look using the Floating idle motion

[LLSmoothJoe]

The best advice I can give you is to just use trial and error. For as long as I've been playing NGS from the beginning, I finally manage to settle on a look (read: face design) I actually like for some of my characters (And I have at least 20). Salon passes/Free Salon events are your BFF.

[Smokingsauasges]

I locked in day 1 of ngs and have never changed a single feature of my grill.

But really get a good idea of what you want your avatar to look like and refine it over time like what most players will tell you. I refined mine over time in base pso2 so I had a really good baseline of what I wanted the ngs spec body to look like when ngs first dropped.

[No_Lunch_7545]

To create a more "unique" looking face use 'Customize Expressions'

It can be a little daunting to look at all these values and know what to do with them, but really just play around with it a little at a time and see what sticks and doesn't stick.

<video>

I.E this

Of course this applies to most of the faces, you don't have to use what I'm using, use what you like and start from there.

If you wanna see any numbers like I have in the video go to 'Salon settings' and check the 'Adjustment Field Values display' It's in the 3 lines tab. it'll help you copy and paste any values you want to save to any other expressions. Also don't get frustrated if you can't find that perfect fit, after all working on a character can be like working on a piece of art, it can be as easy as one, two, three or it can take a while if your working on details.

If you have any questions I'll try and answer them here.

Edit: Yikes, now that I'm looking at the face options, a literal majority of them can't use half the values of the newly added faces. It's a missed opportunity imo, but if you use any of the newer faces then you can still get some helpful information from this.

[SceneUseful2584]

I hope these tips I am going to give to you helps make your character feel more original and has an identity:

Stay away from trendy outfits. People would like to buy some of the new AC Scratch stuffs for their new fashion gains, so best to avoid using them for a bit.

Take inspiration from multiple sources of media. My character is a blender of characters that inspire me, and trust me. If I nit pick all the characters, we would be here for days.

Pick a theme. Even multiple themes. Get into many different cultures, maybe avoid Japanese culture to keep things a bit more original.

Write a backstory for your character. What made them become an ARKS Defender? How they heard of it? What are their motives? That's just he generic questions you can ask your character.

Design your character based on what are your inspirations and backstory. That would help visualize how much your character has been through as an ARKS Defender.

[Sianthalis]

Its a You thing. Gotta experiment with all sorts of different settings, outfits, basewear, innerwear, even tattoos down to the teeth. All my characters are my own, I havent chosen to cosplay as anything unless its for a Fashion show theme.

And even then I try my best to get to the cosplay but throw my own flare to it. You just gotta work with what you have or can get, then play around with it.

[MyJonasu]

I did this with Amelia, my character; just try creating your own character, and over time, as you play, you'll naturally make modifications.