Tips And Tricks On How To Make Good Fan Characters!

lesson three: all about fanchildren!

Aw....you have a ship you really really like and you want to design what their baby looks like! That's so sweet! Just don't think about the details too much....and i'm not talking character designs ;)))))

*clears throat * annnnyyyyways, here's a couple tips and tricks on how to design a good fan character! Let's begin!

For starters, let's take into consideration how human genetics work in real life: more often than not, darker colors (such as black hair or brown eyes) are the more dominant trait meanwhile lighter colors (such as blonde hair or blue eyes) are more recessive! So for example: if one parent has blonde hair and brown eyes while the other has brown hair and green eyes, their child would probably have brown hair and brown eyes! Of course, there ARE exceptions! For example my grandma has brown eyes and had brown/black hair when she was younger while both my mom AND myself have brown hair and blue eyes!

Of course, genetics can be different depending on the universe the characters come from (especially when characters are able to have naturally unnatural colors such as green hair or orange eyes) so i would recommend you do your own research on how genetics work in that universe, maybe look at a character next to their parents and see which parts the child takes after them

Now let's get onto the actual design tips, i will be using rainbow dash and princess luna from MLP as a ship example because from my experience, making fanchild OCs is more popular in the MLP fandom than it is for other fandoms!

Whenever i see people make fanchild OCs, i notice that a lot of people just mix together the parents' colors together and fuse the characters' hairstyles together and make THAT the design and i personally believe that when doing that, it more often than not ends up making the character look really muddy and uninteresting, sometimes even just looking like a fusion between the two characters and not like their child! (However, i DO recommend color-mixing if you're creating a character who's parents are both humans with natural color palettes considering the fact that sometimes skin tone and such CAN be a mix between the parents IRL)

However, there ARE ways you can mix colors and make it look appealing. Though i recommend that if you're gonna mix colors, be sure to do it sparingly and to add in some of your own colors just to add some interest

My advice is to basically make your fanchild their own character while still having some resemblence to their parents. Also remember that there are times when children usually look more like ONE parent than the other and sometimes children take after both, hell...some children even take after other family members BESIDES the parents (for example: i've been told that i look just like my grandma's sister when she was alive)

It's also important to note that a lot of children have completely different personalities than their parents so i think it's important to show that in their design as well, see lesson one if you'd like to know more about how to do that!

Another thing to make note of is to name the character what you think the PARENTS would name their kid, for example: if a character has a very bold and daring personality, name the child something fun and uncommon! If a character is more calm and collected, name the child something more elegant and pretty! Though there are times when that isn't the case at all and that's fine too!

However, there are times where you CAN make a fanchild that looks COMPLETELY different than the parents! Like for example: maybe the child is adopted or maybe it was conceived in a uhhh.....different way than the norm (like it was created via magic or sumn?)

Not only that but some other advice i could give is that sometimes it's important to take into consideration where the child was born and what the parents are like, because if it was born in a post-apocalyptic version of the real world and the parents are explorers for example: there's a chance that unless the parents were EXTREMELY careful, the child might have a couple birth defects so it's important to keep that in mind

Let's see one of my OWN fanchild OCs to show you how I personally do it (this TOTALLY isn't an excuse to show off my OCs, what are you talking about?)

This is my deltarune fan character, sprite dreemurr and she is a fanchild of kris and ralsei

As you can see, the two parents' genes are split 50/50, with sprite having ralsei's white and pink fur/hair and a couple monster bits while still having a somewhat human appearance like what kris has. Sprite carries the recessive genes (in her case being the white fur) though if you look closely, you could see that her hair is actually off-white, calling back to the fact that kris has brown hair.

While toby fox, temmie chang and all the other character designers for deltarune don't use gradients in their designs; i gave sprite that gradient in her hair because whenever i draw ralsei and the other boss monsters from undertale/deltarune, i put a gradient on their ears to help separate them from the rest of the head, it's become like a design headcanon i have!

The reason why i chose the name "sprite" is because it has been shown in the game's canon that kris is rather mischevious and i'd imagine that they named sprite after the actual "sprite" drink as a joke and ralsei, not knowing what that is considering he lives in the dark world, thought they meant "sprite" as in the mythological fairy things

If you've read lesson one, you would know that i have a little nightmares OC named rue who is a monix fanchild! Now the reason why i named the kid "rue" doesn't really have anything to do with the parents' personalities (mainly because since they barely ever talk other than saying "hey" to each other, i can't really tell WHAT their personalities even are!) But "rue" is indirectly based on the flower with the same name, while i didn't choose the name as a reference to the rue flower (hell, i literally learned that type of flower exists AFTER i created the character!) I'd like to think that it has some meaning as the flower is seen a lot in nature while rue (the character) lives in the woods with his parents (and ironically enough, when i did research on the flower, it said that they're good for your eyesight and were used for abortions back in the day.....rue is half blind and also the child of two canon characters in the game he's an FC for...)