Basics of OC Creation!

With a Side of Fashion Design

This is a soft girl OC from dolldivine. I wanted to highlight the importance of an appropriate outfit, and this seemed like the perfect one to do the job. **I don't own the art in this image!**

Outfit Design + Clothing
    Alright! We finally did it. We made it to what is quite possibly my favorite part of character design - outfit design. So...you may be wondering something along the lines of this:

"How do I do this? I'm not a fashion designer."
"Shouldn't I just look for one online?"
"Is it really  that important?"

In my experience, I've found that your personal fashion tastes of design abilities really have nothing to do with whatever you chose for your OC. Like most categories, there are several categories to consider, and they coincidentally all start with the letter "p".

Personality - How does your OC's outfit represent their personality? Why do they wear the things they do?
Practicality - How does your OC's outfit merge with their world?
Popularity - Does your OC follow fashion trends? Is their outfit something that their peers would consider "cool?

Personality
    Yep. There it is. Probably the most important part of the outfit. Like us, your OC's outfit should be an expression of their personality. A good example of this is the outfit design from the movie "Encanto". For example, the character Camillo is a shapeshifter, and on his ruana, there are white chameleons to represent not only his gift, but a play on his name. One of the less obvious allusions in Encanto is Augustin's suit, complete with a flower in the pocket to represent one of his daughters, and socks with different embroidery to represent his two other daughters. His suit also represents his somewhat sophisticated personality, and his lack of a ruana, guayabera, or other traditional clothing set him apart from the rest of this family.
    Additionally, a character's clothing might be used as a message to others, like a pride shirt or a saying from a fandom. This can be meant to represent their personality, or can just be for fun.

Practicality
    This one is equally important. This really comes down to where your character lives, and what they have to do there. Obviously, you wouldn't wear a ball gown into a forest filled with briars and mud, so neither should your OC, unless your character was chased form a ball or some special circumstance like that. Additionally, your OC's hobbies should somewhat influence their outfit, like if your OC is a person who does a lot of running, they will probably want to be comfortable. It just depends.

Popularity
    This is probably the least important category, but it does play somewhat of a role in character development (it wouldn't be on here if it didn't.). If your OC has been made fun of all their life, their clothes probably won't line up with what their peers think is acceptable. However, if they are perceived as really cool, awesome, etc., you will probably want to give them more socially accepted clothing, or at least less so than a person who isn't considered to be cool.

If you need more inspo, feel free to reach out to me, as I have some experience with designing outfits for OCs!

Thanks for reading! Next time, we will delve deeper into the backstory of an OC and why it's so important!