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The7thSea β 7S Character Design Tips
#character #design #dolphin #orca #tutorial
Published: 2014-08-31 19:49:31 +0000 UTC; Views: 3421; Favourites: 85; Downloads: 0
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Some tips for those of us who love to make characters, but aren't quite sure how to do it without covering them in crazy shit.Related content
Comments: 92
Nice!
Even though I never have designed an orca character this is handy to keep in mind
I love that bottom panel "Thanks for not making me a Mary Sue"
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THEY'RE GOOD TIPS TO KEEP IN MIND FOR DESIGNING PRETTY MUCH GENERALLY ANY KIND OF CHARACTER, IN ALL HONESTY. i mean, i do~ but people seem to have an EXTRA hard time with animal characters, and since i draw a lot of whales I thought I'd make the tips whale-themed~
THANK U
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I have made many Killer Whale OCs and only a few of them have crazy or stylish markings. The rest of them have maybe a few slits here and a couple spots there.
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people also have issues creating pokemon characters too.
for example umbreon is known for being easy to mess up.Β
for example umbreon ocs that I have seen will have rainbow wings, emo hair, are usually shiny, have tons of markings, more rings the usual, unnatural fur colors for umbreons,etc.Β
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yeah idfk. if a person's only way to make their character look recognisable is to slap rainbow hair and some piercings on it, they need to look into some more solid character design methods.
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Willy is like this orca, but male. AND HUGE. he'sΒ fav.me/d7rsi3b
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FREE WILLY 2: WILLY HARDER
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Omi thank you ; _ ;
These are really good tips hnng.
Like I'm 89% sure all my orcas are like being told apart by different markings and freckles and shiz. Β I feel like maybe I should work on having their bods look a bit different from each other and stuff.
But oh God the dolphins at the top of that picture are so jacked up. Β HUUUUUR LOOK AT MY DISPROPORTIONATE MUTANT FACE!
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DO IT MAN IT'S SO MUCH FUN
rofl i love that picture more than anything its so messed
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I'M GONNA!!!!!
I've been planning on making updated ref sheets anyways. Β Maybe I'll add some of that love to them.
Ikr?
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THIS is absolutely brilliant and fantastic, and exactly what the cetacean community (for as far as I know it on dA) needs. Like, if there was a way for me to make everyone who has ever made a cetacean character (including my 14-year-old self) read this by obligation, I totally would. Because damn you hit the nails on the head with this. ALL THE NAILS. Creating a character that is unique solely because he has some freckles on the left cheek or god forbid actually has glow-in-the-dark zig zag stripes running down his belly is very very unfortunate because it doesn't even make a character - it simply makes for a shiny bunch of lines slapped on a piece of (digital) paper. And even if all the background stories are left out, and we focus solely on the physical aspects, there is so much to cetacean variation it's a shame people have to resort to stars and neon colours to be able to tell their characters apart. I've been diving very extensively into Short-beaked common dolphins and Common bottlenose dolphins, and sifting through thousands of pictures of both species has made me so exited because I see all these little differences in body shape and colouration patterns and I JUST WANT TO DRAW ALL THE THINGS.
So bless you for this tutorial/tip thing. This is awesome. You are awesome. Amen.
PS: on a different note, Type D Antarctic killer whales are totally the best things ever. Those dorsal fins, damn you wouldn't believe it. I featured them on a killer whale ecotype distribution poster for their fins especially, and had a look through a dorsal fin ID database thingy for inspiration before drawing. They are so pointy it's hard to believe. Sickle shaped, yes, and sickle-pointy too! (Hot Damn) Dorsal Fins Β <- I mean, lookatthem. All three based on real individuals.
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AAAAAAAGH thank you so much ;__; You are kind of one of my favs so hearing this from you makes me feel extra fuzzy.
I live in the middle of the city in the middle of the land, so I don't often get to see wildlife, but when I do, or when I look at pictures and videos, the variation I see between individual animals is absolutely inspiring. So when I see people making cookie cutter animal characters, each with some different outlandish markings on it, I'm always like, NO, why would you do that. THERE IS SO MUCH WONDER IN THIS WORLD. Seeing it always makes me want to draw and draw, so I know what you mean.
And I don't even MIND crazy markings and stuff; they're all right if they make sense in context... and if they aren't blinding me. But the problem I have with them is that people only use them because they don't seem to know how else to make unique characters. Nine times out of ten they seem to be more like a crutch than a well-informed design choice. So I thought it would be nice to show people that they have alternatives~
And... them dorsal fins. Type Ds are SO WEIRD. I didn't know much about them before I started doing this, other than that they existed. I was looking at the photos and I was like "wait what are those their real fins. IS THAT A TRICK OF THE LIGHT BECAUSE IT CAN NOT BE REAL."
But it is real, and it's cool as hell.
THANK YOU FOR YOUR SUPER NICE COMMENT. 
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PPPFFGHHH shuddup you, you are one of myΒ favs. You were part of my cetacean childhood here on deviantArt, so seeing you up and active again and actually talking to youΒ (that would never have even entered my mind all those years ago) is making me all happy. I think it was back when the Zenith comic was still active that I came across, and silently admired, you and some others like Kameira, Atolm and Kurisutaru. It's just cool to see y'all around again, spreading awesome cetacean artsies.
ANYWHO back on topic, the first thing I thought of when you said 'cookie cutter animal' was the cookie-cutter shark and the pretty (although painful) scars they leave on phinnies. So, some confusion there, but I do totally agree with you. Such a shame people don't take the time to see all that's out there. Like you explained so well in this tut, people have trouble telling individuals of other species apart, even if the differences are most definitely there. I think that besides recognition (both on the creator's as well as the viewer's part), choosing outlandish markings also secures a certain amount of consistency when drawing the character. If someone's dolphin OC can only be told from another by the fact his rostrum is 'a little thinner than usual' and his mouthline forms a 'pensive smile' rather than a happy one, I guess it'd be much harder to assure those characteristics remain visible and consistent throughout multiple pieces. Whereas if he has a big 'ole shark tattoo on his shoulder, it's much easier to go 'LOOK THAT's SHARKBAIT RIGHT THERE' without having to pay paintstaking attention to e.g. face shape. Not that it's excusable, but at least somewhat understandable.
On that note, I do side with you on not disliking unnatural markings for the sake of it (although I am a big sucker for realism). In certain stories or self-made species that simply showcase such markings it's totally cool. But don't try and sell a 'regular' commerson's dolphin on me with a flipping inverted colour pattern because son, THAT DON'T HAPPEN
Urgh, D dorsal fins... and golden bottlenoses, and snowy white porpoises speckled in black, even white pilot whales, and melanistic dolphins with enough swirly markings and random colour patches to be someone's OC (and to drool over). Ah the things I've seen, the wonders that are out there. Endless! (damn I've got so many pictures of weird dolphins and I'm always so excited about them I NEED MORE PEOPLE TO TALK ABOUT DOLPHINS WITH so excuse me blabbing about them here)
YAY AND THANK YOU FOR YOUR NICE RESPONSE
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YOUR CHILDHOOD? man i always forget you're like 4 years younger than i am because your art kicks mine's ass. what are you going to be doing when you're my age.
kameira and I are one and the same :'D ahhh zenith. those were the days. that was such a shitty comic but it was so much fun to do, and the people were generally great. THAT'S WHY I CAME BACK, YOU KNOW, I wanted that sense of having an effect on people again. I missed everyone TERRIBLY. soon, I will make a story that is actually decent to read. ... I hope.
ah yes you are right. it probably is a lot easier to be consistent if instead of subtle markings, your character just has a line of text on the side that says 420 BLAZE IT and instead of having to look off a ref sheet every time to make sure the speckles are in the right places you can just whip out the text tool. in light of that it's almost tempting. but the bottom line is that if you want a good product, you gotta put all the work into it. (a wisdom that i sometimes disregard completely)
YES PRETTY MUCH. sometimes I see some rather nice outlandish fantasy designs, but in those you can tell that the artist still knows how to use shapes and colours because the character isnt just like *PLBBHHHTH* traced dolphin with neon rainbow stripes. it will actually have a unique silhouette and the colours will not just be tossed on to mess with your retinas.
for some reason inverted designs (white orca w/ black markings or whatever) bother the hell out of me and i dont even know why. I mean I'm sure it can be done well, but most of the times I see it I just feel like... it wasn't a very hard try.
dude if you ever get photos of cool dolphins and stuff you need to show me. i love looking at photos and I love weird animals.
MNEH
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Okay so this is really late but I just cannot not reply to this. Because damn the first thing I'd wanted to write back when I read your reply here was ARE YOU SHITTING ME. And I kinda still want to.Β Damn you were one of my heroes back then because of that Zenith comic. A very shallow basis on which to like someone, I know, but that's the way it was xd Your art was just so cool, and the whole story of Zenith so amazing, and I think I was most impressed with the fact YOU GOT SO MANY PAGES DONE. Anyway, I dunno man it's just cool to be able to talk to you now, and to know you re such a cool person. It's cool that you're cool, basically.
Also yeah maybe good to clear up: it wasn't my real childhood per se (I was like 12 or 13 when I joined this site) but it was definitely my 'deviantart childhood' - been a while since it started. (6 years where did the time go)Β I'm 131% positive that if/when you're going to bring a comic into the world again, it is going to be grand and it is going to be awesome. I for one will be sure to read every page of it and closely inspect every drawing/panel (unless I am dead or blind or otherwise incapable, but I hope you'll forgive me then).
"...Β instead of having to look off a ref sheet every time to make sure the speckles are in the right places you can just whip out the text tool. in light of that it's almost tempting. but the bottom line is that if you want a good product, you gotta put all the work into it." I just quoted you there because 1) you're very right but 2) there's a flip side as well. At least for me there is. Not sure if this is going a little off-side, but I'd like to add that putting a lot of work into it (with 'it' being a detailed character and attention to keeping those details consistent) can not constitute quality work done on the painting itself. It's a pitfall I've seen the bottom of many many times, and still often do: somehow there's this feeling that if I just put enough detail into a piece, if I justΒ get those little spots exactly as they come on the ref sheet, that then somehow my painting will be good as well. Which, sadly, is not the case at all. I dunno if that's a familiar feeling, but maybe worth sharing nonetheless.
also I am totally going to bombard you with photos of odd dolphins at times when you least expect it.
NYES
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namu ;___; this feels so weird because i've been regarding you enviously/admiringly for ages now. LIKE I'D ALWAYS BE SEEING YOUR SHIT AROUND ON dA and being like "fuck. FUCK. it's namu. her shit's boss, why can't my shit be boss. SHE BOSS." so I guess it turned out that we had secret crushes on each other the whole time rofl
HAHA OH man stop it ur makin me blush. Dude I still love zenith, it helped me with my art so much, especially when people tore it apart in fits of rage and it motivated me to get better. AND I'M GLAD YOU LOVE IT. but i feel that i've improved enough i can blow its ass out of the water. after all, zenith was not something i put effort into from the start, it was just a random thing i started doing on a whim. Like literally I'd finish one page and then start planning the next one. SO IT WAS NOT VERY WELL THOUGHT OUT ROFL, if I knew it would have a following of its own I'd have really put more muscle into it.
THIS TIME I AM NOT GOING TO MAKE THE SAME MISTAKES. no... i am going to make different mistakes. AND YOU GET TO WATCH
plus, aw man don't worry about it. No one is shittier at keeping stuff consistent than I am. I'M JUST FUCKING BAD AT IT AND I DON'T EVEN KNOW WHY. but sometimes for stuff like a painting, what really matters is that it gets the point across and not that all the little details are in exactly the right place. I'm going to have to learn this in an especially hard way, because when you're doing a comic, you can't spent 500 hours agonising over the details in one panel when you have like, eight thousand other panels to do. And you have to make sure all the characters are recognisable while doing it ;__; HALP
do it betch
hug war
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ahhh noO stop now you're makin me blush. BUT YES NOW WE BOTH KNOW WE THINK THE OTHER'S STUFF IS BOSS. CAUSE YOUR STUFF IS BOSS TOO. "the story of two people who didn't know they had an internet crush on each other and both thought their love was unrequited - but who still found each other after years". I feel this should be a modern Shakespearean drama lol
drawing one page before planning the next totally sounds like something I would do - though perhaps not something that's in the best interest of a comic's long term survival. I SHALL ADD IT TO THE LIST OF 'THINGS TO BEWARE OF IN CASE I EVER DO START A COMIC OF MY OWN' THANKS. yesss you go and make some new mistakes I SHALL BE WATCHING
"you can't spent 500 hours agonising over the details in one panel when you have like, eight thousand other panels to do" and neither can you spend 500 hours agonising over the details in one square pixel of a painting when there's thousends of other square pixels out there. CONCLUSION: DRAWING COMICS ARE A FORM OF ART THERAPY
already done betch
YESS
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WE SHOULD HAVE OUR OWN TV SERIES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
YEAH IT TURNS OUT THAT WHEN YOU MAKE A COMIC YOU ACTUALLY WANT TO PLAN OUT EVERYTHING BEFOREHAND. with zenith i did actually start to do storyboards but it was only around page 40-something, when i got serious about wanting to improve (some people on another site ripped it apart with SCATHING REVIEWS and i was like D: THEYRE RIGHT. I CAN DO BETTER~). but it TURNS OUT THAT WHEN YOU PLAN OUT THE WHOLE STORY BEFOREHAND, THE ENTIRE THING COMES OUT MORE STABLE AND TOGETHER. WHO WOULD HAVE THOUGHT.
right now im on the first draft but i have been churning out storyboards like a MOTHERFUCKER. and then after that I'll have to go through them and weed out all the shitty bits and make sure everything is tied in nicely. THEN AFTER THAT I'LL HAVE TO SKETCH OUT THE PAGES. AND THEN AFTER THAT I CAN DO THE PAGES FOR REAL. then i'm going to try to finish the whole thing before i poast... so... it might be a while :'D
BUT YAS. YOU AND I. WILL BE ART THERAPY. TOGETHERΒ
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YESSSS
oh my who would have possibly thought that thorough planning ACTUALLY BENEFITS A STORY
we learn so much here it is fantastic
ahh drafts and storyboards and weeding and sketching and lining and colouring - NOW I REMEMBER WHY I NEVER HAD THE HEART TO MAKE A REAL COMIC THNKS
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DO IT MAN. I'LL HELP
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MAYBE WHEN THERE IS TIME
SOME DAY
YES
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I am somewhat guilty of drawing generic orca faces. Though I have been giving my dolphins (all two of 'em) some more definitive and identifiable features.
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The only thing you can do is practice. for ever.
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I love it! : )Β I agree I see this a great deal.
Just adding speckles and spots is not going to make a unique character. Fin shape, face shape, and eyes help the character.
For example, a wide eyed character might be a little more social, humorous, younger, energetic versus a character who has mysterious eyes to represent - whatever one wants.
When I re-launched my original species, Cappuccino Killer Whales, not only did I change their name from the original (Antarctic Killer Whales) but I changed the anatomy depending on the variant adopted. I feel it not only works with the lore, but it makes them interesting, too. : )
Hopefully people will take a lesson from this and do something great! Or maybe they're just playing around and want their own characters because they're adopt hoarders. ; )
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Y'ALL KNOW WHATS UP
I actually quite like your cappies, I thought they might have been a real thing at first that I just didn't know about. I prefer it to someone putting a large glowing symbol on a whale and calling it a new species, or whatever the kids are doing these days.
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I understand. You mean like glitter critters? I know and people are very sensitive about their OCs - but they also have to be willing to accept opinions, too. Atleast it has to do with the integrity of their work and isn't an outright insult. I think this chart is going to be very helpful to those who are willing to improve and have the initiative to change. : )
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It's really up to people whether or not they want to improve~ Like I said, I have no problem with "glitter critters" (im using that now) but when people use bizarre sparkles and spikes as the only way to distinguish characters, it is so detrimental to their ability. Not to mention that I've seen a lot of them that are just kinda... well, ugly. If you want to draw sparkle animals, you should at least incorporate a few rules of design. That's why I hope that going back to the basics will help people.
I went through the sparkle phase too, so I'm just recording the things I learned through experience so other people have some guidance D: PEOPLE AIN'T NEED TO GET MAD
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I guess I should stop drawing the stupid, terrible, insult-to-the-community dolphins I made up when I was 8 years old, if they're really that upsetting.
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This is a resource for people who want to try new things, not a rule. I said a thousand times that crazy markings were valid if not used as a crutch, and I think you can draw well enough not to need that, so there's no reason to get your feathers ruffled, is there?
I am somewhat mystified that you got "stupid," "terrible," "insulting" and "upsetting" from this when all I said is that people sometimes use crazy markings to make a character unique instead of using other, more solid methods and that crazy markings weren't even a bad thing.
So where did this come from? Of all the people who I suspected this might upset, I did absolutely not expect you to be one of them.
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You know what, I'm just not really in my right mind today, and I think it hit me very personally when it probably shouldn't have. I apologize for what I said, it was childish. I do agree with a lot of what you wrote - face shapes, silhouettes, and most importantly actual personality and characterization, are all obviously necessary. I guess it just hits close to home when people associate bright colors/silly markings with vapid characters. I feel like a lot of things get blown off as 'amateurish' because they aren't realistic enough. Sort of like how some people insist that cartoons aren't art, I guess.
I've struggled within the Ecco/cetacean community for most of my life (leading to several long-term breaks) because I felt like nobody took me seriously (or told me I was bad, or unwelcome), because of the way I prefer to draw. Can I render a realistic dolphin? of course I can - but do I want to? No, Β it's not fun for me, so it's not what I do. I get very disheartened when I see realism praised while the exaggerated, unnatural, psychedelic, or 'outsider' scenes languish - not just in this community, but in others, too.
Anyway, that's the thought process behind what I said, and again I apologize for spewing on your page, it was really both unnecessary and unpleasant. I lost my cool and it wasn't your fault - it just touched a nerve when I was already feeling weak.
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I'm sorry love, you don't need to worry about it at all.
I think people have a right to draw whatever they want! Realism does not automatically make something better, because reality is kind of shitty sometimes. If someone wants to slather a character in rainbow markings, that is totally their prerogative. These tips are only a tool to allow people to explore other methods of character design and strengthen their skills, so that if they do make use of crazy markings, it will be much more effective! If awesome fantasy shit is what's fun for you, do it, and I will totally support you in it.
The Ecco/cetacean community can totally be kind of a bitch at times, so I understand how you feel. This account is my own return from a long-term break, after I was hurt by people and gave up. But I took a little time to work on other things and grow as a person, and now I feel that I'm strong enough to return to the community. Because I do miss the good parts, and while I'm not fond of the bad parts, I'd like to try my hand at leading by example. So here I am~
You don't ever have to feel unwelcome here, no matter how you like to draw. I don't want you to feel like your art is stupid or terrible or any of those nasty things. I actually really liked your art a lot back on CoH and it was part of what inspired me to do my own. I only recently found you again on dA and I was showing everyone like "OH MAN DO YOU REMEMBER DELPH I JUST FOUND THEM AGAIN LOOK THEY STILL HAVE THEIR DOLPHIN CHARACTER BUT THEY MADE IT ALL NEW AND SHIT" and it was so exciting.
And if things are bothering you, you can always come and talk to me about it if you need someone to lean on. Either way, I hope you feel much better soon.
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I hope lots of people see this and follow the advice. XD
Thanks for making this, it really is quite helpful. ;u;
I usually do my best to make my OCs look realistic... especially oceanic dolphins, 'cause they fascinate me. I still have a lot to learn... but I constantly look through books and online searches to find out more about various different species, both their appearance and behavior and other stuff. I've been overly ambitiously trying to make some sort of mostly-realistic novel about dolphins, decided I'd try to get better at drawing so I could make good illustrations like it... or maybe even make it a graphic novel... Every individual real-life animal is unique-looking and beautiful in its own way, if only one looks hard enough at enough photos of the species... I hope at least a few more people will start noticing that... I like seeing OCs that are realistic enough to seem like they could actually exist in real life... ;o;
When/if you do make a guide about developing the character's personality and story, I think that would probably be quite helpful too... I do my best to avoid making my OCs mary/gary sues, but I do sometimes have a hard time developing different enough personalities and stories for 'em... I've been trying to make at least one OC of each dolphin species in the north pacific ocean, 'cause I'm fascinated by their interspecies interactions, but it gets difficult for said reasons...
Also, incidentally, I've seen pics of the D type orcas before, and ohgoshtheyreallyarehilariouslooking... XD
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Thank you, I'm glad it's helpful to you~! If even just one person listens and is helped by it, that makes me happy. I love storytelling and characters, and I love to see people improve, so I will continue to offer up the things I've learned so they can hopefully help other people too.
Character design is by no means easy for most people, and acting is even harder. And there is a lot of acting you need to do when you write for a character, even if it's just a dolphin or something. It's hard work and difficult to grasp, so I hope I can make a guide that helps to explain it for people. Because it really is a fascinating subject~
And type Ds are totally awesome. They're so dorfy but they're so fun to look at.
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I can see what you mean by 'crazy characters'. Some are over the top. My orca, Blaze, has small red tips making her a bit weird. But for her silhouette, she has a straight dorsal. And her red markings glow in the distance. Other then that, she's quite a normal orca.
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I don't mind a few conservative fantasy markings~ No harm in it after all, but in character design it's very important that the character is recognisable by only its shape, and a lot of people disregard that which I find disappointing. As far as I'm concerned, as long as you know how to give your characters unique shapes, then you have license to slap whatever the hell you want on them.
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Yea, VERY understandable. I know how some people just make characters the exact same shape as another. Its confusing.
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Thank you for making this, it's awesome. I prefer realistic markings myself (although I will confess a love for the Cappuccino Orcas), and don't like my characters to look too complicated with strange markings - particularly geometric shapes or anything else that doesn't look like it could occur naturally on a real animal. Most of my characters get the odd small fleck or spot, but those seem to be remarkably common on real cetaceans. I do like to draw each of my character refs as a brand new image, no reusing templates for me - so each one comes out with his/her own unique silhouette. They don't have much personality yet... I want to get a whole pod together and work out what I'm going to do with them, and their personalities will develop from there.
With your note about how humans just aren't very good at spotting the differences between animals that superficially look the same, it rather puts me in mind of my parents dogs. They used to breed Great Danes. Fawn Great Danes. So each and every one was golden brown in colour with a dark mask and light undersides. And people used to say "how do you tell them apart?", but the thing is, when you spent time with them, you could see the differences between individuals. It'd be in the general build, length of muzzle, the way they held their ears. These days, even 15 years later, I still occasionally come across someone out walking a Great Dane who I KNOW is the grand-child or great-grandchild or great-great-grandchild of my parents' breeding line, because there'll be these little things I recognise...
I suppose the point, really, is that when you care about something, be it orcas or dogs or wolves or any other animal, you start to see those subtle differences between individuals. And it's those little details that are so much more important than colours and markings.
I also adore the irony of your use of that photo of bottlenose dolphins to display the variation between animals, as I'm... 95% certain there's only 3 or 4 unique animals there, and the others are Photoshopped in, using copied, manipulated and transformed versions and/or composites of the 3 or 4 'real' dolphins. XD
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Totally. Once you look at the animals enough you start to be able to tell them apart. I used to have zebra fish and I was able to tell them apart right away, because I spent so much time looking after them. People are programmed to be better at that with other people... although I'm still pretty bad with the faces of people I just met, so go figure.
I also adore the irony of your use of that photo of bottlenose dolphins to display the variation between animals, as I'm... 95% certain there's only 3 or 4 unique animals there, and the others are Photoshopped in, using copied, manipulated and transformed versions and/or composites of the 3 or 4 'real' dolphins. XDI'm 100 percent certain because there are only 3 faces. I thought it was hilarious because there was no variation between them at all, so it probably looks like how most people just see random dolphins, all the same. I also love that picture because whoever cranked it out totally fucked up the dude near the top. Look at him. HURRRRRR
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I'm pretty bad with faces of people too. I need to see someone several times to remember what they look like, and at least a couple times a year after that to keep remembering.
I love that totally messed up dolphin near the top! He just looks so special and derpy! XD
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i have to draw him
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You totally do. I would love to see that XD
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After IΒ΄ve read this I guess IΒ΄m at the border between natural and too *speshul* cetecean characters with my own buddies. 
Since some deviants like came to the community IΒ΄ve learned that there are so much more possibilities without put too much stuff on the character. And I really enjoy to look at simple characters with very small unique markings.
I donΒ΄t get either why someone has to put clouds and hearts on a character...
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i think if you want to put clouds and hearts on your character, go and do it if you want, but first you should actually LEARN how to get by WITHOUT those things. and when you do learn, if you're anything like me, you'll never go back to using clouds and hearts anyway because you are capable of so much more.
CHARACTER DESIGN WHEEEEEE
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