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Writer's pictureSamar

How to build the hero and villain for your manga


كيف تصمم شخصية البطل في المانجا | سمر ارت
build the hero and villain for your manga

Today I will explain to you how to build your hero character for your manga, which is a great way to determine the characteristics of your characters, and I will give you many examples that will help you inspire ideas customized for you, are you ready to start? let's go.


First you have to decide whether you will design a shounen manga, a slice of life, a shoujo, etc., in order to build the protagonists of the story on it.
  • adjectives:

First, we will begin to determine the gender of the character, be it male or female, and this is the easiest point, in addition to age, and then move to determine who will be? Is he the hero of the story or the villain?


If he was evil then he would be: tough-hearted, rigid, taciturn, but if he was a kind person, we would determine if he was nice, liked humor, and greedily eat.



If you want a step forward, give the characters asymmetric traits.


For example: Make the hero good when he is with people, but he is stingy and does not like to spend his money, even on himself, or he ransom with his soul every one with whom he loves, but on the other hand, he is a person who loves fraud and swindling others, so in this way I made him a realistic person, and not Angelic!




The same applies to the evil one, do not make him absolute evil, as it may not seem logical, you can reduce the severity of his evil by adding a very light touch of tenderness when he is in a certain situation, and this thing will be determined by your story and his own past.


For example: The evil one loves destruction and killing, but he cannot kill children.


Step away from the traditional style, and try to mix conflicting qualities in your manga heroes, this will make them unique.

  • The past:

Where did the hero of your story come from? Does his family still exist? Has he experienced a bitter crisis in the past or did he lead a decent life? You should not lose sight of these matters if you want to build a solid personality, because what he is now is a product of what happened to him in the past.


Examples: The hero lived in a simple house and his family was happy, until that mean neighbor came and killed his father because of debts, and from that moment on he had a cold personality, faded!


  • Features:

It is important that your manga character has pages that distinguish it from any manga or anime character that has passed before, it does not necessarily come with something unparalleled, but it is enough to have something of its own.


For example: He has superpowers such as mind reading when looking into someone's eyes for 10 seconds, or he is able to move through time using his subconscious mind and so on Go outside the box with your thoughts....





  • Weaknesses:

Whatever the strength of your hero, or villain, it is impossible to be free of defects, but the presence of weaknesses in the hero, will make him a balanced person, and even that the story will become more exciting and interesting, whenever the hero has weaknesses through which the enemy can overcome him in one of Seasons, you will be able to play on this chord, then the hero of your story will try to improve himself in order to confront his opponent, thus you will be able to build a very realistic character.

  • The look:

Here comes the creativity, you can move between web pages and illustrators in order to get inspiration, about how to draw your character, how you want to color her eyes and hair, and how long the character is as well, and it is important that your personality features are based on everything we mentioned previously.


For example: If you want to design the villain, see how his descriptions are, if he is of the secret type, then make his eyes soft, and if he is the type who loves gossip, draw a big smile on his life with eyes sinister.



Additional ideas:

You can make the hero suffer from an illness or disability in his hand or leg, or an injury due to an accident "Make it stand out and mentioned in the manga"

  1. Make him afraid of something, or that he has an animal phobia or that he feels anxious when approaching a certain group of people. "Without exaggeration, only when necessary."

  2. You can add things he likes, such as his favorite dish of food, his favorite movie, a manga he likes to read, or a series that he is following.

  3. Add a small goal within the larger goal of your manga hero, such as his desire to move to a new city, or his search for work, this will help a lot of ideas flow into the upcoming chapters.

  4. Not all manga characters have special qualities or superpowers, but rather add regular characters in order to create balance in your story.


These are the ideas that I brought to you, in order to create distinct personalities with a unique character, and there are more special explanations on the site, and I will work on providing the rest of the topics soon.


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