Tips on Writing Characters Without Faces

so yeah, we all know that facial expressions can tell us a lot about how a character is feeling, but what if that isn’t an option? how can you make someone emote if they don’t really have standard facial features? the answer; body language.

let’s consider how emotions are conveyed on a stage production vs movie with Sweeney Todd. First, the stage play:

Note how Todd’s entire upper body goes into his gestures, how he’s single-mindedly focused on his dreams and ideals; how his hands GRAB for each imaginary ‘man’ with these sharp, aggressive, destructive movements and how that contrasts with Mrs. Lovett’s body language; how her hands linger in the air and gravitate towards Todd even after he’s pulled away, and the slow turn she gives him. It does an excellent, though exaggerated, way of conveying their relationship (her focus is on him and making him happy, his focus is entirely on revenge)

Contrast this to the movie:

Same lines in the song, much more subtle. Lovett’s eyes still track towards Todds, which reminds us she’s still more focused on the outside, but all of the emotion is in their faces. Were this not a close-up shot in a movie it’d be very, very hard to read their expressions.

While I do recommend you watch a few stage plays (in person near the back row if you can) to actually study body language for yourself or try out charades with your face covered with friends/watch how cosplayers or mascots emote, here’s a few shorthands to get you started (US-centric so expressions may vary on your region):

Head:

Hands

Arms

Legs

Whole Body:

with those in mind, let’s read this scene from Red vs Blue (a personal fav of mine for body language) featuring agent texas from season 8.

So first of all, very relaxed upper body; limp arms held away from the body, which slowly come back to rest on her hips as she looks at what she’s done. Watch how her lean shifts at the end as her center of gravity shifts, and how she has to move her right leg to restabilize herself when she’s finished pushing it. This reads, in order from the start of the loop; detachment (the least amount of her body is involved in the action as possible), relaxation (smooth movements, the deliberation of those little steps backwards) and confidence (hands on hips.) We can tell a ton about this character just in this gif alone, based on her body language.

in summary! this list isn’t exhaustive, but hopefully it gives you some ideas for ways of making characters emote in fics when you can’t see their faces.

Necromancy - Submitted by Kinokochouchou

#96c3b0 #649888 #303225 #17231c #3b5746 

📝 The Writer’s Retreat 

(image source)

Handwritten Note-Taking Methods

The appearance and organization of my notes plays a huge role in the amount of time that I dedicate to studying and my overall performance on tests.  Therefore, I’ve spent the past several years experimenting with various methods, and these are a few of the techniques that I’ve found to be most beneficial.

Cornell Method

The Cornell Method emphasizes identifying the key points of a textbook passage or lecture and consolidating information as much as possible.  

I’ve found that this style works best for literature and science courses that require extensive, dense reading and note-taking.  It allows me to easily and quickly identify what I understand versus what I still need to work on.

Adapted Cornell Method

I’ve created my own adaptation of the Cornell Method by eliminating the summary section at the bottom of the page and incorporating Post-It notes throughout the body of the page to highlight lists and key points.  And, of course, I had to add some color!

Outline

This is, by far, my favorite method due to its flexibility and clean, minimalist appearance.  While the image above doesn’t depict a true series of bullets at varying levels of indentation, you can experiment with different types of bullet points as well as varying spacing.  

I prefer using this method for maths because it allows sufficient space for me to draw graphs, record examples, and solve problems.  

Mind-Maps

Mind-maps are extremely helpful for organizing complex or extremely confusing topics.  There’s no right or wrong way to go about drawing one, and much of the final appearance will be related to the material that you’re diagramming.  Keep in mind that certain topics and information will more readily lend itself to this sort of portrayal.

For those of us who aren’t artistically talented 🙋🏼, these can be rather challenging to construct, especially when working with unfamiliar material.  In the past, I’ve used mind-maps for history when looking at isolated events or individuals.

OK to make a font out of your own writing

go here

http://www.myscriptfont.com/

instead of printing it off just use this blank thing that way you dont have to scan it or anything

so fill that out by pasting it in any art program and whatnot

then save it and upload it to that site

and itll give you an option to download it

so do that and then install it BAM

I JUST GOT THIS ON MY TABLET IT’S SO COOL OH MY GOD

for some reason it refused to recognize the third page of my letters but they were all pretty unnecessary mathematic things anyway so I’m not too worried. still something to keep in mind though, I hope it doesn’t happen for you!

paintfont.com would be a good place to go to quickly make a custom font for your comic!

ehh

It looks just as horrible in real life..even worse with the letter attached…

I’ll try this later.

you can also use alternative alphabets

Welp. Guess I know what font I’m gonna be using for comics from now on. B)

Welp. Looks like I have to do this now. So I can use this for Tengri’s asks.

For some reason there is no apostrophe in my set, but it still looks cool.

NEAT THING ALERT

The site is now called https://www.calligraphr.com/en/ but it’s basically the same!

the suffering never ends

This is the real process

Resources for you!

Character Ideas:

Character Design Ideas:

Naming Help:

Creating Background/backstory:

Character Interactions and putting your character into your world/story:

Bonus art masterlist!

BLESS EVERYONE IN THIS POST.

A ‘Handy’ Tool Row 1 & 2 Row 3 Row 4 & 5(Left) Row 5(Right) Bottom Image