I Create Characters For A Living, But I’m Bad With Character Creators.

As the title of this blog says, I create characters for a living.  I’ve done so for a long time.  My most notable credits include a grumpy seer, a deformed sorceress, a crippled healer turned fantasy superhero turned rockstar bard, a talking cat, a few necromancers, a bunch of orcs, an assistant astronomer, a sharpshooter with a troubled past, and an ancient robot.  I can say with confidence that I’m good at making characters that people are interested in.

So you would think with a robust character creation system like the one available in SoulCalibur VI, I would be churning out interesting characters left and right!  Seriously, the amount of options available are insane.  The customization possibilities are like nothing I’ve ever seen.  You would think I’d be flooding my social media accounts with pictures of my clever creations.  But I haven’t, because I’m terrible with this thing.

I know it’s entirely different.  Creating a character for a story is all about making them interesting, and creating a character for a fighting game is all about making them interesting-looking.  When I sit down to create a character for a comic I’m working on, how they look is the last thing on my mind (unless it’s a vital part of their character arc).  It’s most important to focus on the character of the character, not how badass their hair or armor looks.  But, in video games, that is the most important thing.  And as much as I know the difference between the two… I wish I were better with Character Creators.  Seriously, I go for the simplest armor/weapon/hair combos imaginable and they’re boring as hell to anyone who isn’t me.

Looking around social media feeds at people who are very clever with the SoulCalibur VI Character Creator has me all kinds of jealous.  Seeing folks make convincing lookalikes of Bob Ross, Principal Skinner, and even Goofy has me marveling at their creativity.  It makes me wish my brain could take a look at all the options, configure them in a creative way, and enter my version of Ronald McDonald onto the stage of history.  But alas, the best I can do is Dude In Armor 3 and Dude In Purple Armor 4.

You can count on me to make a character interesting.  Just don’t count on me to make them especially interesting looking.