March 22, 2020

002: Finding the Soul Of a Character (Part 1 of 2)

1 hour 15 minutes

Before Mayke Entertainment, we were Arclight Comics! Tune into the re-release of The Arclight Podcast and get insightful tips, info, and advice on how we make comics. We shared everything we learned from 2009 to 2016. Learn how we branded our company, handled legal issues, character design, story development, and more!

Inside Episode 002: Your character’s soul is the makeup of their core beliefs, their values, what they stand for, and how all of that influences their decisions. Finding the soul is taking a stereotype or a trope and flipping it on its head to create a living, breathing, 3-dimensional character that can stand the test of time and provide your comic with stories for years to come.

Key Takeaways

Finding your character’s soul gives you the storytelling potential to keep that character in circulation for years to come.

Never build a character on your own bias or assumptions. Doing your due diligence and research opens your mind to new information. Information changes situations, and that’ll help you build characters outside of your own culture from a place of authenticity.

Tropes and stereotypes are lazy, cheap, and tell unoriginal and uninspiring stories that are flat. Discovering your character’s soul builds in that third dimension so your character has the depth you need to tell a wider range of original and inspiring stories through that character.

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