How to Make UNLikable Characters

human beings all throughout time and space all unique individuals each with a propensity to get on your nerves sure sometimes the reason we don't personally get along with someone is just a personality difference and the same can be said of characters there's some that other people love that we just can't stand it stands especially with something like a comic relief character or even a comedian some might find someone funny others annoying for me i just don't like mushrooms for instance no matter how well a master chef prepares them i also don't have any interest in golf no matter how good the player is unless it's maybe like mario golf there's some universal things though that can really repel us from liking a character take this video either as a guide for what not to do or try and create some truly repulsive or unlikable characters on purpose we're focusing primarily on storytelling but since this is a character design centric channel a lot of these things are visual things that art and design can make or break when we talk about making likeable characters our go-to factor that a lot of beginners neglect is to actually give your characters flaws the thinking might be that a flawless character becomes super cool and awesome and the best but that actually backfires in most cases and creates an unrealistic person that we as flawed individuals can't possibly relate to if your goal is to make a character unlikable though making everything easy for them or having them navigate every situation perfectly letting them gain everything that they ever wanted without earning it or making it so no one ever dislikes them is like turning the cheats on in a video game in stories these characters make things uninteresting and watching them do everything flawlessly will almost always get on our nerves eventually there are some almost omnipotent characters who are 95 this way but with some sort of vital flaw or trade-off that makes for an interesting story a lot of folks will call superman boring for being too invincible but some great superman stories have still been told part of the reason why a flawless character comes off especially repulsive is because it rings up an amateurish wish fulfillment on the part of the creator or there's something too good to be true that the character has to hide one quality tied eternally to our imperfection is humility the recognition that we are not perfect and we need to continuously learn a character that never does anything wrong almost feels like looking through the eyes of this narcissistic fevered dream it's like being perfect means never having the ability to say sorry it means having a physiological incapability to say sorry no you're wrong speaking of learning and growing that's the core thing that happens in a character arc a character moving externally from point a to point b is not an arc but a character changing from a place of anger to a place of acceptance or from a point of acting pompous to a point of being humble that's a character arc internal growth or in the opposite case erosion or descent i remember a very forgettable movie when i was a teenager called vantage point the conceit of the movie was that you were seeing the same things through the eyes of a couple of different people it's an interesting concept but spoilers for the end of vantage point but the whole thing just resolves with dennis quaid saving the president's life and that's actually it it's a completely external goal no characters were going through anything or changing an attempt on someone's life was thwarted and that was it and dennis is over there with triumphant music swelling acting like we've reached some kind of catharsis saying the president's safe i i saved him or something like that but there was just as much emotional payoff in the theater employee sweeping popcorn up as the credits rolled something happens though when stories go on for long enough especially in something like a television series with lots of seasons characters will go through a struggle experience an amount of growth and emerge seemingly changed then another challenge comes up an echo of sorts of something that they've been through before how will they react well in some cases guess what they're back to square one again ready to make the same mistakes but in the end emerge a better person until it all starts over again and we're back at the beginning leaving us to ask when are you going to learn this lesson old man a character that seems to go through the same arc over and over kind of defeats the idea of change it creates the illusion of development but leaves us with a character that's actually quite static this is different than a character that has a flaw we aren't upset that a villain continues to be a villain or an insecure person continues to be insecure despite the fact that a villain is doing wrong and the insecurity is a personality trait the storytelling in this case puts our arcing character into the protagonist's driver's seat and makes a sort of promise that this is going somewhere instead the wheel is turned all the way left and they're going in circles they're left complaining about the same thing or acting in the same selfish way they have before and it becomes harder for us to identify with a universal struggle that they're going through and instead we start to get frustrated with them personally sort of like a friend who has a sob story about how they just need to borrow five dollars this one time because it's so important and then next week they just need to borrow five dollars this one time because it's so important and next week they just need it's frustrating the emotional impact of this sob story lessens over time and even leaves you wondering how genuine it is kind of like hearing a story or joke being told for a second time by the same person speaking of being selfish this is one of the defining qualities of protagonists and antagonists it's what makes them inherently good or bad as far as the story is concerned now some amount of selfishness is simply self-preservation or aspiration your character can feed themselves dream of something bigger pine for someone or even start a story in a selfish place eventually though we want to see a hero do something for someone other than themselves especially if it comes at a great cost for them on the other hand an efficient shorthand that stories use to establish that a villain is a villain is to showcase them causing harm or stealing from someone else to benefit themselves perhaps without remorse or care now in both of these cases it's a barometer to show where these characters stand and zoom out to look at what the story is saying in basic terms its message or its viewpoint most stories that have an ending that feels good are accompanied by selfless success now some people do enjoy stories about an anti-hero where someone selfish is in the protagonist seat but in a lot of the cases where we're rooting for a likable protagonist it's going to be selflessness versus selfishness the greater good tends to win out in some way instead of one individual taking advantage of everyone else to their detriment that usually ends up feeling a little bit cynical and yet one of the fastest ways to get an unlikable character is to plug a selfish self-absorbed center of the universe character into the hero role and pretend that they really deserve this good outcome do you ever find yourself asking why do the other characters around the protagonist care so much about helping them why is their relationship so one-sided does a feeling of triumph at the end of the story actually kind of feel hollow did the hero give in to anger and rage and like maybe kill a whole lot of people to reach their goal now some of this does come down to the execution and individual's preference but usually it's a case of the protagonist just not measuring up the resolution of actions like that more often lead toward a tragic ending and when a happy one happens instead it's like we were told a cautionary tale that ends with always remember anyway it doesn't matter going back to character arcs there's a kind of story where instead of the character changing a somewhat static character changes the world around them think of nausicaa of the valley of the wind captain america or the pursuit of happiness for this kind of story to succeed we need both a really good idea of who this character is and why they do what they do and unfortunately for them to see them pushed to their absolute breaking point otherwise it's really easy to get an unlikable character one who either isn't earning their outcomes or is simply oblivious or even annoying as they refuse to change what's happening here is thesis antithesis a story presents two different sides of an argument and then shows you which side or parts of both sides it thinks is right a static character that kicks back and meanders towards the finish line while changing the world around them is like a half-baked argument which doesn't do a good job of convincing us of course an unlikable secondary character or one that exists in opposition or obstinates to a protagonist helps add flavor to our story and helps us bond or relate more to our main character they just need to be likable themselves you probably saw caillou in the thumbnail and besides the memetic value and the character being pretty universally disliked part of the reason is that it checks a lot of these boxes that we've been talking about this video isn't a caillou hit piece per se but there's an attempt at learning lessons that happens over and over that always either come from or result in tantrums or crying lots of selfish actions are placated and given undue weight and you get the point and as far as stories being meant to carry moral weight and teach us something a show meant to teach preschoolers where the main character gets away with being such a baby all the time what lesson are we teaching there and you know that i mean like emotional baby i understand that the character is a literal child talking about caillou is also my segue into talking about visually unlikable characters even though i try to be professional and not disparage other people's work famously sharing that same limited space of public contempt from me is peppa pig which as a character designer feels like contempt it makes me a little mad the eyes are on the same side of the head it looks like it was done in four seconds blindfolded and listen a visually unlikable character is going to be far more subjective because we've crossed into a place where art and design appeals to various people's tastes some of you are entitled to the wrong opinion that this isn't a crime on the other hand certain subjective opinions are more widespread the art style on so-called adult cartoons often gets cited as pretty unappealing there are some production realities and the people working on these shows are cranking them out at absolutely minimal budgets and tight deadlines and they know they know how the shows look now some of it's pragmatic but the question remains why make something look intentionally offbeat or obtuse just so that it's clear that it isn't aimed at kids there are plenty of appealing looking animated characters that possess emotional depth and maturity we've talked before in videos like why your characters aren't cute about characters that are trying too hard or feel like they're pandering that's a good video to check out and we won't belabor things here make sure to check that out in the character design playlist for more videos about drawing and design specifically to reiterate though a character that visually is overly saccharine just like one that's flawless lacks any sort of tooth or contrast now the interesting thing is that if the principles and decision making that leads to appealing looking characters were applied to the adult animation style there's so much tooth or contrast in the first place that you might actually end up striking a nice balance of visual appeal even in the comments for that video which praised the design of baby yoda there were people that pointed out that they didn't care for him or even got put off by his design so the same idea of preference and taste applies and it's fantastic to remember as a creator not everyone will like what you make and trying to make something that everyone likes is doomed to failure there isn't anything that everyone universally likes except dunking on caillou hey yo i'm really curious to hear from you in the comments below who are some unlikable characters to you not characters that you love to hate that's another video that we're gonna do soon but characters that you don't like you just can't like them is it based on preference or do they kind of follow some of the principles that we talked about here my course learned character design is a comprehensive 18-hour video course that stands on the pillars of drawing design and story to get you from a place of maybe not even knowing how to draw to designing characters of your own with everything that i know as a character designer this month's because backpack looks like this it's a hard enamel pin and foil trading card in your mailbox every month that you can get at patreon.com and there's a ton of other things you can get over there on patreon as well and it supports videos like this you can follow me at bageldenison on instagram twitter twitch and tiktok thank you so much for watching and have fun creating [Music] you

Channel: Brookes Eggleston - Character Design Forge

Views: 682,095

Keywords: character design forge, brookes eggleston, character design, storytelling, likable characters, selfish characters, characters you love to hate, cailou, peppa pig, storytelling help, storytelling tutorial, character arcs, character flaws, flawed characters, imperfect characters, learn character design, adult animation style, how to make characters, how to make unlikable characters, unlikable characters, learn art, learn storytelling

Id: s0O4eOb3gR8

Length: 12min 55sec (775 seconds)

Published: Sun Sep 26 2021