WARNING: MAJOR YAPPING AHEAD. THIS IS A HUGE GUIDE. LIKE, ALL OF SHAKESPEARE x500.
ANY ARTIST(S) I MENTION ARE TAGGED IN A PINNED COMMENT!! GO CHECK THEM OUT!!!!
CHOOSING TO MAKE AN OC
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i’m getting a scary amount of praise over my oc designs (especially after my concept sketch for kinoh’s second kaedehara kid) omg. i was asked for some help with concept sketches by some friends so i decided to just break down my process for everyone on here!! i’m by no means a professional but i hope i can at least guide yall in the right direction if you’re struggling. :D
the very first thing to do is decide WHY you’re making the oc. DO NOT make the oc if you feel “obligated” to. the hype train for ship children ocs right now could easily pass in like, one week. the hype train is unpredictable and fast, so don’t ride the hype train. instead, flow on your own inspiration levels. it’s okay to be inspired by trends, but don’t base all of your work on a feeling of obligation based on what’s popular. if you’re not inspired to make a new character, you can stop reading here. the rest doesn’t apply to you right now. you can save this if you wanna come back to it later. 
USING A BASE
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now that you’ve decided that making an oc is what you want to do, i’ve got some tips!! when designing an oc, you want to be able to put all of your energy into focusing ONLY on the design and lore. anatomy, shading, and other aspects can take up an unnecessary amount of time, so i recommend using a character template base, especially if you plan on creating multiple ocs. i have available templates on my account that use each of the five in-game models and have a front and two side views of a character, with a full body view. i’ll link them here if you want to use them (or you can always make your own):
also, when filling out your template, don’t go for full shading. it’ll make it harder to eyedrop accurate colors out later if you do heavy shading. instead stick to minimal/flat shading. you can make a splash art of your character later with more fun shading, poses, and expressions. but you need your design finalized first for best results.
PREP/BRAINSTORMING
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before even beginning to sketch your character, there are a few basic things you NEED to know in order to draw them. you need to minimally know:
- what nation they live in
- what nation their vision is from
- their gender
- if they are a ship child, their parents
- their element type (if they have a vision/other means for elemental powers) ((technically this can wait until the coloring step but it’s best to know even beforehand))
- their general age (we don’t s3xualize the outfits of little kids here
)
once you have this information, you can start. obviously, the more of a mental image you have, the better to start. it can be hard going into the design process mostly blindly, but sometimes it’s doable.
another helpful thing to know before designing a character is whether they have a design motif. an object, item, or something like that which is a major guiding point in the design. kinoh did an EXCELLENT job at this when designing ori, so i’ll use that as an example.
YUMMY LOTUS LOOKS EDIBLE
CREDIT TO @KinohCanYouNot FOR THE ART GO CHECK HER OUT
ori’s outfit was based off a lotus. even just putting the pictures side by side, you can see huge comparisons in the colors, shapes, lines, and overall design of ori’s outfit. even ori’s neck piece, shirt, and pant leg have the design of an actual lotus on them. it really pulls the character’s design together, so i highly recommend using an object as design inspiration!!
a character can even take inspiration from a location! @tea_major’s oc aimé is a fontanian figure skater, and he was based on the icewind suite boss.
hear me out…….
credit to @tea_major!!
CHECK TEA OUT TOO SHES AMAZING
OUTFIT
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once you have all of this information, make a note in your notes app dedicated to this oc. it’s super convenient for a way to refer back to any info on your oc. you can always put little fun facts, big lore brainstorms, basic stats, combat info, voicelines, and other important thing about your oc here and it’s easy to refer to.
now, you can start your sketch. to make an outfit not clash with the designs in genshin, i have a few suggestions that you can use as inspiration!
✩ PINTEREST. it’s popular with artists for a good reason. there’s a few different ways you can use pinterest for help.
the first and most basic is to search for fantasy outfit art inspiration. even just having a pin or two saved of a “vibe” you want your oc to match can push you in the right direction.
also, you want an oc to look like it belongs in the world it is from, and in genshin’s fantasy world, it’s no exception. each of the nations are based on a real country. looking up traditional clothing from these countries can help your character look like they actually live in the nation they are from. in case you aren’t aware, here’s a guide of which nation corresponds to each irl place.
mondstadt - germany
liyue - china
inazuma - japan
sumeru (city) - a variety of middle eastern countries
suemru (desert) - egypt
fontaine - france
natlan - [disputed] africa or a variety of countries in mesoamerica. philippines is also a possibility.
snezhnaya - russia
khaenri'ah - unknown, many names of connecting characters are norse originating though.
celestia - heaven(?)
looking for traditional clothing for each of these places can not only give your character cultural ties, it also helps them match other characters from that nation.
another pin type that can be super helpful is one of these “guides” (image below). idk what to call them, but they’ll have like 10+ varieties of the same outfit piece. genshin characters are LOADED with accessories and very detailed outfits, so having heavy variety is important. many aspects of a character’s design should be eye catching. you don’t want a boring hat, because then that aspect of your character is boring. every aspect of your design should have even just a little flair. some of the really slept-on accessories that i wish i saw more in ocs are gloves, belts, jewelry, and hair accessories (like bows and hats). don’t be afraid to give an outfit many layers!! many canon characters have 4+ layers of clothing.
some of these collars could even work as interesting jackets/capes
belts are so helpful to make a baggy outfit look less chunky and blocky
✩ use inspiration from other characters in that nation. this is especially important when making a ship child, because (obviously) you need heavy inspiration from both parents. a jeanluc child isn’t going to have natural blue hair or pink eyes. however, even when making a standalone oc, you can take inspiration from other characters!! if you’re designing a watatsumi soldier, take inspiration from gorou’s outfit. if you’re designing a forest ranger, take inspiration from tighnari and collei. if you’re designing a harbinger oc, take inspiration from arlecchino, childe, or even dottore.
✩ use inspiration from other people’s ocs! if you like a pattern someone used for a scarf, take it, change the colors, and use it as a cloth belt! take the hair color of an oc you like and use it for your character’s eyes. just be careful to not heavy reference off of someone’s oc (or if you do, get permission!!) because this should be your own character, not theirs.
✩ literally just look at outfits in your own closet. if you like the neckline on one of your shirts, use that on your oc’s outfit! take a pattern of a jacket you wear often and use it for a dress on your oc. the different ways you can use and apply inspiration are limitless.
HAIR, EYES, ETC.
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this section is for everything other than a character’s outfit. features that a character is born with. if you are making a ship child, just draw inspiration from the parents and skip this section.
✩ HAIR
despite what you might think for hair, IT DOES NOT NEED TO MATCH THE CHARACTER’S ELEMENT. in fact, it can even directly contradict it!! kuki skinobu’s hair is bright green and she’s an electro user. in fact, here’s a tier list on a character’s hair correlation to their element/vision.
i’m like 98% sure neuvi’s hair glows, correct me if i’m wrong
if you didn’t know, the majority of the characters in this game have neutral colored hair like white, grey, black, brown, blonde, or ginger. do not feel obligated to make your character’s hair color match their element. it can be a neutral or even a bright non-matching color if you want. and the eyes do not need to match the hair either. the eyes and hair are standalone colors that you can do anything with to give your character bright unique colors.
in terms of hair style, you can get super creative!! incorporate a braid however you like. if the rat tail style vibes with you then go for it! if you just wanna put their hair down and loose, make it interesting by giving it highlights or accessories. the only “mandatory” part of a character’s hair is to give them bangs. anime characters have MASSIVE foreheads (cough cough ayaka) purely because of the style and your character will probably look weird without them.
✩ EYES
i really don’t have much to add for eyes. you can pick nearly any color and it’ll look great. you can always have fun with the pupil shape if you’d like. (like on hu tao, furina, nahida, etc.) also, the shape of the eye will give your character their overall mood. flatter eyes make a character look more bored/unamused/intimidating, and rounder ones make a character look happy/friendly/approachable.
COLOR PALETTE
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once you’ve sketched out your design, been happy with it, and lineart-ed it, it’s time for color! depending on the number of accessories and the complexity of an oc, i would recommend around 6-10 colors. one or two for hair, one for skin, one for eyes, and the rest for clothing. generally, i like to keep the majority (but not all) of my clothing colors within the hue of the vision that the character has. so, an example of an electro character color palate would be this:
when picking a color palate, you want a good variety of light, dark, saturated, and desaturated colors. too many vivids looks like it was colored with highlighters, too many desaturated colors looks like a ghost, too many light colors looks very pastel, and too many darks looks emo. try to find a good balance!
and lastly, if you think your outfit colors clash too much and don’t go well together, pick one of the colors in the palate and make a new layer of that color. set it to a low opacity (5%-15%) and make it a clipping layer over all of the outfit colors. (see image)
YOU’RE DONE NOW!!
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that’s it for my advice!! i really hope i had some tips in here that were helpful both for experienced and first-time oc artists!
i want the comments section to also be equally helpful!! to everyone that has tips or tricks to designing an oc, PLEASE COMMENT THEM DOWN BELOW TO HELP OTHERS!! i want this post to be a great resource to help anyone make an oc. and i am by no means a genius at oc design, ive only done two genshin ones so far and two different concept sketches to help friends. i really hope this was helpful and wasn’t just me yapping 😅😅
and this is WAY too long for me to proofread so just tell me if there’s any typos or errors that you notice plz 🙏🙏
