101 Character Design Ideas: Sparks, Ideas, and Tips for Getting Inspiration

There are indeed as many thoughts on how to get ideas for character design as there are actual character design ideas. For many, unique character design ideas are happy accidents - things developed while playing with ideas. However, sometimes, character design inspiration does not come so quickly.

Don’t stress, though, because CharacterHub is here to help! Not only do we have some guidance on how to find that spark for your next character design concept, but we also have 101 concepts you can just take and run with.

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Interesting Character Design

What makes for unique character design? While character design is usually associated with art, a secret question informs virtually all character design: what’s their story? Even if you are playing around with character design more for the vibes than anything, much thought goes into that and why you choose the design elements you do.

This inciting idea is like a spark. So, what kind of character design sparks can we take advantage of?

Finding a Spark

Regarding the sparks of character design ideas, we have two primary sources. One is investigative, while the other is aspirational. There are potentially other influences, but these are the most common.

The First Spark: What is the character’s purpose?

The question of a character’s purpose greatly informs their design. For example, let’s look at some examples of male character design ideas. We’ll play it safe and run with heroic characters.

What if the character is a warrior? That can inform a lot about character designs and lead to some basic concepts. They are in pretty good shape, they have some sort of weapon - It seems easy enough but, again, pretty basic.

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That’s where you investigate what you mean by “a warrior.” For example, perhaps you don’t want a character built like Conan the Barbarian, but someone more slim, like Richter from Castlevania. Of course, their weapon may also matter a great deal. Are they a swordsman, do they have a gun, or do they fight with magic? These things also factor into the character design concept.

What if you want to be clever? For example, make a statement by using contrasting elements to the expected nature of the character. You want a warrior but don’t want them to look like one at first glance - maybe they are the underdog.

But then that leads to further questions. What is the warrior fighting for? They may be fighting for their people, which raises the question of who their people are. How might they be recognized? That could factor into the design. Or perhaps they are on a quest. Do they carry reminders of their quest? Maybe they are like Ashitaka from Princess Mononoke and have a raging curse on their body.

As you can see, asking about the character idea interrogating their purpose, is part of developing unique character design ideas. This is how writing prompts can help boost your character creation process and they will also save you the time of comming up with prompts yourself. Interrogating OC's purpose is not the only source, however. 

The Second Spark: What is the character evoking?

We’ll work with some female character design ideas for this section. Another source for character design inspiration is simply basing your work on existing ideas. OCs in fandoms are great examples of this because, when done right, they evoke the source material's spirit while being original characters. Sometimes, this inspiration may just come from browsing CharacterHub and being struck by certain design concepts of other OCs.

So, let’s say we want to design a witch. We may already have some witchy inspiration and favorites. perhaps you want to craft a Hogwarts student. Or maybe you prefer something more based on the iconic presentation of witches throughout history - like something from ancient Greek stories. There is no shortage of witchy inspiration to begin with.

Sometimes, female character design ideas aren’t based on archetypes but are more based on the sandbox. Perhaps, for example, you’ve taken a natural shine to Star Wars and the witch-like Nightsisters: Inspiration handled.

Here is where the fun begins. Once you have that initial inspiration, you can interrogate your reasoning. You can go back to that spark where you begin to ask questions. If you’re creating a Nightsister, what period of Star Wars history are they in? How does that affect how they present themselves? For example, are they in hiding?

Sparks are Recursive

Something to know is that this idea of these two sparks, interrogation and inspiration, are not one-way tracks. Ideally, they are part of a recursive process where you bounce between inspiration, refinement, and so on until you get a sense of your character.  Once you start fleshing your character out, start documenting these details in a reference sheet. You may want to create an anime character design that could fit in the world of Jujutsu Kaisen, but that is only part of the process. You interrogate your wants and introduce inspiration from a different anime, which still leads to a character concept.

Using CharacterHub for Inspiration

CharacterHub is an excellent resource for design inspiration because it is a concentration of creatives and their creations. Thousands of OCs are found all over the site that reflect brilliant ideas and variations that can inspire your work. For example, OCs can be tagged, such as by theme.

Exploring how other creators design characters of a specific theme can inform your approach, especially when combined with the recursive process we’ve laid out. For example, a basic search for “cyberpunk” reveals characters, social spaces, story worlds, and more. You can take in an incredible variety of inspiration to shape your cyberpunk character. Best of all, you can even drop comments on the pages of characters you admire. You can reach out to creators who have inspired your creative spark and leave them a sincere thank you.

So, when you have the initial spark of inspiration, be it from a question or a desire to reference something you love, take some time to conduct a vibe check on CharacterHub.

Steal These Character Design Ideas

Rather than leave you alone to develop unique character ideas, CharacterHub wants to provide some free character prompts. These different character design concepts are grouped by genre and were brainstormed using the spark method we’ve just covered. Some concepts may play with juxtaposition, while others may be based loosely on some familiar characters and settings. You could take any of these 101 concepts and use them for character design inspiration.

Fantasy

1. A traditional wizard on the surface, with a double life as a witch.
2. A knight who has cobbled together their armor from battlefield remnants.
3. A kobold who has been raised among halflings and wears waistcoats.
4. A wandering sword vendor who keeps his stock on his person.
5. A princess who secretly protects the kingdom from bandits at the tip of a rapier.
6. A giant who carries a local family’s cottage on his back, like a backpack.
7. A demon lord who wants to be seen as more genteel than he is.
8. A dwarf who has constructed magically enchanted power armor from mining scrap.
9. A dragon who takes on a human form to be closer to a prince they’ve fallen in love with.
10. A necromancer who uses their gifts to resurrect the slain animals of local poachers.
11. A plague doctor hunts for the source of a plague… a dragon’s curse.

Superhero

1. A speedster who must wear a liquid-cooled suit to avoid passing out.
2. An alien visitor who has taken on a form evoking a recently deceased superhero, claiming to be their protege.
3. A formerly violent vigilante that recently updated their costume to appear less frightening as they are trying to soften their image.
4. A superpowered juggler who uses elemental orbs for combat.
5. The pre-teen child of a famous hero who is not-so-secretly attempting to create their own superhero identity based on their parent’s look.
6. A ghostly supervillain who struggles to maintain a solid form without a spirit tag.
7. A time-displaced, magical cowboy thrown into the modern day.
8. A student at a superhero academy who alternates powers every other day.
9. A pop-idol who uses sound waves in combat to save the city.
10. A hero, trained by ninjas, with flame control powers.

Sci-Fi

1. A time traveler from the modern era stranded in the far future or past.
2. A pilot using a family heirloom mech.
3. A future samurai with laser swords.
4. A technomancer who uses nanomachines kept in small vials on his chest.
5. A post-apocalyptic mutant dinosaur hunter.
6. An alien spy attempting to bring down the threat of Earth before it can begin.
7. A vanished NASA astronaut who is surviving on a living asteroid.
8. A retired space marine who runs a restaurant.
9. An escaped experiment of fusing human and alien DNA.
10. An ancient warrior resurrected by advanced technology.

Crime

1. The daughter of a mobster who wants to take over.
2. A henchman who must avenge his fallen boss.
3. A goofball yakuza member who finds himself in over his head.
4. A farmhand who defends his employers from gangsters after the farm for bootlegging purposes.
5. A small-time gang leader is eager to make a name for his crew.
6. A mafia don attempting to go straight by opening a pet store.
7. A hitman who has a taste for the finer things in life.
8. A mafia wife who must pull together her dead husband’s operation.
9. A detective who used to work as an acrobat who can tap into that experience.
10. A corrupt politician barely keeping his illegal activities together.

Horror

1. A streamer who is addicted to a game that is literally consuming their soul.
2. A Lovecraftian researcher who uses relentless positivity to stave off madness.
3. A retired slasher from the 80s hoping to get back in the news with a new wave of killings - but they’re out of shape.
4. Dr. Frankenstein’s backup creature.
5. A vampire who hunts other vampires for sport.
6. A fishman who has migrated into the city sewers in search of a chance at joining civilization… if only they could get over their hunger for human flesh.
7. A demon who is running out of sinister puzzles to lure unwitting victims in with.
8. A monster hunter who falls in love with his latest quarry - a werewolf.
9. The outcast of a group of mutant cannibals - as his mutation is just white hair.
10. A demon attempting to gather souls by working as a doctor for terminally ill patients.

Cyberpunk

1. A hacker who uses stolen tech to change their gender as often as they need to while on the run.
2. A corporate security agent who discovers his father may be the hacker targeting his employer.
3. A back-alley mod dealer who specializes in implants.
4. A courier who must fend off mutants in the wastes between cities.
5. A driver for hire for anti-corp terrorists with one rule - get to the car on time.
6. A CEO of a software company who is trying to bring it down from the inside - the culmination of a life-long plot.
7. A computer hacker who specializes in scaling skyscrapers for access points.
8. A nurse who works in an underground clinic in the lower depths of a megacity.
9. A cop of a fascist regime who begins to take action against the regime upon learning of heinous crimes.
10. A hacker caught by a corporation must now wear a bomb collar as he runs their mercenary work.

Western

1. A Native American warrior returns from a hunt to find his entire tribe vanished and must search for them.
2. A cowboy who specializes in hunting ghosts.
3. A banker of a gold rush town who is secretly funding local criminals.
4. The sheriff of a local town that is under siege by bandits.
5. A schoolmarm who fights for the rights of local tribes under the protection of her institution.
6. A gambler who lost a nose for reneging on a debt and had it replaced with one made from gold.
7. The leader of a wagon train has noticed strange creatures stalking their journey.
8. The leader of a group of bandits who is rumored to be immortal.
9. A gunman who has retired to a life as a farmer must take up the call one last time.
10. A Native American woman has traveled east to find the trapper who killed her husband.

Slice of Life

1. A man trained in clown arts seeks an opportunity between temp jobs.
2. An office worker who is secretly a masked wrestler.
3. A bike courier who starts a smuggling ring.
4. A woman who is planning to ask out her roommate, who she has loved for years.
5. A newly widowed mom who befriends a family that helped her one day.
6. A pop-star who would much rather be a gardener.
7. A fashion model who has a secret life as a gore makeup artist.
8. A wrestler trying to learn parkour and bonds with a local group.
9. A doctor who secretly runs an underground clinic.
10. An artist who discovers an underappreciated master lived in their apartment building and seeks to learn about their life.

Magical Realism

1. A cartoonist discovers that whatever they draw comes true.
2. A woman sees a death clock over every person she meets.
3. A man prone to tall tales begins to show each one is 100% true.
4. A cook who can make anyone open up with his cooking.
5. An actress finds strange parallels between her work and real life.
6. A streamer can talk to ghosts.
7. A Bollywood fan in America finds themselves, inexplicably, in an alternate reality informed by musicals.
8. An empath guitarist can sing songs that help people with their trauma spontaneously.
9. An old man realizes he cannot die and sets out to be the wise old man people need, generation after generation.
10. A college student creates an OC, but then discovers someone similar to that OC in their class the next day.

Romance

1. An office worker is in love with a janitor, but his mysterious past might get in the way.
2. A hotel bellboy falls in love with a vacationing aristocrat’s daughter over the years.
3. A writer whose productivity is tied to their relationship status.
4. An emergency clone of someone who just barely survived an accident must navigate their role in a marriage.
5. A dog groomer finds themselves falling for a rival groomer.
6. A crime writer explores a cold case along with a podcaster who is investigating the same story - will these rivals become lovers?
7. A merchant in ancient Italy finds themselves the most eligible bachelor after inheriting a fortune in spices.
8. An overnight baker pines for the girl who starts her shift when his ends.
9. A mysterious drifter roams from town to town, looking for the love of his life.
10. A K-pop singer realizes they are in love with one of their bandmates, but the reveal could drag down the whole group into scandal.

Share Your Character Design

Once you develop an exciting idea for a character design or just “borrow” one of ours, you can move on to putting them out there. CharacterHub is a great place to share these unique character design concepts, develop profiles and backstories, and even role-play if that’s your thing. Best of all, you can get feedback from the community that can lead to design iterations that make your concept even more unique.

CharacterHub is a great way to keep a record of the growth and evolution of OCs, allowing you to show off your creativity. So, if you plan on using one of the 101 concepts listed above, please share what you do with them.