So I figured since PUS deals so much with Sailor appearance, I'd say my piece about it all. Here's some suggestions and things to go by and stuff. If I think of anything else that's relevant to this site, I'll post it here ^^
SEXAY BODAY
(subtitled: your senshi's basic physical appearance)
Let me begin this by suggesting a little test. Take the silhouette of your Sailor. Now take the silhouette of Sailor Mars. Now compare the two. Do they match up? If so, honey, you may want to rethink your character design.
Hair: It's not that characters with long hair are bad--far from it! However, as with all things, ya gotta have personality. Distinguishing characteristics are the word here. Long hair with sideburns, long wavy hair with a cowlick, whatever. Make your senshi different than what we've seen out there in the big old otaku senshi world. No matching silhouettes. Details are good, however, the one caution I would make would be "Make a senshi that can be drawn." Thousands of miniature braids are tough. I can say that from personal experience.
If you're in an RPG, make sure your character's hair is different from all of the other characters'. This goes for pretty much everything about both personality and appearance. Repeats are bad. Also, another standard is this: note the mood of the game. If it's kind of a humor-based RPG, or rather a less dramatic game, then characters with "locks like an ebon waterfall, spilling over her shoulders like waves of shining raven feathers" or something along that order may not be suited. Unless you're being facetious, in which case..yesh ^^; Similarly, hair with bubblegum pink spikes flying out at all angles may not be suited for a game based around drama. (On a sidenote, currently there seems to be a trend towards characters with natural hair colors. Where's the fun in that? :P) This goes for personality too. Plenty of people have written on that subject though, so I'll leave it at "Don't overdo the angst. It's potent, and can be harmful when placed into the wrong hands."
Body Type: But I digress. Besides hair, your senshi's bodytype has the greatest capacity for originality. Or I should say, if you break the conventional anime-girl bodytype, your character is automatically upped by a few originality points. We're getting another standard here: Faults are good. Quirks are good. Faults and quirks are good. Maybe your character has a big nose. Maybe she has stubby fingers. She possibly even has a big butt :B All of this is useful in creating a character people will remember.
Chuckles: And bring on the fat chicks!
-_-;; Seriously though, there's nothing wrong with making your character overweight. Granted, it involves originality when dealing with our favorite sailor suit (irl, you'd have to be a freakish mutant to look good in that outfit xx), but yes, it is possible to be both overweight and attractive :b That said, you could also make your character thin and curveless, or my personal favorite, pear-shaped. There's also the apple or the hourglass bodyshape. Personally I'm not too fond of characters with overemphasized curves, but -.-
Chuckles: Don't discourage them, baby! :D :D :D
While we're on the subject, Sally has written quite a lovely essay on this, but just as with angsty traumatic childhood events or something like that, don't make your character's sexuality the main facet of his or her personality. Generally speaking, it doesn't make a good fanfic or RPG character.
Facial Characteristics: What we're really talking about here is eyes :P If the eyes are windows to a person's soul, then perhaps the face is the...uh...window frame? You don't have to limit description to the color of a character's irises if you don't want to. On the subject of irises though, keep it specific, but keep it simple. Don't just put "blue." On the other hand, don't put "blue with red and green and purple speckles and silver sparkles." Not many people could competently draw that (or would want to try xx). When I think of complicated eyes, I think of our buddy Kaolinite, with the purple eyes with goldish pupils. When you do want to say "blue" or "purple" or something like that, put what kind of color blue or purple your character's eyes really are. Navy blue, aquamarine, blue-gray, et cetera et cetera. When in doubt, pull the Crayolas out. When you're at a loss for a color, check the colors of pencils or crayons, or, failing that, check a web color chart. I believe they have a rather nice one over at the join section of Arcana. This works well for lots of things, most importantly uniform base colors. We all know it's a real bitch to have a character list filled up with every possible color you could imagine, then you have to try and pick a different color for yourself.
So, the rest of the face. It's not necessary to describe your character's face, but it does make a nice addition to a character profile/RPG application. Think bone structure, lips, the shape of the eyes, and the nose. I've always thought you can read a person by their nose :3 That's why Michael Jackson is such an ambiguous personality. At any rate, there are plenty of little bodily quirks (my, that sounded wrong) that you can use in describing your character's looks.
EL UNIFORMO SUPREMOSO!
(subtitled: the stuff she wears)
Fuku: The fuku, the uniform, that crazy getup your character wears to go kick evil bootay. This costume's going to be just as important as general appearance in making your character distinctive. There are plenty of places to start, but first, consider some basic rules:
-The senshi of the Sol system are most likely the only ones to wear the standard fuku seen in the anime and the manga Sailormoon, i.e. That Cute Schoolgirl Outfit. Consider the animamates.
-However, there is one part of the fuku that is always, always on a true Sailor uniform: the Sailor collar. If there is no collar, there is no fuku. Period-o-mundo.
-There are a few other things that generally repeat themselves in uniforms, like jewelry or a senshi symbol on the forehead. I guess Naoko was thinking Hindi...still, most of the animamates have some kind of jewelry on/across their foreheads. Brooches are also used quite often; the source of power for Sailors seems to be either on the forehead or the chest. Makes sense.
-When designing the fuku, keep a color scheme. Unless you're the senshi of clash, you're going to want to stick to two to three colors. It usually goes like this: collar and skirt are primary, accents and bows are secondary.
Reiterated, if your senshi do not come from the Sol system (the Milky Way, our universe), then her fuku ain't going to be the same as Sailormoon and company. Elaborate, it's fun ^^ Continuity is good between senshi as well; if you have a Sailor team, their costumes should have some kind of link between them. I like Laris's template system at Genesis, which gives players a standard uniform and then invites them to elaborate. This leads to some really interesting outfits which still cohere at some common points.
For me at least, when I have stuff to go on, I find it easier to create a character. If, for example, you're creating a Sailor based on a goddess, find pictures of that goddess and note what you have to work with. Say she's often pictured as having swirls painted on her cheeks. Then you can make your character have swirls painted on her cheeks :3 See where I'm going with this? Relevance is really good and makes the job easier for you in the long run.
PHEW
(subtitled: the end)
In conclusion, a character that is both distinctive and fits in with other characters will serve ye well in either fanfic or RPG. Unless you're writing solo (which would be a really odd case, as stories generally involve the actions of more than one character xx), you want a character with the capacity to interact with other characters. You want somebody who looks like a part of the group, or at least has the feel of the story in his or her appearance. Design is fun anyway, so stick your creativity in a plastic jar and, when the time is right, spread it over the blank Wonderbread of your in-development character. Then you'll have a tasty sandwich of newsenshi which will undoubtedly satiate your appetite for creation for at least a few minutes.
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