Opinions about free to use male characters

[Sharm]

I'm working on a project where I'm doing something with the VN free to use characters. So far as I can tell, that would be Eileen, Lucy, Mary and Sylvie, but there are no guys on this list. Are there male characters like this out there and I'm not aware of them? Would anyone mind if I made some up? Anyone have opinions on what these male characters should be like?

[v3-kei]

Maybe in http://wiki.renai.us/wiki/Pre-Made_Sprites

And Creative Commons section has several of them~

[Sharm]

Ah, I guess I wasn't being clear. I'm not interested in sprites, I'm interested in the characters. The kind that don't belong to any one VN or any one creator. I suppose they don't exist, so the question becomes, what would everyone want in a community owned male character?

[v3-kei]

I see. XD The character itself instead of the illustration.

To be honest, when one wants to tell their story, they already have a character in their mind. Unless it is a highly non-character centric stories. Or, it is a fanmade game for that character specifically. In the end, I don't think it matters as much as what the community wants than what you want to make. Just my two cents.

[Taleweaver]

This is still a topic about the right to use material, so it goes into Creative Commons discussion.

[Sharm]

Ah, alright, I didn't realize discussions went in here. I've edited the title to make it less confusing. Thank you, Tailweaver.

[Flowers from Nowhere]

when one wants to tell their story, they already have a character in their mind

I tend to agree with this but I'll admit I never thought about an open source character before. Could you give me some sort of example to help me picture what you're talking about?

[icecheetah]

when one wants to tell their story, they already have a character in their mind

I tend to agree with this but I'll admit I never thought about an open source character before. Could you give me some sort of example to help me picture what you're talking about?

Not anything to do with VNs (as far as I know) but Jenny Everywhere http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jenny_Everywhere is an open source character that has been used in a lot of things. Sadly, she's a she. Now I'm curious about why it looks like females are more common.

My best suggestions would be characters that have entered the Public Domain.
Edit: Google may have helped: http://pdsh.wikia.com/wiki/Category:Ope ... Characters Again, not specifically VN, but helpful?
And I am sure that people won't mind if you made an Open Source VN only character.

[CheeryMoya]

I'm pretty sure that Sharm is talking about a "meta" character like the Ren'Py Girls (as I like to call them, they could also be considered mascots of sorts). What Eileen, Lucy, Mary and Sylvie share in common are that they are PyTom's characters, as in they appear in his works. The Ren'Py tutorial, The Question, and Moonlight Walks were made by him, but if releasing Sylvie as a CC sprite is any indication, he doesn't mind if you use them in your games.

Uncle Mugen regularly uses Lucy in his projects and he even drew a free Eileen sprite. There was also a project titled Super Lucy which uses both Eileen and Lucy, and while it's currently on hiatus, PyTom hasn't said anything against using the two characters.

The closest meta Ren'Py character you'll get who's male is probably Uncle Mugen himself, seeing as to how he's made himself appear next to the girls numerous times. Interpret that as you will, though I would ask PyTom about what license the other girls beside Sylvie are under before you go out and use them.

[Sharm]

CheeryMoya's right about the type of characters that I was thinking of when I started this topic. I am finding these other open source characters interesting, most of them are obvious fan characters or expies, but some like Jenny everywhere might be fun to include in the project. I did think about how Mugen is pretty close to what I'm talking about, but since he's a real person it gets weird. I don't feel comfortable doing anything with him. I'll probably make up my own characters for this project. I'm playing with the idea of making guy characters that are all based on these girls. Not exactly the same since a pure gender swap would be pointless.

What would make a character interesting enough to want to do a game with them in it, even though they were created by someone else? Would a very loose characterization help in any way? I would expect that how interesting and well crafted the sprites were would make a difference.

[CheeryMoya]

I'm playing with the idea of making guy characters that are all based on these girls. Not exactly the same since a pure gender swap would be pointless.

In a fit of nostalgia and procrastinating on homework, I just remembered the Rowdyruff Boys from Powerpuff Girls. IDK if opposites would be worth it but that's all I can think of at the moment. Maybe they can be foils of one another? *shrugs*