How to avoid 'sameface syndrome'?

Questions, skill improvement, and respectful critique involving art assets.
Post Reply
Message
Author
Taranee
Regular
Posts: 35
Joined: Sun Jul 06, 2014 9:46 am
Location: Finland
Contact:

How to avoid 'sameface syndrome'?

#1 Post by Taranee »

My characters always have the same face structure, but different hair and eyes. (Warning: TVTropes link.) How can I draw faces that look cute/moe, but aren't identical to each other?

User avatar
indoneko
Miko-Class Veteran
Posts: 528
Joined: Sat Sep 03, 2016 4:00 am
Contact:

Re: How to avoid 'sameface syndrome'?

#2 Post by indoneko »

There are many ways to make a character's face look different from the others. It depends on gender, age, race, body type, etc. For example... a chubby or young girl might have a round/plump cheek while the skinny/older one might have a more defined skull lines. The young ones also have their eyes positioned at approximately near the half height of the face, while the older ones will have their eyes positioned at much higher. People with different personality also tend to have different facial feature... short tempered people usually have the corner of their eyebrows raised... crybaby or pushover girl have droopy eyes... sly people have slanted or slit-like eyes... etc.

If you need some reference, you might want to read Scott Mc Cloud's book, "Making Comic". One of it's chapter is dedicated to explain the facial expression (which I deemed relevant with your situation). You can also benefit from How to Draw Manga series, for example.. "How To Draw Manga : Anime & Game Characters" by Tadashi Ozawa explains about character expression of different type of characters (exaggerated, simple, and realistic).
My avatar is courtesy of Mellanthe

User avatar
Katy133
Miko-Class Veteran
Posts: 704
Joined: Sat Nov 16, 2013 1:21 pm
Completed: Eight Sweets, The Heart of Tales, [redacted] Life, Must Love Jaws, A Tune at the End of the World, Three Guys That Paint, The Journey of Ignorance, Portal 2.5.
Projects: The Butler Detective
Tumblr: katy-133
Deviantart: Katy133
Soundcloud: Katy133
itch: katy133
Location: Canada
Contact:

Re: How to avoid 'sameface syndrome'?

#3 Post by Katy133 »

Study other artists who draw characters who are cute, but have different faces. Note what makes each face different, yet appealing.

Also practice life art. Even if you won't be drawing realistically, drawing from real life will help you caricature and simplify different noses, eyes, head shapes, etc.
ImageImage

My Website, which lists my visual novels.
Become a patron on my Patreon!

User avatar
Mammon
Miko-Class Veteran
Posts: 712
Joined: Sat Nov 07, 2015 3:09 pm
Completed: Pervert&Yandere, Stalker&Yandere
Projects: Roses Of The Thorn Prince
Contact:

Re: How to avoid 'sameface syndrome'?

#4 Post by Mammon »

Simplest possible solution if it applies: If you're always using the same general outlines to draw your character in the right proportions, try using different ones. If you always make the same faces, that might just because they're always in the same position from the same angle with the same expression proportions. But considering it's moe, and the eyes are probably going to cover 50% of the face, sameface syndrom will probably be very hard to avoid unless you start using differend kinds of eyes.
ImageImageImage

Want some CC sprites?

User avatar
johhans
Newbie
Posts: 16
Joined: Thu Dec 29, 2016 5:35 pm
Completed: A Question Of Normalcy
Tumblr: johhans
Deviantart: johhans
Location: Poland
Contact:

Re: How to avoid 'sameface syndrome'?

#5 Post by johhans »

Getting out of sameface syndrome is a pretty hard thing, if you ask me. Especially if you've already got used to drawing drawing the same face. But it's not impossible. With enough of hard work you will be able to do that.

My advice would be to study real people's faces. It doesn't matter if you'll draw your friends, yourself, or you'll go on Line of Action (they used to be called Pixelovely), or you'll just google faces of your favorite celebrities, or you'll sketch during watching a movie. What matters is the practice. The more you draw the better you'll get.

Also playing with proportions of the face is a good idea. Move them round. Once make the eyes really close, the other times far away. Once higher, once lower. Same with other features. Make the head rounder, pull out the cheek bones, make the jaw squarish. See what you can get. There's endless list of possibilities. That's why everyone's different.

A good idea would be also to study other's faces. What makes them stand out? For example: sharp like a knife cheek bones of Angelina Jolie, Dane Dehaan's swollen, baggy eyes, Ryan Gosling's long head with a triangular jaw and his crooked eyes or Scarlett Johansson's heart-shaped face. Don't look at the lines. Look at the shapes and relations between them. It can be pretty hard at the beginning, trust me. You can always ask someone else for an opinion. Ask them if your drawing resembles someone you tried to draw, if they don't get it, tell them the name and ask what's wrong with you drawing. Painting portraits and understanding planes of the faces is a great idea. Once you understand the rules and you can see what looks good and what doesn't making you own different faces will be much easier.

You can also watch some videos on YouTube about that: I'm pretty sure there's more of these. I just can't think of anymore at the moment.

I got carried away here for a moment. Oh, well! Too late now. I probably forgot about a lot of stuff. I'm not a master but I've learned some things on the way. I hope this helps you or anyone out there's who's struggling with this issue. And always remember this one cliche saying: practice makes perfect.

User avatar
LateWhiteRabbit
Eileen-Class Veteran
Posts: 1867
Joined: Sat Jan 19, 2008 2:47 pm
Projects: The Space Between
Contact:

Re: How to avoid 'sameface syndrome'?

#6 Post by LateWhiteRabbit »

Hey, some of the most successful artists have same-face syndrome! Look at Jim Lee! And all joking aside, I love Chris Bachalo's art, but his women all have the same face.

The key to drawing different faces is playing around with proportions. This is very hard if you aren't already very familiar with anatomy and facial feature structures. Basically, you can't still be using a formula to draw your faces - you can't follow a cookie-cutter step-by-step in constructing your faces. But they still have to come out looking CORRECT. What happens is that you'll need to come up with a new formula that you follow each time you draw ONE SPECIFIC character's face, and have a new formula for other characters.

As Johhans said, the best way to reach this point is to study and sketch real faces, paying particular attention to the proportions that make one person different and unique to another person.

User avatar
Alhia
Newbie
Posts: 5
Joined: Sun Jan 22, 2017 4:55 pm
Projects: Clinamen
Tumblr: alhia
Deviantart: alhia
Location: France
Contact:

Re: How to avoid 'sameface syndrome'?

#7 Post by Alhia »

To avoid this I really like starting out with very simple shapes, starting out with the big shapes, and then the smaller ones (and really it applies to the whole body as well). Will the body look like a rectangle, a pear, or whatever ? Then let's zoom onto the face since we're talking about that. Is your jaw (for instance) a square, a circle, a triangle ? Let's zoom in again, on the nose (for instance). Break down the nose in three parts. Is the tip a circle, a sharp triangle, or something else ? is the main bone straight, crooked? Etc, etc. But yeah it does ask for some knowledge about the face structure.

User avatar
banannasquid
Newbie
Posts: 17
Joined: Thu Dec 15, 2016 1:58 am
Completed: Stalker and Yandere
Projects: Stalker and Yandere
Tumblr: banannasquid
Deviantart: infinitytentacle
Location: The Land of Freedom
Contact:

Re: How to avoid 'sameface syndrome'?

#8 Post by banannasquid »

I'd say to look at cartoons and see how they exaggerate certain features features. I'm very certain no two disney characters look similar for example. I also think it would be a good idea to study why some shapes register in our minds and why others dont, that would help alot with making characters designs fit their personalities (Like round shapes being cute and sharp shapes being hostile/threatening)
--

Finished projects:
Image

User avatar
ISAWHIM
Veteran
Posts: 318
Joined: Sun Nov 06, 2016 5:34 pm
Contact:

Re: How to avoid 'sameface syndrome'?

#9 Post by ISAWHIM »

Subtle changes have the greatest impact, as long as they are noticed...

PNG overlays are great for adding make-up, (eye-shadow, eye-liner, blush, cheek-shadows, under-eye shadows, nose-bridge shadows, lip-gloss and lip-stick tints and pigments)

Honestly, with the exception of entirely indifferent races, about 90% of the people are the same. That is kind-of what makes us human. With note to the above, and your obvious "expressionism", by hair/clothing... You also have body-language, a majority lies within our faces. Some are more expressive and dramatic in expressions, some are subtle in expressions, and some are odd-ball out-of-sync expressions for the appropriate situation. (Smiling when mad, frowning when idle, gape-mouthed when thinking...)

All of that is your "character". Even tilting shoulders or hanging a head low, or forward, or constantly avoiding eye-contact or looking to the side, is something that will help define your characters.

The easy part is adding the first set of mentioned "extras" to a character. About 90% transparent for subtle changes, and about 75% transparent for deeper changes, using just one set of images for various "looks". (You can control the alpha in RenPy, independent of the actual alpha in the image. AlphaBlend)

I assume you are using composites for your displayable characters...

Also, a little used trick is to have various eyebrows... Just a few wiggles, thickness variations, length variations, inner and outer tipping... and you have thousands of variations that help to easily reduce "same-face" syndrome... Don't fall for the generic quick-line brows... You "think" that is what others have, but they do not. Look closer. Chances are, they are usually made semi-unique for each character. Often, when new at drawing faces, we tend to use that ONE line that we spent months perfecting as a "nose" or a "lip-line", or a "brow", or a "face-outline", or an "ear"...

Just remain persistant in your styles, per character. Take notes on a flesh-out drawing, which identifies that characters "uniqueness", which you honestly have to capture only once, in high detail... (Our brains will carry that image to the smaller, less detailed images, as the story progresses. Then, a simple line works for a brow, as our brain scribbles-in the original or HD images brow, and sees it as unique.

Also remember...

YOU and YOU ALONE, have seen your images 1000x more than anyone-else, while making the story. Your brain is neutralizing the uniqueness, and you are seeing all the same face, no matter where you look. Like driving down your street, every house, in your mind, is just a variation of your house. Until you go down a new street, then all houses seem to look unique again. (Or when sitting in the toilet, your nose neutralizes your own odor, in time... You can't smell how "unique" your lingering odor is, but others surely can identify it as unique, when they enter the bathroom after you!)

Step away from development. Take a break... Stop looking at your art, and second-guessing it. Focus on the story and you can always go back and detail the images later, if you truly think that is needed.

One thicker line, in just the right spot, can make a big impact.

User avatar
jumper09
Newbie
Posts: 10
Joined: Wed Jun 13, 2012 4:10 pm
Tumblr: arodude
Contact:

Re: How to avoid 'sameface syndrome'?

#10 Post by jumper09 »

You could try sketching people at the mall, park, or some busy area. There's an endless stream of different looking faces to sketch and it could be fun too. Or look at photos of people. Pay attention to what makes each face different. If need be exaggerate their features. It might not come out looking good at first but can help you understand areas of a person's face that can be manipulated and how when you sit down to draw a character.

User avatar
ISAWHIM
Veteran
Posts: 318
Joined: Sun Nov 06, 2016 5:34 pm
Contact:

Re: How to avoid 'sameface syndrome'?

#11 Post by ISAWHIM »

Get Daz3D, it's free...

Load-up a basic model and play with the many "morphs", to make custom face shapes. (You can hide the body for fast rendering.)

Render an image, load it into an art-program (Gimp, photoshop, ink-scape, etc...) and use that as a foundation for a face.

TIP: Save the "Scene", with a camera that you "LOCK", so it can not be moved. (Also lock the rotation of the face, or just don't alter that original file.) Then you can open it, make new faces, and they all have the same pose and lighting etc...

There are also "Anime" or "Manga" character makers, online... You can play with face-shapes, styles, skin-tones, etc... Then save them as a BMP or PNG or JPG, for reference of other faces in your games.

Still... You will end-up, naturally, desiring one set of attributes that you find attractive, and over-abuse it. Purposely go +/- 1 or 2 levels above those settings, just to randomly reduce "melting-pot syndrome"... That is where you make everyone with your mothers face, or your fathers, or your face... Like many artists do, finding themselves or parents to have the "most desirable attributes". (Or your 3rd grade crush... You know, your art teacher...)

User avatar
TheJerminator15
Regular
Posts: 161
Joined: Fri Mar 18, 2016 2:37 pm
Completed: A Sedentary Fist
Projects: Manipulation, Switch Swap, Unnamed Project
itch: jamsandwich
Location: England
Contact:

Re: How to avoid 'sameface syndrome'?

#12 Post by TheJerminator15 »

I mean, you could always pull a Type Moon and constantly make Saberfaces just to mess with people once fans jokingly say two characters look identical.
My Current Writing Project: viewtopic.php?f=47&t=37699
Manipulation Teaser Demo: https://drive.google.com/open?id=0BzJ4E ... zV6TWVaclk

User avatar
Lodratio
Regular
Posts: 45
Joined: Wed Feb 24, 2016 7:22 pm
Projects: S P H I N X
Contact:

Re: How to avoid 'sameface syndrome'?

#13 Post by Lodratio »

If you're serious about art I'd suggest drawing from life for a bit and learning to contruct realistic faces and then going back to stylized drawings. Stylized art looks deceptively simple, but there's a good amount of knowledge of what proportions work and how the features of the face relate to eachother even when you reduce it to just a couple lines.
A lot of times the reason people have sameface is that they've stumbled upon a face that sort of works by pushing symbols around until everything kind of fits. Understanding forms and proportions will give you the freedom to manipulate facial features and construct different body types without things looking awkward.

Post Reply

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users