Advice/Help Character Design Tips?

[DemonicToonz]

Hi! I'm the kind of person who likes to visualize and put their characters on paper. I was wondering if anyone had some good tips for designing dystopian military uniforms. I'd like the uniforms to be intimidating and have an unsettling vibe about them, however, I do not want these uniforms to closely resemble any pre-existing military power.

 

[Idea]

Functionality and resources. Think about those two things.

-->What do they have that they would want to make uniforms out of? Is there a symbolism in the materials? Is there a preferable price range? Things like that.

--->What is the IC purpose of the uniform? Who will wear it, and in what kind of environment? Is there any meaning, like say a uniform for the people being all the same to solidy the ideas they are "the masses" and "just another face in the crowd"?

 

[Nue]

This first half is more just general advice for character design, but my approach to it is usually: 50% focused on practicality/realism, and 50% focused on what it communicates visually to an audience. I'm of the mindset that unless you're doing something that requires 100% realism, like a historical type thing, the design doesn't need to be fuuuully sensible if you don't want it to. For example, we keep giving superheros capes, skin tight suits and boob windows, even though in real life that sounds like the worst protection ever.
What you do need to consider issss, imo:

- Is this something the character can actually get their hands on? For example - if your character is a broke college student, it doesn't make sense for them to exclusively wear designer clothing.

- Is this something your character would wear even if they could get their hands on it? If your character is generally very shy and insecure about themselves, they're unlikely to wear skimpy clothing.

The thing about these first two is that it isn't a hard rule, but if you are doing something that conflicts, that needs to be addressed in their character. Like maybe the person wearing skimpy clothing is, yes, very shy and insecure about themselves, but are trying to gain confidence through that kind of clothing - that sort of thing. Basically, try to make it make sense, and if it's something that's out of the ordinary, acknowledge it and make it part of the character.

- What could someone tell just from looking at them, knowing nothing else? I think fashion can be really important here - thinking about what clothing they'd pick out for themselves, or if they're not in a position to.. saaay, if they're in some kind of intimidating dystopian military for example.. what sort of clothing they have to wear. Stuff like hair can be useful; you can pick a neat, well-kept hairstyle for someone who's very organized and tidy, and have a character less concerned with their appearance have very messy hair, for example. Colour is an important factor too. Bright colours for cheerful characters, dark colours for gloomy characters. And again, not a hard rule - if you want to subvert expectations, do the opposite of all that! Give a character who has fire powers an icy-blue colour scheme just to throw people off, lol.


Now for the specific question. I think you'd have to give more information about what that military is like, before I could give any specific advice, but I do have a few things.

- Even though you don't want it to resemble any existing uniforms, it's still a good idea to look at existing ones for reference anyway. Maybe you don't want to replicate a full one, but you can still take various elements from different outfits and try to put them together into their new thing. I actually think if you want them to be immediately intimidating then having them look like existing ones actually could play in your favour though; there's a reason why lots of fiction base their evil fictional military/empire/ect. uniforms off the uniforms from Nazi Germany - because people can easily recognise the influences behind it, and it signals to the viewer, "hey wait a minute, I think these guys might be the baddies.."

- Colour is a big thing! People generally aren't going to be unsettled by a pastel pink uniform, so you could opt for very dark colours. Or, you could look at this the other way: the unsettling aspect could come from the fact that they're trying not to look intimidating, but clearly still are - this can be really effective, there's a reason why people hhate and are unnerved by Dolores Umbridge, way more than Voldemort.

- It's a uniform for an army, so you'll have to factor in that these are probably being mass produced, and therefore they're probably not going to be hand-sewn and overly intricate. Keeping it simple might be good.


I wrote waaay too much but I hope something in there is helpful-

 

[Spoiled Bread]

Make it cover their entire body, even their face. Yes, they are not human, they are monsters! Rawr!


But oh wait, they miss their shots 99% of the time, their armor looks too smooth and bright and their size is not intimidating enough.

Now that's more like it. Give them unsetlling backstory, like the one accepted must kill other participants or something like that, and in-universe rumours about their cruelty.

 

[FoolsErin]

Not sure if it’s been mentioned before, but keep the kind of things the military would be mainly doing in the back of your mind when making the designs.

 

[DemonicToonz]

This first half is more just general advice for character design, but my approach to it is usually: 50% focused on practicality/realism, and 50% focused on what it communicates visually to an audience. I'm of the mindset that unless you're doing something that requires 100% realism, like a historical type thing, the design doesn't need to be fuuuully sensible if you don't want it to. For example, we keep giving superheros capes, skin tight suits and boob windows, even though in real life that sounds like the worst protection ever.
What you do need to consider issss, imo:

- Is this something the character can actually get their hands on? For example - if your character is a broke college student, it doesn't make sense for them to exclusively wear designer clothing.

- Is this something your character would wear even if they could get their hands on it? If your character is generally very shy and insecure about themselves, they're unlikely to wear skimpy clothing.

The thing about these first two is that it isn't a hard rule, but if you are doing something that conflicts, that needs to be addressed in their character. Like maybe the person wearing skimpy clothing is, yes, very shy and insecure about themselves, but are trying to gain confidence through that kind of clothing - that sort of thing. Basically, try to make it make sense, and if it's something that's out of the ordinary, acknowledge it and make it part of the character.

- What could someone tell just from looking at them, knowing nothing else? I think fashion can be really important here - thinking about what clothing they'd pick out for themselves, or if they're not in a position to.. saaay, if they're in some kind of intimidating dystopian military for example.. what sort of clothing they have to wear. Stuff like hair can be useful; you can pick a neat, well-kept hairstyle for someone who's very organized and tidy, and have a character less concerned with their appearance have very messy hair, for example. Colour is an important factor too. Bright colours for cheerful characters, dark colours for gloomy characters. And again, not a hard rule - if you want to subvert expectations, do the opposite of all that! Give a character who has fire powers an icy-blue colour scheme just to throw people off, lol.


Now for the specific question. I think you'd have to give more information about what that military is like, before I could give any specific advice, but I do have a few things.

- Even though you don't want it to resemble any existing uniforms, it's still a good idea to look at existing ones for reference anyway. Maybe you don't want to replicate a full one, but you can still take various elements from different outfits and try to put them together into their new thing. I actually think if you want them to be immediately intimidating then having them look like existing ones actually could play in your favour though; there's a reason why lots of fiction base their evil fictional military/empire/ect. uniforms off the uniforms from Nazi Germany - because people can easily recognise the influences behind it, and it signals to the viewer, "hey wait a minute, I think these guys might be the baddies.."

- Colour is a big thing! People generally aren't going to be unsettled by a pastel pink uniform, so you could opt for very dark colours. Or, you could look at this the other way: the unsettling aspect could come from the fact that they're trying not to look intimidating, but clearly still are - this can be really effective, there's a reason why people hhate and are unnerved by Dolores Umbridge, way more than Voldemort.

- It's a uniform for an army, so you'll have to factor in that these are probably being mass produced, and therefore they're probably not going to be hand-sewn and overly intricate. Keeping it simple might be good.


I wrote waaay too much but I hope something in there is helpful-

Thank you for the advice! You made quite a few interesting points about character design and I appreciate it! I did take some inspiration from Nazi uniforms since I wanted the military attire to appear intimidating, However, I didn't want "Nazi" to be the first thing that popped into the viewer's mind. Especially, since the story is partially from the point of view of someone who is actively serving in the military. The character isn't portrayed as a hero for the most part, but she isn't portrayed as a villain either, so you could see how that would be problematic.

 

[Phantom Thief of Hearts]

Thank you for the advice! You made quite a few interesting points about character design and I appreciate it! I did take some inspiration from Nazi uniforms since I wanted the military attire to appear intimidating, However, I didn't want "Nazi" to be the first thing that popped into the viewer's mind. Especially, since the story is partially from the point of view of someone who is actively serving in the military. The character isn't portrayed as a hero for the most part, but she isn't portrayed as a villain either, so you could see how that would be problematic.

Depends on the setting, since you can tweak the design enough to not look too similar could work but I do suggest looking around for more military uniforms.

 

[Lorsh]

When it comes to dystopian uniforms, I try to avoid the "masked mook" trope, as well as too much Nazi aesthetic.

In mine, it's a low-futuristic setting, so make them along the lines of Nineteen Eighty-Four/WWI. Less technological stuff, and a more worn-out, mass-produced look. I separated the uniforms into the military, the regular police, and the secret police (Watch). I focus most of the dystopian-ness on the Watch, while keeping the "regulars" more normal looking. When in comes to NPCs in roleplays, I feel like it's more unsettling to kill a character that looks like a police officer, as opposed to one who looks like a faceless space Nazi. Same reason why I leave masks out- to describe their expressions, faces, whether they're male or female, etc.

In terms of colours, I simplified it a lot. Plain green for army, plain blue for cops, and orange (the party's colour) for the secret police (SS-equivalent). Depending on the type of world you're in, you might want more modern/sci-fi type clothes, but I mainly went for great coats, coveralls, and shoddy button-down uniforms, often with suspenders and identification armbands. Sometimes armour pads.

German-style helmets are quite overdone, so I tried to go for a French WWI Adrian helmet look instead. I'll admit that I still keep the Nazi aspect of peaked hats and trench coats, though.

I'd suggest looking at historical armies and stuff for inspiration, or literally just look up a list (with pictures) of different types of hats, coats, etc. on wikipedia. Then, you can add your own sci-fi flair (or some other genre) as necessary.