A well written protagonist will generally have some flaws, starting out as an underdog of some kind, with lessons to learn and improvements to make over the course of the story.
Granted, some heroes are, well, just heroes, who are pretty much who they need to be from the beginning ...
Damaged Protagonists
Banes at 12:00AM, Jan. 18, 2018Active vs. Reactive Characters
Tantz_Aerine at 12:00AM, Oct. 14, 2017
In stories there are always protagonists and antagonists. And sometimes it’s the protagonists that are more interesting while others it’s the antagonists that steal the scene. Very rarely, it is both.
In all the wide versatility and range between characters, what is the common feature of interesting, memorable ...
Reflecting on Reflection Characters
Banes at 12:00AM, July 20, 2017
Reflection Characters
When I was doing a little reading on the “Mentor” character type, I learned about something called “Reflection Characters”. It was an eye opener; I'd never heard of this before, though I could instantly see how it made sense in storytelling, and dozens of examples came to ...
Basic Shapes in Character Design
Banes at 12:00AM, April 6, 2017
From the Best of Banes Collection…
CHARACTER SHAPES
I've never consciously designed characters this way, but I recently remembered hearing about this notion some time ago, on the dvd special features for an animated movie or show. I don't remember which one.
Characters derived from basic shapes can ...
When the Hero Fails
Tantz_Aerine at 12:00AM, Feb. 25, 2017
Failure is the stepping stone to success. That’s what I teach my students and my clients, and it is true, right up there with “whatever doesn’t kill you makes you stronger”: If you learn why you failed, you won’t fail again the same way- and that brings ...
The Hated - Part Two
Banes at 12:00AM, Jan. 26, 2017
The Hated, part two: Heroes we hate
Last week I blathered on a bit about villain Protagonists. These are evil, or “bad” characters who get to be Protagonists!
But what about more traditional heroes, or supporting characters are written to be the “moral compass” or “voice of reason”, or just ...
Quackcast 307 - The jerks
Ozoneocean at 12:00AM, Jan. 24, 2017 LISTEN!
Jerky, jerk, jerks! Let's talk about this type of character…
This topic is based on Banes' newspost from Thursday, he based it on characters like Reggie from the Archie comics. Jerks can be pretty good characters in their own right. They can be villains, heroes, antagonists or protagonists ...