There are many tropes and many archetypes that we use for character designs. I had a couple of years go (have I really been at it this long!?) done a series of articles on the standard character type/functionality archetypes.

I'm thinking it's high time to explore archetypes ...

Pixar has had one of the most dedicated story teams in the business. Here are the Pixar rules of storytelling. I find them to be powerful and sensible! If you haven't seen this list before (I hadn't), here they are!


1. You admire a character for trying more ...

Though I am certainly no stranger to handling the horrific in my creations, horror as a genre is something I never dabbled in before.

Horror scares me the same way comedy does!

While I can crack jokes, I always feel I can never do it on demand, or consistently think ...

A three dimensional character is needed to keep the reader emotionally invested in your comic, however there are a few pitfalls creators might find themselves tripping into, causing their characters to fall flat. Here are three holes you may encounter when constructing a three dimensional character.

Not giving your characters ...

First off, Happy 4th of July to all USA Duckers!

Recently I listened to Lindsey Ellis' excellently made video essay on so-called ‘woke Disney’: the company's attempt to remake or edit or outright hide past works because they are now judged to be problematic in some way or other ...

Beeeees! Not the beeees! Abejitas is about a grumpy odd couple of bee people, their daily life and the ridiculous situations they deal with. One wonders how these two ever got together in the first place. The snipes between these two and other characters like the doctor ante hilarious! The ...

(I'm writing this after a very long and hard day of mental and physical work so if it sounds ranty or convoluted…. eh, you've been warned :P )

Humans are competitive by nature. Somehow we have to rank everything- all things, from the most concrete to the most abstract ...

Miriam and Karim make a pretty hot team. Miriam is a cyborg built for battle with the latest in military tech, Karim is a powerfully built man and a clever scientist to boot. The year is 2073 and the world isn't a safe place (is it ever?), high tech ...

Usually in adventures, thrillers and other stories, when the main characters are romantically involved, the B plot (or even the A plot) is the ‘will they/won’t they' question: will they get together in the end, usually with a happy end scene of marriage, or some such thing. Romance ...

Nearly a billion people, perhaps more, are being confined in their homes as you read these lines, due to the Covid-19 quarantine to stem the pandemic. A good percentage are going stir-crazy right now, or are juggling with the limitations and necessary work-arounds of having to stay in a single ...