The Character Starts Before The First Image

The first time we see a character usually feels like the beginning, but for me, I want it to happen much later than that. By the time I’m looking at the first real image, I want there to already be a person underneath it. Maybe I haven’t figured out every detail yet, but I want enough decisions to exist that I’m not asking a face to tell me who the character should become.

That order matters more than I initially realized. It’s really easy to generate someone beautiful and then start building around whatever happened to appear in that first image. Suddenly the clothes in one generation become their style, the apartment that looked good becomes their apartment, and a random visual choice becomes part of their personality. You can discover things about a character while creating them, but I don’t want the generation itself making all of the important decisions.

I want to bring something to it first. Who is this person when nobody is looking at the feed? What kind of life are they walking into? What feels natural for them, and what would immediately feel wrong? What do I need to understand now so I’m not reinventing them every time I create something new? That’s the part I think of as the character before the character.

It isn’t necessarily the glamorous part. There’s no reveal yet, and there may not even be a face yet. But those early decisions become the foundation for everything that comes afterward. I’m seeing the payoff of that with Luna now because her world has enough definition that I can make smaller decisions without starting over every time. As I begin another character, I’m paying even more attention to what needs to exist before I ever worry about the first perfect image.

I created the free Before the Character guide for exactly this stage. If you have the beginning of a character idea but haven’t figured out the person underneath it yet, start there.