Some Advice For Character Design?

[Sunburst_Odell]

I've been looking through my anthro characters and I noticed I have very few male characters compared to female. Not that this is a bad thing, but I like having generally balanced gender ratios. But problem is: I'm under eighteen so I'm unable to purchase designs and the ones I'm willing to give up aren't good enough for anyone to be willing to trade with me.

So, I have to design characters myself. But I'm terrible at designing characters when I don't have an idea in mind already. Especially male characters. Anyone have any advice or maybe design ideas? I'm not sure what theme I want; I'm not really picky on that, although I like pastels and natural colors with pastels mixed in. Oh, and I'm a mammals-only person--preferring rabbits, canines and felines but most mammals would also work.

I'm not asking for someone to design me a character--I'd put this in the art exchange forum if that was the case. But I was hoping if someone would get an idea from those details and put it down below so I can draw it myself. If not, any ideas on how I can get some inspiration?

 

[Koriaa]

Look at designs you like from other artists, study them and add tiny bits from what you like into your own designs (with personal preferences and stuff), you can learn a lot from doing that!

 

[Sunburst_Odell]

Look at designs you like from other artists, study them and add tiny bits from what you like into your own designs (with personal preferences and stuff), you can learn a lot from doing that!

Thanks, I'll try to do that!

 

[Skychickens]

search up cool animals. Like I think a starling character would be gorgeous, because so is the bird.

Look up strange animals and see how to incorporate their look into a design.

Oh and look at saltwater fish if you wanna play with color. Reef fish are amazing.

 

[crafts_creations]

And also pinterst is awesome for inspiration, I even get inspiration from cake designs, just be open and doodle a lot. it really helps

 

[Fiorabeast]

What everyone said here! Look up a lot of things that might interest you and incorporate into your design!
Since you like rabbits, canines and felines, it doesn't hurt to maybe look up character designs ask yourself what you like about them, as someone already said.
Not to mention, research more about what other types of those animals might be interesting for you because there are a lot of different species besides the pet-types.
Also, since a lot of us people that love designing characters tend to just grab a TON of reference materials, do that too (which, based on your comment I think you might be lacking some of that?).

For example, I get my character design inspiration by looking up really awful sexy armor designs on women characters, keeping those, and figuring out what elements of that design I like to put on my guy OCs or what kind of OC guy I can create from it based on that. XD

 

[Yogoat]

You could try looking for those draw-to-adopts! I did that once and it was really fun.

Concerning character design, I believe the most important thing is to consider silhouette! If you cannot tell your character apart from another when only looking at their silhouette or "shadow", then you should keep pushing! I think this is especially true for anthro characters. Other then that, I think you should look for inspiration in things you love; tv shows, cartoons, other artists, etc!

When I was younger I used to use my Pokemon cards to design characters. Pull 3 random ones from a deck, and combine their features. It was a good exercise in design!