| Brief | Welcome to the Made Collaborative Studio! This Studio Card #2 represents your first step on a creative journey with us. We begin this collaborative virtual studio just as it began in a classroom in the West Side of Chicago years ago - by providing you with an opportunity to create your own original comic character(s). |
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| Scope | As you might expect, creative collaboration is at the heart of the Made Collaborative Studio. We believe in sharing stories, intertwining ideas and giving a voice to participating urban youth and collaborators like you. ALL OF YOUR STORIES MATTER. And that's why we begin this virtual journey with the creation of your own original character, some of which may be including in our Back of the Yards comic series! |
| This & That | The most intriguing submissions to this and all of our Studio Card may highlighted on our website. We'll showcase them on our "This & That" blog. And a few of you may also be invited to take part in one of our regular Zoom workshop sessions to further develop selected characters. |
Welcome to the Made Collaborative Studio! And we begin in the same manner this project began years ago in a classroom in the West Side of Chicago – creating original characters.
Got a great idea for a comic book character? We invite all of you to submit here it to the Made Collaborative Studio and the most eye-catching ideas may be chosen for further development with our team of creative professionals. Some of your crazy characters may even appear in future issues of the Back of the Yards comic!
We will walk you through this process below, but first, for a little creative inspiration to help set the collaborative stage, we present to you a few great character introductions from the big screen! …
We begin this modest virtual collaboration platform in the same manner this project began years ago in a classroom in the West Side of Chicago – creating original characters. The Made Collaborative project started as a small but ambitious after-school arts program headed by our founder, Jimmy Briseno, with a group of high school students on the West Side of Chicago. Jimmy frequently recalls the pivotal moment when one young person boldly proclaimed:
“I have an idea, and it’s going to be great!”
From there, the intrepid student began to develop the character of Andre Davis. His classmates joined in, creating characters of their own, like Tamia Parker and Russell Patterson. These ever-so-humble beginnings are what helped launch the Made Collaborative Studio and our inaugural comic book series–Back of the Yards.
Now, we invite artists and writers of all levels to join us on this shared journey by creating an original comic character of your own! There are many methods to create a memorable character, and there are some tried and true techniques. Some authors and artists choose to base their characters on people they already know, like a family member, one of their friends, or even themselves! You can aslo draw ideas from dreams, video games, books or movies as long as your approach is original and uniquely your own.
With this Studio Card collaboration, we will help you with the creative development of your own character(s). And we will be using our comic’s first character, Andre Davis, as a frame of reference with each step below.
As with all collaborations, as your first step we urge you to first get an old-fashioned pen (or pencil) and paper in hand. In fact, it might be good to have a journal notebook to help with all your collaborations to take notes, jot down ideas, and if you are so inclined, even start illustrations. It is with this type of brainstorming that often you will encounter your creative breakthroughs.
We have also created this PDF Worksheet [INSERT PDF LINK] for your convenience if helpful.
Once you have your pen and paper in hand or printed out your PDF worksheet, we can begin this collaboration.
We begin this character development exercise with the basics, or more specifically, your character’s basic characteristics. You may already have an idea of this new character because it may be based on your, someone you know, or even a combination of people you know. But just in case you may need any further inspiration for this initial step, we present with some insights from Mr. Stan Lee of Marvel comic lore. As many of you know, Stan Lee is the creator of Spiderman, The Hulk, The Fantastic Four and the Black Panther, among many other creations.
Stan Lee, master comic character creator himself, would often say that ....
Now, with pen and paper in hand, let’s start to consider what this character looks like and how you might describe this character to someone else in 5 or 6 brief sentences.
To help you with your basic character development, here’s a snapshot from Andre’s dossier summary:
Here are some character physical traits that can enhance storytelling:
Hair Color and Style: Describe the color of your character’s hair, the style (long or short), and other interesting characteristics about their hair or hair style.
Eyes and Eye Color: As the old saying goes, eyes are the window to the soul. So, take some time to consider what your character’s eyes look like. Are they big eyes? Green eyes? Piercing blue? Shark eyes?! Have fun with it.
Facial Features: Details like high cheekbones, firm (or not so firm) jawlines, nose shapes, etc.
Body Build: This is where we can capture your character’s basic build, height, muscularity, athleticism or lack thereof, etc.
Skin Tone: This is always helpful for our artists as they consider how to best illustrate your characters.
Anyway, those are just a few physical traits for you to consider as you develop your character. And for your convenience, we’ve included a few more in the table below as well a helpful link here for other physical traits you may consider when developing your character at this stage!
And to further help with your character’s basic background description, here’s a quick list of elements to consider: age, birthdate, gender, birthplace, race/nationality, marital status, education, current residence and languages among other basic background elements to consider before we start taking a deeper character dive below.
Before going to the next collaborative step, take some time to collect your thoughts and notes on paper on the basic characteristics of your new character (or within the worksheet provided within the hyperlink above)!
You can also refer to Andre’s summary above if helpful as an example and once you have jotted down your notes, scroll down for Step Two!
Now that you have a basic idea of what your character looks like, perhaps drawing upon yourself or people you know, you may be in a better position to develop your new character’s personality characteristics. So, with your pen and paper, consider personality traits such as:
– Are they introverted or extroverted (to learn more about these different personality types, you can visit here)
– Are they talkative? Curious? Funny? Stubborn Temperamental? Impulsive?
The list goes on, but you get the idea. Just allow yourself to brainstorm what your character’s personality, even drawing upon your own personality traits, or the personality traits of certain family members or friends, or even other fictional/movie characters. And to further help you with this exercise, we’ve included this table of personality traits to consider.
Before going to the next collaborative step, take some time here to collect your thoughts and notes on paper to write down the personality traits of your new character (or within the worksheet provided within the hyperlink above)!
You can also refer to Andre’s summary above if helpful as an example and once you have jotted down your notes, scroll down for Step Three!
Okay, building upon some of your notes on your character’s basic characteristics and personality traits, we are now ready to start taking a deeper dive into your character core. And that deeper dive begins with your character’s primary archetype. To help set the stage for this part of the collaboration, we present you an overview of Character Archetypes below.
Our quick overview of character archetypes begins with a man named Carl Gustav Jung, a Swiss psychiatrist who is recognized as one of the most influential figures in modern psychology.
Among his many intellectual pursuits, Jung explored the hidden and mysterious aspects of the mind and theorized that some dreams are energized by timeless motifs that have echoes in art, poetry and music throughout all human existence. As such, these dreams may hold intriguing new insights into life and the world, Jung believed, because they come from the “collective unconscious.”
Jung believed the collective unconscious is bigger and more fundamental than the mind of any single individual; it is the profound and timeless wisdom that all humans share. And it is from this collective unconscious that certain distinct and common character archetypes also emerge.
Want to learn more? Just click below! (And be sure to also click the videos within the summary!)
After learning more about the archetypes, we invite to further consider your own character in the making and select one or more archetypes that may help definite your new character. And once you feel like you have a grasp of your character’s archetype, try to summarize that archetype and core values in 2 to 3 short paragraphs (perhaps using the example we included for Andre above). To help you with this part of the exercise, we have included the following value traits to consider.
Before going to the next collaborative step, take some time to jot down three or more paragraphs on the potential character archetypes and related core values of your new character (or within the worksheet provided within the hyperlink above)!
You can also refer to Andre’s summary above if helpful as an example and once you have jotted down your notes, scroll down for Step Four!
So now that you have all the basic building blocks of your character in place, including their basic characteristics, core personality traits and archetype core values, we are ready for a lightening round of sorts! It is here that we will begin to sprinkle in some of the details of your character’s back story and other interesting facts that make your new character unique! And to help you do this, we will present to you 100 quick and easy questions for you to consider below for your new character’s back story.
Of course, you don’t have to answer all these questions for your character – in fact, you don’t have to answer ANY! But we do encourage you to just have fun with it and try to answer at least 10 or so. Even if you don’t have a clear idea of your character’s back story just yet, some of your answers to these questions may nonetheless help you with the next stage of your character’s development if you so choose – developing their Hero’s Journey storyline with Studio Card #2!
Everyone has a history and it’s that history that ultimately helps to shape and develop a person’s character of time. With the Step #5, we are asking you to develop and list key points from your character’s history, i.e., biographical notes. And when we talk about biographical information, we are not talking about who this person is, per se, but more about what has this person done or experienced.
For example, what jobs has this character had over his or her life? Did this character go to school, and if so, where and when? Does this person have a criminal record? What are other key accomplishments or milestones this person / character has experienced?
It is facts like these that help to really bring your character to life, and that brings us to the final "lightening round" of this collaborative exercise.
Just click the slides below to learn more!
One final time to collect your thoughts and notes on paper for your new character (or within the worksheet provided within the hyperlink above)! Just write your answers down for some of the questions above and with that, along with your other notes above, you should have the makings of a newly created character!
And once you have jotted down those final notes, scroll down for a quick closing video and, if you so desire, a “Let’s Collaborate!” opportunity to submit your new character to us!
As we bring this collaboration to a close, for some additional creative inspiration, we present you some history and the evolution of one of Marvel’s greatest characters – the Black Panther!
With this collaboration, you will have an opportunity to develop your own original comic character.
Especially creative submissions could be chosen for further development with the Made Collaborative team. We'll feature your character on our website. They might appear in the Back of the Yards comics!
We'll also invite some collaborators to take part in our livestream sessions over Zoom.
The Made Collaborative Studio is fueled by your artistic contributions. We’re a community of artists and storytellers who want to build something supportive for creatives of all backgrounds and ages.
We encourage you to participate in our collaborative community by showing off some of your work. We may feature your artwork in the future.
Some special pieces may be selected to appear in the Back of the Yards comic book. iPad/iPhone users, submit images from FILES (NOT from Photo Library).
Some special pieces may be selected to appear in the Back of the Yards comic book.
UPLOAD YOUR IMAGES BELOW
Some special pieces may be selected to appear in the Back of the Yards comic book.
UPLOAD YOUR IMAGES BELOW
Some special pieces may be selected to appear in the Back of the Yards comic book.
UPLOAD YOUR IMAGES BELOW
Some special pieces may be selected to appear in the Back of the Yards comic book.
UPLOAD YOUR IMAGES BELOW
Collaborate with professional artists by contributing some artwork of your own! Some special pieces may be selected to appear in the Back of the Yards comic book.
UPLOAD YOUR IMAGES BELOW
