>>3769796>How do you design hundreds of charactersOk
?while keeping them unique and consistent arstyle/theme wise without ever having them come off as "generic"?
Why, to any of that? Not everyone has to be "equally unique", nor do you have to stick to a consistent style or even theme. Is real life like that? No! Moebius, referenced above, just drew whatever he felt like it seemed, his charcters in hius sci-fi works were almost transhuman or posthuman, so he got away with being able to mold character's physiologies to state their personality better. That's another thing, if you are designing a character, you display their personality or "what their character is" through their design. Pretty simple, and it works out like this in real life too in some ways (clothes are the most prominent example).
It also depends on your setting and the context of the story you are telling. For example, I'm doing a scifantasy setting for an rpg 5000 years in the future, I'm not saying my character design is that great, but I tend to have a lot of freedom design-wise, pic related. Something like a story set in boot camp at a contemporary army barracks, or even a rave, the character designs would probably be more self similar, at least clothes and "personality" wise.
Also, don't forget, generic characters need love too. For example, I can't think of a more generic charcter than "the hero/leader clad in red", from the Red Ranger to Kaneda from Akira, I see this trope everywhere, and yet it seems to always work, mostly because being clad in red brings all of the attention to that character (color psychology), but I digress...
