VTuber Persona: Creating A Unique Personality for Your Avatar

One of the most exciting parts of playing an RPG is the character creation and customization. It’s not uncommon to spend hours just designing and tweaking your unique character to suit your vision. In the same way, this is also a very exciting aspect of being a VTuber. Why stop at simply creating your character when you can plan out their past, present, and future as well? Here are some tips on how you can maximize this part of your journey.

1. Starting from the Beginning: The Backstory

A character’s backstory dictates everything: their personality, looks, and even their voice. Consider this the foundation of how your character will turn out, because once you perfect this part, the rest will come easier. A well-defined motivation will guide you along when you start thinking about the voice and character design because you have this path to follow, to align everything. This will also help you in terms of internalizing and acting out as your character during streams. Some guide questions for you to answer would be: “what was your character’s childhood like?”, “what did they want to be when they grew up?”, “what kind of environment did they grow up in?”.

However, a great challenge that comes with this is consistency: if your audience knows the backstory well, any inconsistent action will take them out of the immersion and confuse them. For example, a dark, brooding character with a trauma-ridden past won’t probably say cute things or scream in a high-pitched tone. It’ll help if you come up with a backstory that’s either similar to your own or is very easy to follow, so that you won’t get lost along the way.

2. Fleshing Out The Personality

After establishing the foundational backstory, the next part would be determining your character’s personality. The main question you would have to answer here is, “how does the backstory affect your character?”. Their motivations, mannerisms, and communication style are all part of this. You can start by asking yourself, “if this happened to me, how would it affect me?”. It’s similar to the psychological concept of personalities being shaped by childhood experiences and parenting style: whatever your character experienced in the past should determine how they act out in the present.

You may also opt to take the literary approach to this which can be a great idea as it helps you better visualize your Vtuber model’s story and also maintain character as you stream more often. Listed below are some questions you might want to answer for your character:

• What defining traits shape the character’s behavior?
• How do these traits influence their choices and actions?
• What fuels the character’s drive and ambitions?
• What inner turmoil does the character grapple with?
• How do these internal battles impact their decisions?
• How does the character engage with others?
• Which pivotal incidents contributed to your character’s disposition?
• Are they archetypal in nature (hero, mentor, antagonist)?
• How does the character communicate? What is their conversational style?
• Does their speech unveil aspects of their background or persona? If yes, how?
• What backstory shapes the character’s present actions?
• Are there past events significantly molding their identity?
• What hobbies or interests does the character pursue?
• Does the character have dreams or aspirations beyond immediate goals?
• What role does humor or coping mechanisms play in the character’s life?
• How do they handle stress or difficult situations?
• Does the character have any addictions or recurring habits?
• Beyond immediate desires, what are the character’s long-term goals?
• How do these aspirations shape their decisions and actions?

Again, consistency is everything. Make sure that you ground yourself well with the backstory while fleshing out the character’s personality. It can be challenging to maintain a persona at first, but once you get the hang of it, you’ll be coming in and out of character in no time.

3. Crafting the Visual Design

The last major aspect of character-building is visual design, which is basically how your character looks. It’s important that the backstory and personality have been fleshed out before doing this so that it would be easier for you to piece everything together. The visual design is the physical manifestation of personality: this is how your character expresses themselves. Bright personalities come out through brightly-colored clothing, while more serious, mysterious types prefer formal wear. Every aspect of clothing and appearance must be anchored in the foundation so that your character will seem more believable.

There you have it. You are now on your way to creating the perfect character.