Book Titles, Character designs, ect....How do you do it?

[Murkrow]

i ask these questions, because im thinking of a comic book series. i dont know if ill actually be making it, seeing as i have the characters down (abilites, personality, attitudes, what-if moments, history, ect.), but i dont have a title for the book or the story/plot down just yet. this has been a few months in the making; mostly just sketches & character bios. majority of this is in my head, so its not official.

plus, i have these questions for almost every artist. *shrugs* so, tell me...how do you do it?

Character Creation:
- when creating a character, what names pop into your mind while creating? do you flip through books to find a perfect name? does your mind randomly pick a name for you while your drawing the character? how do you go about names for a specific character?
- do you base it off of somebody you saw or met in real life?
- do you base the characters attitude, likes, dislikes, ect. off yourself?
- have you ever made a "what if" character? like, what if a character thats most thought of not being able to survive anything in the real world in certain chaotic times, survives?
- does a voice in your head scream at you saying "THIS MUST THE WAY THE CHARACTER IS!!"? (...yeah, that happens to me. xD)

Book Titles:
- when creating a comic book (or a novel), what comes to mind when thinking of a title?
- do you want a name that has to do with the comic plot or theme? like, if its about an adventure, would you call it "Adventures of ___" or something of the like? or does it have to pertain to a certain character?
- do you take the words you heard from somewhere & turn it into the title? or do you just name it something completely random?
- would you name the book after somebody/a band or another book or music title? like, would you name the book "Adventures of Elvis" even though the book isnt about Elvis Presley, but the character was named after him? or would you name the book after your favorite book or song title or band? (i dont know if you can do that...)

Other:
- do you read comics/stories of other artists to get an idea of how the comic/novel book should look like?
- when finished creating the story/comic, & youre ready to show it to the world, do you want it to be published for the world to buy it, or do you want to host it on a website for the world to see?
- Digitally Drawn, colored, outlined & finished on the computer/typed the story on the computer with few images....or drawn on paper, inked in paints or markers & pencils, little touch ups on the computer/wrote down on paper, later typed on the computer? or both? in other words, Traditional or Digital?

[Avan]

- when creating a character, what names pop into your mind while creating? do you flip through books to find a perfect name? does your mind randomly pick a name for you while your drawing the character? how do you go about names for a specific character?
I have a tendency to use names with some background, and then warp them to something that I think sounds nice & fits the character & environment.  Occasionally I get something that sounds nice off the top of my head.
- do you base it off of somebody you saw or met in real life?
Sometimes, sometimes not. More often then not they are agglomerations of attributes from different sources
- do you base the characters attitude, likes, dislikes, ect. off yourself?
See above; it includes some of myself.
- have you ever made a "what if" character? like, what if a character thats most thought of not being able to survive anything in the real world in certain chaotic times, survives?
I'm not sure I understand your question.
- does a voice in your head scream at you saying "THIS MUST THE WAY THE CHARACTER IS!!"? (...yeah, that happens to me. xD)
I'm again not sure what you mean.

Book Titles:
- when creating a comic book (or a novel), what comes to mind when thinking of a title?
I like to do names either when I'm working through planning or done planning it.
- do you want a name that has to do with the comic plot or theme? like, if its about an adventure, would you call it "Adventures of ___" or something of the like? or does it have to pertain to a certain character?
I just pick something that I think fits the work.
- do you take the words you heard from somewhere & turn it into the title? or do you just name it something completely random?
Nope, I'm not spontaneous like that.
- would you name the book after somebody/a band or another book or music title? like, would you name the book "Adventures of Elvis" even though the book isnt about Elvis Presley, but the character was named after him? or would you name the book after your favorite book or song title or band? (i dont know if you can do that...)
Not from songs or bands, as I Don't like singing, and I doubt that any singular piece of music would make its way into the title unless the work revolved around it/had it as a major motif/.

Other:
- do you read comics/stories of other artists to get an idea of how the comic/novel book should look like?
Yeah.
- when finished creating the story/comic, & youre ready to show it to the world, do you want it to be published for the world to buy it, or do you want to host it on a website for the world to see?
The latter. I do it for my own creative obsessions, not for money. Plus its so much easier to get a following with free stuff. (People tend to get put off by having to buy things)
- Digitally Drawn, colored, outlined & finished on the computer/typed the story on the computer with few images....or drawn on paper, inked in paints or markers & pencils, little touch ups on the computer/wrote down on paper, later typed on the computer? or both? in other words, Traditional or Digital?
Digital no doubt for stories, either for visual works.

[Murkrow]

- have you ever made a "what if" character? like, what if a character thats most thought of not being able to survive anything in the real world in certain chaotic times, survives?
I'm not sure I understand your question.
- does a voice in your head scream at you saying "THIS MUST THE WAY THE CHARACTER IS!!"? (...yeah, that happens to me. xD)
I'm again not sure what you mean.

what i mean, is that lets say you have a character thats disabled; he or she is missing a limb or 2, or medical issues are keepin the character from doing even simple things (like Autism, Scoliosis, Down Syndrome, ect.). what if a particular character with a condition like those survives something like an apocalypse, or a battle?

the second question is like, if a name or something about the character pops into your head, it wont leave you alone untill you add it. its just sitting there, almost telling you a character HAS to have this or that. (for example: with my Pokesona, a thought of a striped tail popped into my mind. it wouldnt leave me alone till i added the striped tail.)

[Avan]

- Hmmm, generally nothing that severe

- Only rarely

[Yip]

Generally I find naming characters and such to be very time consuming. I want something that fits and is relatively unique. That is, I don't want the characters full name to be the real full name of someone at all famous. And I'll generally do google searches of name ideas to see if I get hits. The fewer hits the better.

I have an animation series I'm thinking about. And I'm having a very hard time coming up with a good name for the main character and for the series itself. (Don't get excited peoples; it'll likely be quite a while before anything comes of it.) I also have a card/board game that I'm working on that needs a back story. And that's been going rather slow.

As for design of the character, that comes usually from inventing a background story for them. Otherwise I find my characters will end up feeling rather generic.

In general, and I don't know if this is good advice but it's what I usually do: I normally have a lot of different project ideas floating around in my head. A LOT of projects. On the one hand, it's good because it means I always have something to work on concepts for. I honestly don't know what it's like to be bored or how it's even possible: my mind is always busy.  The down side is that I often end up bouncing from project to project and thus progress for any one project is usually extremely slow. I've been trying to get myself to focus more so I can actually get things completed, but I find myself getting distracted with other project ideas easily.

[Avan]

  I tend to do that too with the names - only I tend to check after the fact.

[Sskessa]

- when creating a character, what names pop into your mind while creating? do you flip through books to find a perfect name? does your mind randomly pick a name for you while your drawing the character? how do you go about names for a specific character?

I have a list of names which I add to whenever I hear a good one.

- do you read comics/stories of other artists to get an idea of how the comic/novel book should look like?

You mean do I read? Of course! A person who doesn't read has never written a decent or even passable story. Make sure you read some great works and not just trash.

- do you base the characters attitude, likes, dislikes, ect. off yourself?

I intentionally try to make them different. It's no fun to write about people I can predict.