One of the first things that you will do when making a character almost always will be to design their appearance, the colour scheme, mane style and so on that we will associate from now on with this character throughout the story, in-story changes in appearance not withstanding.

Now one of the most common mistakes people make with creating characters is when trying to make them distinct. Now obviously you want your character to have their own look to them but there is such a thing as going too far; if you check out my avatar picture you'll see that the OC there is very gloomy looking and has the black trenchcoat but otherwise his colour scheme, mane style and general look could all easily fit into the show (the gloominess is because this particular OC is part of the Rainbow Factory AU).

Comparatively a LOT of characters created by writers try to go to extremes in making their OC stick out like a sore thumb, when canon has already provided you with freedom to use any colour scheme you want and to even literally have a mark on your character dictating their role/destiny/skill. That really should be sufficient for the purposes of making your character distinct.

How about colour scheme? Now what is a pleasing colour scheme is not the easiest thing to agree on since for instance I don't like the colour black when used in character designs, it often seems out of place to me but others may think that black is a perfectly acceptable colour for a pony. That's an example where it's subjective.

However an objective criticism that can be made often comes down to contrast. People tend to use contrasting colours to make their OC stand out, so for instance having a white coat and a black mane or the opposite in fact. This in itself does not make your OC distinctive automatically and if you're working in a visual medium such as video or comic it can actually become irritating to the eyes if it's done too much. Contrasting a bright and a dark colour isn't an inherently bad character design but going too far with the contrast makes it seem unnatural and if in a visual medium starts to become irritating to the eyes.

At the very least if you want to utilise contrast to make your character stand out, don't do it with multiple characters then have them all in the same scene, not only is it irritating if visuals are involved but even without them it exposes that you're just using the same trick multiple times without actually innovating new character designs.

When it comes to cutie marks many people I feel take it too literally. We've seen in the show that cutie marks do not HAVE to correlate directly to what the pony does for a living (Rarity has jewels as her cutie mark but she isn't a jeweler for instance, jewels are related to her job but not the sole focus of it) and just as often a cutie mark is designed with what looks cool in mind before what actually makes sense and relates to the character (almost any OC with a weapon for a cutie mark is guilty of this though as with every criticism there are exceptions).

Keep all the above in mind when creating a character and I have no doubt that you'll have no trouble settling on a design, just remember that while obviously you're going to use a lot of your favourite colours, styles and so on in OC designing like we all do, just bear in mind that what is cool should always come second to what makes sense.

2269472
I typically do midnight blue coat with blue mane. IS this way to flashy, or what?≥ 

2269488
I don't think that would be too flashy though I think you'd need a particular shade of blue for the mane, some shades of blue wouldn't compliment the midnight blue too well.

2269472 Yeah, I've noticed that with a lot of the freaky dragon/bug/vampony/whatever, the creator of said character seems to be trying to get all of their different ideas out on one character. It's better to make multiple characters. Heck, I have a dragon, a unicorn, an earth pony, a changeling (possibly, I don't remember whether or not I deleted "her"), and two robotic ponies. I need to create more, though, since over half of them are rarely if ever used, and I'm getting annoyed by how often I use the unicorn.

2269496>>2269516
I generally prefer to use changelings, so that I'm flexible. Playing a character that's unicorn only is really weird for me.

2269472

Johnny Maker, The Inventor.
As you can see, I tried to make him look normal, and yet, he stands out in his own way. He looks Unique, but in a normal way. Not in a way that would draw attention in a crowd immediately.
Thoughts on this though would be much appreciated.

2269580 He looks darker when you're using him as your avatar.

2269617
Really? Never noticed.

2269623 Yeah. As your avatar, he looks kinda dark brown. Right there, he looks brown-purple.

2269630
He's Red. Very dark red.

2269496 2269535 Yeah, the only reason I haven't used Willow more often, other than the fact that I'm not used to playing a bad guy (especially one with depth), is because I'm trying to get her backstory right. But with Equestria being the way it is, it's hard for me to imagine even Canterlot having places that are extremely bigoted against Earth Ponies.

I wanted to get help here, but I wasn't sure if I just make a thread, or there's something else I have to do first or something. I can never think many things are simple and to the point, because they often aren't.

2269632 Oh.

2269639
Yeah. I can play a good second in command any day of the week. I can do subtle manipulations, heroic acts of justice........As long as someone helps me plan it. Spontaneous acts of justice always ended up with the dimension exploding.

2269472 For me, it's a verbal desciption in the fiction, and then only if the desciption is important to the story. If the character's appearance doesn't tell the reader anything about them, and their desciption doesn't effect the plot then It's the last thing i worry about. Sometimes I don't bother at all. I have two major characters who i have never descibed. my readers haven't noticed.

2269472 However, cutie marks DO have to refer in some way to a special talent.

2269472

That's why my main OC is Brown and Dark green. It fits the quiet personality