9 Character Generators to Unleash Your Imagination

It’s a common feeling for creatives to sit before a blank page in their notebook, an empty canvas or a brand new file on their computer and not know where to start. Sometimes this comes from a lack of inspiration and other times, it’s simply overwhelming to choose between all of the different ideas you have in mind. 

You can overcome that overwhelming blank page and design a character with the help of a generator to jump-start your creativity.

Everything to Know About Character Generators

When diving into the world of character generators, you’ll have a few options depending on your end goal. If you’re an author, you can find descriptive character generators that conjure up everything from the character’s age to physical appearance and world views. Other character generators will just give you a few detailed phrases that you can use to influence their different characteristics. 

Take this description from a character generator: “Draw a slim human who is tall and chubby, with medium, straight pink hair, green eyes, a tan skin tone and a scar. They love shopping. They want to join the circus, but are afraid of being forgotten.”

From this description alone, you may already be able to imagine their age, what they like to do in their free time and the relationship they have with their parents. If you want to add your own spin on a character, using a less descriptive character generator will allow you to fill in the extra details as you like.

If you’re an artist searching to make physical characters or avatars, you can also use art idea generators that create images or 3D versions of characters. Seeing a final image of a possible character can help fuel further creativity and give you total agency to make their backstory based on their physical appearance, accessories and style choices. 

Using Character Generators for Character Art

When it comes to character design, it’s up to you to decide if you’d rather be inspired by a written description or a visual one. If you’d rather use a character generator for your overall inspiration and then design their physical appearance using your personal style, a character generator that makes up a written description might be more helpful.

Here’s an example of a character description you could use for character art: “Draw a crazy opossum that loves video games. They want adventure, but are afraid of the dark woods.”

With this character generator, you’ll get an idea of what you can create but get to have fun with everything in between. Does the opossum have a favorite snack they’re eating while they play? Do they bring a beat-up flashlight or a glowing lantern when they adventure through the woods at night? 

If you'd like to practice your drawing skills or focus more on your character's physical appearance, using a visual character generator might be best. You’ll have a little less creative freedom, but you can adjust certain aspects of the character to your taste or use it as a reference photo to push your drawing skills even further.    

Creating Anime Characters

Anime is one of the most popular cartoon genres. Beloved for their imaginative and detailed characters, anime artists often use inventive hair color, eye color and even fashion accessories to add personality and life to the people, animals and creatures in their stories. 

Most anime character generators produce a group of pre-existing anime characters, but you can also find AI character generators to create a new anime character from scratch.

Creating Characters for Role-Playing Games

One of the most popular ways to use a character generator is for Dungeons & Dragons or other role-playing games like Pathfinder and Trove. Popular online resource D&D Beyond will create a whole character sheet with visuals, physical features and traits, inventory, skills and more. You can begin with your ideas and have the system guide your creation, or choose from pre-made or randomly generated options.

Since D&D Beyond is such an in-depth character generator, you do have to pay to use it after a certain number of characters. If you’re looking for free Dungeons and Dragons character generators, you can also try the official D&D website where pre-made, downloadable character sheets will have you ready to play in seconds. There are also D&D character generators where you can select the Dungeons & Dragons books you want the generator to be inspired by. 

Conjuring Up Fantasy Characters

Of all the art and literary genres, fantasy is one where you can get the most creative. In your fantasy universe, pigs can fly, hell can be frozen over and a blue moon can shine every night. The impossible can become normal, or you can just make slight changes to the world you already know well. 

Some fantasy character generators will produce a random description based on a few key variables like hair color, occupation, or fears and desires. Take a look at this character constructed by Fantasy Name Generators: 

“Blonde, straight hair gently hangs over a craggy, sad face. Gentle brown eyes, set tightly within their sockets, watch impatiently over the armies they've kept safe for so long. Freckles are spread handsomely across his cheeks and forehead and leave a beautiful memory of his adventurous love life. This is the face of Bryson Eustis, a true warden among dark elves. He stands graciously among others, despite his athletic frame. There's something enthralling about him, perhaps it's his clumsiness or perhaps it's simply his warmth. But nonetheless, people tend to treat him like family, while trying to subtly stare.”

What backstory can you think of that might explain Bryson’s “craggy, sad face” and “his clumsiness?” Is it caused by the “beautiful memory of his adventurous love life” or being a “warden among dark elves?” Are his handsome freckles the reason people try to “subtly stare” or a rumor that has haunted him his entire life?

Spend a few minutes and try to generate a character of your own. Write down three questions like the ones above and see what you can learn about the character you’ve created. 

Using a Character Description to Create Your Character

Working with a character generator sometimes takes a little trial and error. It’s important to know how to find high-quality character generators and use them to best accomplish your goals. 

Finding Their Name

Take this randomly generated character description for example: “This proud gentleman has round gray eyes that are like two silver coins. He is bald but used to have fine, wavy hair the color of bleached bone. He is short and has an elegant build. He has thick eyebrows and full lips. His wardrobe is elaborate and is completely green.”

Knowing that your character wears an elaborate green wardrobe and is a proud gentleman can help you choose the right name for your character. Perhaps you’ve imagined him as a medieval merchant and you might go with something alluring and unique like Cyprian, Isabeau or Lucan.

Having an idea of what time period your character lives in, their culture and where they are from can help you research the most fitting name for your new friend.

Discovering Their Personality

How you choose your character's personality will depend on how much you need to know about them. If you’re an artist, you might want to know more about their personality to add thoughtful details to your drawing. 

You might decide he’s wealthy and draw him with a pouch of coins. Or maybe he lost all of his money in a risky gamble but didn’t want to buy new, less expensive clothes so you can draw his elaborate green wardrobe beginning to tatter. 

If you’re a writer working on a fantasy novel, you’ll probably need to know more about his personality so you can see how he reacts with others as you create characters in your story. You should focus on the meaning behind his physical descriptors. For example, does the fact that his round gray eyes are compared to silver coins mean anything about his relationship with money or his occupation? 

Getting into Their Backstory

Now it’s time to dive even deeper into your character exploration. Here you can ask personal questions about your character like:

• Would they like to be famous one day? How?
• What are they most grateful for? 
• Is there something that they regret about the way they were raised?

Use what you know about this character already to discover more about his backstory. 

Top AI Character Generator Sites and Apps

You officially have everything you need to start diving into your own AI character generators. Depending on your final goal for your project, some character generators might be more helpful than others. Take a few minutes to explore these character generators to find the best option for you. 

MakeGirlsMoe Anime Character Generator

If you’re inspired by digital character design, check out the anime character generator by MakeGirlsMoe—which allows you to visually craft your character. You can choose elements like hair color and accessories or leave it up to random chance.

Masterpiece Animated Character Generator 

This character generator by Masterpiece Generator will get you started with a detailed character profile, allowing you to choose (or get random options) for everything from hobbies to political leaning.

Tetra Cube D&D and Pathfinder Character Generator

The generator at Tetra Cube feeds you all kinds of Dungeons & Dragons characters based on books and allows you to quickly shuffle through traits, flaws, tattoos, superstitions and more.

Cartoon Character Generator

If you want to draw a human, an animal or an inanimate object, this cartoon character generator by Bardot Brush provides short, specific prompts that you can use as inspiration to create never-seen-before characters.

Autodesk 3D Character Generator

This random 3D character generator by Autodesk allows you to build a character using features from its inventory. Once finalized, you can import your creation into Autodesk Maya or other 3D animation software and bring it to life with animation.

Humaaans Visual Character Generator

Humaaans gives you a robust character builder if you're looking for full-body mockups. You get to mix and match illustrations of people from a huge design library and change everything from hair color to walking positions to tops and pants. 

Avatar Factory Anime Character Generator

If anime characters are more your style, you’ll enjoy this character creator app available in the Apple AppStore. With face-only avatar options and full-body creations, you can make your own anime character using simple customization tools. 

Bitmoji Character Generator

Also available in the Apple AppStore, these characters are based on real-life people and are created from selfies or full-body photos of their subjects. The images are then “illustrated” digitally to look like a cartoon version of the photo. You can still adjust their hairstyle, eye color and more if you’d like from there on the Bitmoji website or leave the character exactly as it is.

Fantasy Name Generator

You don't really want to name your fantasy character something like Bob or Joan, right? A fantastical character needs a name that matches the genre and fits the character's race and origin. 

Check out the fantasy character generator from Fantasy Name Generators, which serves up not just fantasy names but incredibly detailed descriptions of elves, goblins, werewolves and many more mystical creatures. 

Time to Generate Your Character!

Boost your next project with character generators. Use them for initial inspiration, as templates for future characters or as references for your art. 

Remember to make the resulting character your own by asking the right questions and adding personal touches, no matter what you decide to do with a character generator. Above all, have fun with it!

Written By

Calli Zarpas

Producer & Writer by occupation. Ceramicist & Newsletter Editor by avocation.

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