2023-03-26 Update: When I originally posted this, this character was just "Tiramisu-chan", but I decided to give Tiramisu a surname recently. So now she is Sano Tiramisu (佐野ティラミス). Also, if you want to refer to her affectionately, you can call Tiramisu "Misu-chan". Original post continues below!

So back in July I downloaded VRoid, a 3D character creator software made by Pixiv so I could make a character I wanted to make. That first character design which I'll call "C1" is not done yet for various reasons. I realized that C1 might not be done for a while and needed to do something else, so in August I just decided to throw together a random character without any real plan or idea other than make it cute. In just two days with no more than a couple hours total of playing around, I got a bespectacled girl with pink hair wearing a cute costume I downloaded from Booth. And she actually felt complete without any further changes needed to be done. I didn't immediately give her an actual name, she was just "pink girl" or "C2". After some time being left in my files, I randomly thought of a perfect name a week ago... Tiramisu (yes, like the cake), and now the character is finally ready for the public. So yeah, that's Tiramisu-chan above. I don't really have a plan for what I want to use Tiramisu-chan for, I just wanted to make a cute original character! Here's a screenshot of her in the VRoid UI:

In case you're unfamiliar with it, VRoid is a piece of software that lets artists and non-artists create 3D anime character models without having to actually 3D model things from scratch. VRoid basically gives you a highly customizable anime character model that you can directly draw on or edit the textures of to create whatever design you want. And the VRM models it exports can be easily used for vtubing and VRChat. Despite the limitations of VRoid's character creation approach, it's more than adequate for a lot of character designs. Here's a video of someone skilled making a character with VRoid. VRoid comes with a bunch of stuff ready-made for people with no skillz who want to make their own character (though basically all of the included clothes are feminine), and there's places where you can get textures made by other people for you to use for free or in exchange for money. Plus there's a community of artists who do VRoid commissions if that's not enough for you. Small warning: if you have little or no art skill and decide to make your own character with the stuff already in the program you can end up making a very generic-looking character which is easy to spot by discerning viewers.

For those curious about what C1 is, it's basically an anime girl persona (anisona!?) of me. It's the character design I'd use if I wanted to become a vtuber and needed a character model. I originally wanted to make a basic prototype design in VRoid and hire an artist to make polished textures, but in trying to make precise and unambiguous "demo" textures I realized that my primitive drawing ability is enough to make half-assed textures that look okay and are enough to get the point across without artist assistance. Though of course it'd probably look way better if I got an artist to do it. Anyway, C1 might not be ready for a while.

If you're looking to make an original character with an anime aesthetic please do consider trying out VRoid. It's a pretty fun and easy program. Thanks for reading.