It’s no secret that characters are the main elements of a story.

A story is abstract; characters make it concrete. They take the audience on a journey, relate with them, and offer takeaways that make us better versions of ourselves. Plus, they shift something inside the creators themselves.

AI has democratized such character creation.

One concern many people voice, though, is how generic AI characters are. “They lack soul,” someone commented on a LinkedIn post of mine. And they’re right — I’ve noticed the same too.

Which brings me to the biggest lesson I’ve learned from Pixar: it’s not the technology, but the storytelling that makes content stand out. (I’ll keep saying this over and over again, despite having said it hundreds of times.)

So how you can ensure your AI characters don’t appear generic?

I’ve spent 100s of hours researching Pixar’s movies and absorbing their work culture, and identified three specific techniques that address the root causes of soulless characters:

• Shallow research
• Poor emotional design
• Visual over-complication.

I want to share what I learned with you to help you generate characters that get viewers deeply invested. So much so that they can’t stop thinking about the characters long after the story is over.

Let’s dive in.
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1. Build From Your Deep Knowledge

Remember Route 66 in Cars, where Lightning McQueen landed after getting separated from his transporter?

Turns out, it’s not an imaginary place. Route 66 is real. In fact, it’s a historic highway in the United States also known as the “Mother Road” and “Main Street of America.”

Before writing the story, the Cars research team took multiple trips along the highway. Led by Route 66 historian Michael Wallis, they filmed it, interviewed locals, ate at diners, visited landmarks, and even collected postcards.

That's how Pixar captured the spirit of Route 66 and its small towns. And that is why Cars became such a blockbuster!

This highlights why depth in knowledge is important when you create a story — whether for your book or your Instagram/TikTok content. Rather than chasing the latest trends, conduct research in a topic you’re interested in.

Go deep without trying to figure out whether your work is making any sense. Because when you look back, the dots will eventually connect.

Here is a prompt you can put in ChatGPT or Claude to get ideas on what to research:

This depth of research gives characters their soul.

Once you've built that foundation, the next step is translating it into visual design choices that leverage psychology.
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2. Shape Your Characters (Literally)

Staying with Cars, do you notice a difference in Lightning McQueen’s and his arch rival Chick Hicks’ shapes?

Yep! McQueen is circular in design while Hicks has sharp edges.

Stick with me here. Jaffar and the genie from Aladdin. Scar and Simba from Lion King. The Evil Queen and Snow White.

In each of the above examples, the crook has pointy features while the lovable protagonist has circular ones. (Probably because we’re afraid of getting hurt from pointy things but feel secure with rounded ones.) Plus, big eyes and tiny bodies make characters look vulnerable. Like Sadness from Inside Out.

Now that you see it, you can’t unsee it, right? The good thing is not many others have seen it. That means you can leverage this technique to engage viewers with your story.

Here is a prompt to generate characters that evoke deeper emotions from your audience.

These shape choices give characters their emotional resonance.

But here's where many creators go wrong: they think more visual complexity equals better characters.
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3. Practice Simplexity

A common mistake that we see many Consistent Character AI users make is they try to make their characters do too much.

This perfectionist trap leads to three problems:

• Your character becomes inconsistent.
• You spend too much time on looks, not the story.
• You waste money and energy and get discouraged by poor results.

Look, I get it. Your character is your baby. But spending too much time perfecting it is like trying to make your toddler a spelling-bee champion.

Of course, you can make your child a gold medalist. But it's not overnight—it's an iterative process that evolves over time. Same with AI characters.

The solution is what Pixar calls 'Simplexity.' Here's how Pete Doctor, Pixar's Chief Creative Officer, explains it:

Keeping things simple allows you to own the process. You can ship, collect feedback, and refine your characters and story. This also allows you to keep iterating until you strike the right balance. It’s like salt in a recipe—not too much, not too little. Just right.

Here is a prompt to help you keep things straight and simple, and focus on what matters.

This simplicity gives characters their lasting impact.

In a nutshell, the aim is to make characters that resonate emotionally, not just look impressive.

Which of these techniques will you apply to your creative work? Reply to this email and let us know.

Better still, share your work with us so that we can feature you in future newsletters 🙂

Like Xentrix Studios in Australia. They are getting 10,000+ views and awesome engagement on each YouTube short with the characters created using Consistent Character AI.

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What are you creating today?

Check them out!

Talk soon,

Sachin and Diana.

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