3 Things to Help You Make Unique Fantasy Races

A forest-like background with a signpost with the words writing and design pointing in opposite directions, showing the roads to creating unique fantasy races. The trees in the back have red fruit and a couple rocks appear on each side of the signpost. A gold road diverges, each going in the direction pointed in the signpost.
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Sunfire

CONTENTS

Overview

Many worlds in fantasy feature species you wish existed in the real world. They add a special touch to the places they call home. Ranging from elves to demons, these unique fantasy races have their own way of life and they interact with each other in their own way.

But suppose one day, you decide you want to make your own? Perhaps you’re tired of seeing the same races appear in place after place and you want something different? Or you have great ideas but you’re not sure how to bring them to fruition?

Every process has a beginning but it’s where you start that determines how it’ll end. You’re probably thinking, how do I start? The more important question you ought to be asking is, where do I start? Sure, you could just make some up in a few minutes and stick them in your story and call it a day but you shouldn’t do that. For starters, your audience will see through it and they’ll tear it to shreds.

To make unique fantasy races your audience will love (or hate) means you’ll need to put in the work but it’ll be worth it! This article will cover the three steps you need to do from start to end and the beauty of this is, you can do it in whichever order you like! The three steps are: designing them, writing about them, and their role in the world.

I wrote two articles that cover the good and evil races you typically see in fantasy. They can help you decide which side to place yours on, if you’re unsure where to put yours.

Now that you’re ready to begin the work of creating unique fantasy races, let’s start with the first of three steps: designing them. 

Designing Unique Fantasy Races

This is where you draw up sketches of the fantasy species you’re working to bring to your world.

If you already have an idea on what they look like, you can go ahead and draw them on your favorite drawing application. For me, Adobe Photoshop and Procreate are my go-tos, but use whatever you’re comfortable with. This process ought to be fun and bring out the creativity simmering within you, not toilsome or aggravating! 

If you’re unsure of how you want them to look, do some research. The Internet is full of images you can peruse, though it’s okay to look at them for inspiration. Copying them is a no-no! Or you can play your favorite video games and study the different race designs to help you conceptualize your creations’ appearances.   

An example of a fantasy race. This man has brown-gray skin, brown hands, and gray hair. He has on a light gray jacket which covers his red shirt. He's wearing blue pants and brown shoes.
Have fun creating your own races!

Whether you have a rough idea of what they’ll look like, the design phase has several parts:

  • Preliminary Sketch (Mock-up): you draw up the basic version with no color, using only black and white. This helps you to come up with the overall shape. Feel free to experiment with different shapes and sizes. You can additionally draw sketches of alternative versions to help you find the one you like the most — who knows, you could come across something you didn’t realize beforehand.
  • Sketch Finalization: you choose the one you best represents the vision you have for your fantasy race. Never choose the first one you drew — except in rare cases — because your ideas on your race isn’t fully developed yet. This sketch might be a combination of several elements from different sketches that work together beautifully or it’s exactly what you wanted what you’re creating to look like.
  • Colorization: Now we move onto the fun part. This is where you add color to your black-and-white outline. Ideally, you want to make duplicates of your outline so you can compare them side-by-side after you’re done colorizing. You’re encouraged to experiment with colors until you find the right combination that best suits your species. The colors you choose will determine how people view your creation so be sure to use the ones that paints it in the right light.
  • Finalization: This is where you finalize the details. You’ve already chosen your outline and colored it. Now you take one good look, studying it in great detail to ensure you didn’t make any mistakes or overlook something. If there’s something that you feel is off, work on fixing it. If you’re satisfied with the outline and you feel you have the right combination of colors, congratulations you’ve successfully drawn a fantasy race!
  • You repeat this process for each of the races you’re planning to bring into your world.
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You’ve finished one phase — pat yourself on your back for a job well done! — but there are still two more to do and they’re equally as important as the design phase was.

Writing about Unique Fantasy Races

This phase focuses on the written version of your races. While graphic visual of your species are helpful, writing about them benefits you in ways the visual doesn’t.  For instance, you’re able to go into greater detail on them and show the audience what type of world they live in, what they’re like.

You create what kind of society they live in and show your audience what life’s like for them. Here’s some ideas to help you get started:

  • How’s their society organized? Do they live in a monarchy or theocracy?
  • Do they put a great emphasis on family or not?
  • Are they militaristic or scientific?
  • What foods do they eat? Are they herbivores or omnivores or carnivores?
  • Where do they live?
  • What does a typical day look like?
  • What values do they hold in high regard? For example, do they value honesty or trickery or greediness?
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There’s more than the ones just mentioned above but those should go a long way in constructing the communities your races dwell in.

You’ll be adding more to this as time goes on so be sure to keep all your information in one place so you can easily refer back to it when needed. Feel free to change it but do so before you take your story public. Otherwise, it’ll take more work to change it since your fans will already have formed an idea on what they’re like. Not to mention, your audience may not necessarily like the new changes you make and that might hurt you.

The writing phase’s never really done. As time goes on, your unique fantasy races may change, for better or worse, which means you’ll have to update your info. For example, at the beginning of your story, one could live in a maritime society but a tsunami wipes it out midway through the story, causing the survivors to move further inland where they must develop new methods to survive.

A brown checklist for with scribble lines denoting what to do to create a fantasy race. There's gray checkboxes with black checks. The word checklist appears at the top.
Have a checklist for what information you want in writing about your fantasy races.

The Role Your Unique Fantasy Races Play in the World

This phase revolves around how your races interacts with the world. While there’s some overlap between this phase and the writing phase, this part focuses on the relationships it has with its neighbors. External politics play a great role here. 

There are several things you should take into consideration when fleshing out the role your races plays in the world and they are:

  • Are they warlike or peaceful?
  • Are they isolationist or not?
  • When called for help, will they come or ignore the call?
  • Do they hoard valuable resources like iron or gems or do they trade with their neighbors to get something they want but don’t have?
  • Are they trusted by their neighbors or are they known across the world for breaking their word?
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How each race handles diplomacy affects how others perceive it. Aggressive species tend to have frosty relations with their neighbors. In wartime, the neighbors band together to contain it. Races with excellent diplomacy receive gifts from grateful friends.

Be sure to put all this information in one location so you can quickly get it when you need a refresher. You can keep it with the info you made in the writing phase or you can put it in a separate document, use whichever one you prefer.

Just as a world’s always changing, so does the role your unique fantasy races play in it. When a world darkens, a benevolent species might suddenly become militaristic, eager to prey upon its vulnerable friends. As the role changes, the information you have should reflect the changes. 

Tying it all Together

Creating your own unique fantasy races is fun but it requires a great deal of work to make it happen. You have to design them, write about them, and establish how they interact with their neighbors. 

But in the end, all your hard work will pay off. You’ll have created species your fans will want more of. Who knows, you just might be the creator of a race that explodes in popularity.

Let me know what you think in the comments below. (Note: this is an account-exclusive feature).

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Thanks for reading this and until the next time,

Sunfire

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