Hello

I just have a question. Do you try to do a voice for your PC? A voice that is significantly different from your normal speaking voice? What are your techniques?

I really like to play as a Tabaxi, but I am not really sure what kind of voice would fit one. Not even sure what accent to choose. I really want to look into voice acting and learn at least one accent. I am currently trying to learn an Irish accent but I don't think it would fit a Tabaxi character. I might want to try to play a halfling, that would be better.

It is a bit harder to do voice acting when English is not your mother tongue (accents, especially), But it is something I would really love to master. Can you recommend me some materials I could look into? I found some things online, but I am just asking about your experience and also asking for some suggestions. 

Thank you for your time, have a nice day.

I love doing character voices and accents. Every character I do has to have a unique voice. 
I used to just copies voices in cartoons and on radio and I'll automatically parrot accents that I hear, so I can do a decent job at a fair number of accents.

If you want to do a unique voice, but are unsure of accents there are some other things you can do.

1. Use different words. This I got from old x-men comics. Collosus was russian because he would inject "bozhe moi" as an outburst and call people comrade, instead of friend. I have a half-elf that uses "friend" in almost every sentence. "How are you today, friend?" "Ah, friend, you misunderstand." A wizard might use a more polysyllabic loquacious vocabulary. A dumber guy might not speak all words. Also repeating words is a way to vary how they speak. Yes, yes?

2. Insert sounds into your speech. I had a kenku that would click after he spoke as kind of a punctuation. usually three clicks, but only one if he really wanted to emphasize something.

3. Change the speed you speak. I see this with Tortle players the most. Players will slow down their speech. Don't do it too much or it gets annoying. A tabaxi might talk faster or stretch out words. Or change the speed between your words. Shatner and Walken are both known for inserting long pauses in speech in places they wouldn't normally. 

4. Change the volume you speak. For a tabaxi you might want to soften your voice a little or maybe go a little louder to resemble a big cat more.

5. Change the shape of your mouth. Try talking through clenched teeth or without moving your lower jaw. try over-pronouncing your words. Push the back of your tongue up against your soft palate to get a more nasal sound.

Youtube has a lot of of great accent videos, just search for Irish accents and you'll find lots of good videos. Here's a good one that tells you how to do a variety of english accents: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ouDcXRU-rs

I even have a hard time with Irish accents. I fall into Scottish because that's the accent of my history. Here's a good video for Irish: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V9NKyBiu6FM

Thank you for your answer!

Pick one or two distinctive vocal characteristics for your character. I am currently playing a character called the Governor. He is kind of bumbling and interjects Buh-buh-buh into his speech a lot between words and phrases. Also he speaks in a gravelly voice. These two in combination are very different to my normal way of speaking.  the gravelly voice does put a strain on my vocal cords after a while.

I recommend doing this just to add to the fun for everyone.

In picking a "voice" for your character consider all the components of what goes into this ...

The first component is the pitch, a high pitch, a medium pitch or a low pitch.  But consider also that higher pitches generally corelate to a fast pace or tempo of speaking and a lower pitch would typically result in slower tempo of speaking, but not always.  A medium pitch can fit with slow, medium or fast paced speaking habits.

So with pitch you should pick a tempo for speaking.  Now maybe your character uses a slower pace to ask questions than their normal speech.  You may have to try that out and see if it works for you.

Accents can be effective without being comically out of place, but you will need to remember to use an accent and then try and find examples of folks that use that accent.

With the accent, you typically have idioms, expressions or particular words (a dialect) that the character would use.  So one character might say "That's a long way from here to the north." and another character might say "That a far piece up north."  One character might say "I think we should travel there right now so we can get there ahead of the storm." while another character might say "We better git going right now or I reckon we'll git tied up in that storm."  The words you choose are just as important for establishing where you were raised as the accent.  As a matter of fact, in my case, I still use the idioms and words of Southeastern US although my accent is very neutral because of the number of places I've lived.

My only caution is don't take it too far and become a charicature of the group you want to emulate.  We shouldn't make fun of other cultures.

Have fun.

I try to do this. But one of my many curses is that I have a very strong accent which I cannot cancel out very well. 

So I focus more on speech patterns and pitch. These are things I highly recommend to people starting out with voices. You would be surprised how much something simple like a stutter can flesh out a character.

My current character Lila is a Blood Hunter with a messed up voice thanks to being almost half monster. I know everything I say would come out with accent. Which doesn't help as it's not a intimidating accent like Lila would have. So instead I talk from the back of my throat (if that makes sense) and put on a more gravely voice. That combined with how I act playing her seems to be working well.

So never forget speech patterns! For accent stuff I recommend looking up some videos and practising a lot. Hasn't worked for me as I can't hear accents well. But I have seen it help people :)

Quote from OboeCrazy >>

Look up vocal warm ups for your voice type online. Not only can you learn some basic techniques to help keep you from tiring or injuring your voice, but many include making all kinds of amazingly fun sounds that can help you discover different things your voice can do! 

that's a cool idea. What do you mean 'your voice type'?

If English is not your first language then doing accents is easy no?