Just had a crazy thought, check that the layer is visible, on both scenes. (the layer might not be visible on the character scene)
But as for opening blender from a terminal/console.
Mac: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R4WOyEkyRig
(it needs to be launched from a terminal)
Windows: You go to Window>Console to open it
(I think you can enable/disable it while blender is running)
