Want to develop your character and help science at the same time? I’ve created a questionnaire that will ask you a ton of things about your OC. Once I get enough responses, I will use the data to find trends in how people create characters, and then make some cool graphs with it.
The survey has over 500 questions, almost all of which are optional if you don’t want to answer that many. It touches on everything, from your character’s appearance to their personality to their favorite color, and much more. All kinds of characters are welcome, whether they’re human or non-human, fantastical or realistic, anything goes. Characters from stories, roleplay characters, and characters without any story are all accounted for.
Content warning for references to violence, sexual assault, death, abuse, and every other nasty thing you can think of. All of it is in text form and there is no in-depth discussion of any of these topics, just questions about whether these things have happened to your character. Aside from some barbie-style nudity and cartoon people in swimsuits, all images are tame. There is a nsfw section for those who want to develop their character’s saucier side, but it is easy to skip over without having to see any of it.
Please reblog this to spread the word! The 2015 survey got over 5,000 responses. Let’s see if we can beat that this year.
Hey there! I am setting up a beta network and I'm using your sortable face-claim theme (adore it <3). But I'm adding a lot of filters and they've gone off the page. Is it possible to add a scroll bar so that we can see all the filters? You can see it at the omgbetaplease blog, if you like. Thank you so much!
Sure thing! This is something I’ve found people encounter a lot, and I think I’m going to change the code so that this works automatically. It’s a quick fix, you just need to change one line.
Go to the CSS at the top of the theme and fine the code for the .sidebar class. Under it, there will be a property which says overflow:hidden;. To add a scroll bar, change overflow:hidden; to overflow:auto; and you should be good to go. You can use CTRL+F or CMD+F to find it quicker, but double check that you are only changing it for the .sidebar class.
i’m in Japan right now and the tsunami warning has been lifted. the quake itself was off the coast so what was felt on land were mostly tremors, nothing as powerful as the actual quake. very little damage caused, no lives lost as far as i can tell. news networks are carrying on as usual, save for reporting the horrors occurring elsewhere in the world. please keep focus on those who need it. Japan is fine.
For people concerned about what’s happening in Japan, you don’t need to worry. The earthquake happened offshore and the small tsunami it created caused no reported injuries or serious damage.
2 explosions and 3 shootings in Paris (update: 10th and 11th arrondissement)
Police speak of 35 people dead and many more who are injured (update: French media speak of 60 dead) (new update: Officials speak of 39 dead and over 50 injured)
About 100 people are being held hostage at a concert venue (Bataclan) (Update: delyvigne says: hostages are texting families saying they are being killed one by one. 60+ people have died and hostages are saying one by one the 100 in captivity are being killed.)
Parisians: stay inside or find shelter if you’re still outside. (use the #PORTEOUVERTE hashtag to find shelters!!)
POLICE HAVE ASKED EVERYONE TO STAY INSIDE.
Police know nothing of the killers, the French media is making references to Charlie Hebdo but nothing is confirmed yet.
They have just spoken of another explosion near the stadium and another shooting in a shopping mall at Les Halles, 1st arrondissement. This is not validated by police, but please stay safe. (update: gloomyprincesse says: i believe people are reporting the shooting at Les Halles)
People are now being allowed to leave the stadium of Stade the France.
France is considering closing its borders to try and catch the people behind these attacks and keep up more threats from outside. (Update: mildsurpriseatthedisco says the borders have been closed according to a friend in Paris)
There is a lot of chaos right now but try to stay calm and keep breathing, my thoughts are with all those in Paris right now <3
This is all I know for now, I will try to add on to this as I get more information.
Unfortunately there isn’t much I can do, but I hope this is at least informative and possibly helpful to some.
Anyone who has more information send me a message I will update this post!
Below is a masterlist of free resources that I find really helpful for theme making and photoshopping. I’ll try and keep this updated so you can check back for more links. Please like/reblog if you found this helpful. Thanks!
— html & css
w3schools has everything you’d ever need for the basics of html, css and javascript. This is the place to go before you ask that theme maker how to change the size of a font or add a border to a box.
codepen is excellent if you want to learn different coding tricks. Searching for anything on the site can potentially get you thousands of results. A warning though: professionals and beginners can publicly post on the site so every result may not golden.
stack overflow described as “A language-independent collaboratively edited question and answer site for programmers” this site is excellent for troubleshooting answers you can’t get on w3schools. Can’t get a hover effect to work? Need to know how to change the color of something on click? This is the place to go. Like codepen, this site is used by beginners and professionals but the most helpful solutions to people’s questions have the ability to be upvoted, ensuring the best help.
codrops is a great place to find in depth coding tutorials. Preloading effects, parallax effects, dynamic slideshows, you name it. This site has ideas that are creative and beautiful in addition to this awesome css reference page
html color codes features color pickers, charts, names and tutorials for hex, rgb and hsl colors! They also have helpful html/css tutorials and this neverending list of stock photo sites.
one extra pixel offers css/html tutorials and free vectors and icons.
font awesome is another favorite. Fast loading, easy to use icons that can be scaled infinitely and edited with css. At the moment they have almost 600 icons and they’re always taking suggestions. If you’ve never heard of font awesome, do yourself a favor and check them out.
elusive icons is like font awesome but with half the icons
ionicons is similar to both font awesome and elusive icons but is definitely the sleeker, more minimalistic option.
patternify is a simple online pattern generator that makes css patterns. No image files necessary just copy and paste the code straight into your css. You can change colors, size and opacity to fit whatever you need.
— graphics
pixeden has 100% free high quality mockups, vectors, css resources, and icons. One of my favorites.
deal jumbo gives out free fonts, mockups, textures and bundles right on their site, but you should also consider signing up for their newsletter. They give out exclusive freebies via email.
media militia has free textures, brushes and vectors. They also have a handful of very loud, colorful tutorials.
creative market is similar to dealjumbo with the content they offer (fonts, graphics and other freebies) but their freebies are only around for a week. It’s a get em while they’re hot type deal, so signing up for their newsletter would also be a good idea.
please stop spreading misinformation about the update lol
Post replies are being worked on to be reintroduced and the fanmail system is being dropped in favor of an chat function. Accounts with the update can no longer send fanmail but your existing messages will still be in your inbox.
There is no word on when post replies will be back, simply that they will and they are going to be improved when they are.
You can disable chat messages from nonmutuals and blogs with multiple admins and private blogs are not capable of sending IMs but sideblogs are.
AKA you can now message someone from a sideblog without giving away your other urls.
You can also delete a conversation or block a person from messaging you from the messenger itself. Unless the person has editted their settings to only receive IMs from mutuals, is a private blog, or is an admin of a group blog, you can message anyone on tumblr.
#bluespace the update looks like this.
That is the situation. Please stop circulating a bunch of incorrect posts because you want to be mad at staff when, really, this is actually a sound and functional update that the userbase has wanted for a very long time.
You’ve asked us for real instant messaging, and now it’s on its way. This means things like threaded conversations – yes!
Check out your dashboard for a little smiley balloon icon (if you’re using the app, be sure that you’ve updated to the latest version first). Click it to send a message to anyone. Your recipient will automagically get the messaging feature, along with your witty and uplifting message.
Not seeing the new icon? Have no fear, messaging will launch for everybody after a few weeks, giving us time to work out the kinks.
Once you have messaging, you’ll notice that fan mail has changed a bit. Old fan mail conversations can keep kicking, but you’ll need to use messaging for initiating outgoing gems.
Let us know if you run into anything unusual along the way. We’re here to help.
For people who are still angry about replies being gone, we do have some confirmation that replies will come back eventually. (More clarification here which proves that messaging isn’t replacing replies altogether.)
“My friend is secretly a mythical creature” cliché aus
“You just busted in my house asking for help in bad english and I thought you were a kid who did some minor troubles at the comic con or somethiing judging by your costume but you’re actually an alien who crashed near and is researched by your planet’s authorities” au
“Caught you changing and you have wings binded on your back” fallen angel au
“Now that I think about it I never asked why is your house built around a giant-ass tree please explain” dryad au
“We had a sleepover and I woke up earlier than you so I wanted to grab something to eat and why the actual fuck is there so many blood packs in there” vampire au
“You’ve been avoiding eveyone since a couple days and I noticed your arm seemed paralyzed or something and I wanted to talk to you except when I grabbed said arm to stop you from running away it came out oops” robot au
“I see you every year at carnaval/halloweens/any costumed holidays with the best costume ever (though always the same one) and we exchanged numbers and became internet buddies but why won’t you accept to meet face to face any other days” centhaur/satyr au
“We were dicking around in chemistry but you accidentally received some of whatever we made and it turns out that this substance strongly weaken you/forces you to take your true form” shapeshifter/dragon au
“I came to your house for a sleepover but you weren’t here your house was trashed and when I found you again the next day you were naked and without any recognitions of what had happened” werewolf au
“We fell on each others and yo where the frick is your stomach dude” Wendigo au
“You had an accident and I thought you were dead bc I couldn’t hear your heartbeat but you turned out just fine” undead au
“I always thought you were our common friend’s sibling but you actually are a demon they summoned years ago and made a pact with“ demon au
“I keep freaking out whoever come to my old house but you don’t get scared easily and you actually seems interested by my story and past instead of just being here for the thrill wanna chat?” ghost au
In a world where the 'lucky ones' are born with a symbol that represents their soul-mate, Arcata, a small seaside town in California, has the highest rates of soulmates finding each other. Arcata is a brand new appless group who intends on opening whenever we reach 10 characters, though we're not showing up in the tags yet. Could I please have a shoutout? Thank you!
Northvale High - a high school that isn’t quite special but is far from ordinary. A school once known for being the best in Seattle has lost it’s lustre after being torn down, rebuilt time after time, but has kept it’s spirits - do you have what it takes to be a Northvale Mountain Lion? - Hello, could we get a shoutout please? Thank you!
Do you have a character and know what they look like in your head, but you need a visual reference to have down on paper? Under the cut is a list of resources for getting a picture of your character so you can bring them to life, even if you don’t have artistic skills. The methods covered include:
Real-life Faceclaims (both celebrity and non-celebrity)
3D Model Makers and Character Creators
2D Dollmakers and Avatar Makers
Getting someone to draw them or drawing one yourself
Finding pictures of specific features, like hair or outfits
If you’re curious about the character in the pictures up there, that’s my own original character, Nani. The five pictures were made in the following methods, from left to right:
A celebrity faceclaim for her, Jess Plummer
A 3D model of her face that I made in DAZ 3D
An avatar made using a Rinmaru character creator
A doll made in a DollDivine dress up game
A picture that I drew myself
Faceclaims
A faceclaim is when you choose a celebrity (or a picture of a face that is not a celebrity) and declare that this is what your character looks like. If you’re going to be roleplaying as the character or posting the image publically, then using a celebrity is a better idea; their job is to be in the public eye, so using the image is less morally questionable. However, if the image is just for your own reference and no one else will ever see, pictures of non-celebrities can be just as good.
Faceclaim Directories
Faceclaim directories are big sortable databases made to help roleplayers find faceclaims for their characters, and are one of the quickest ways to look through lots of faces at once. Here are some to get you started:
Angeldustmt’s Directory
Not-so Lazy FC Directory
Bunchoffaceclaims Masterlist: All faceclaims here have at least 100 gifs for roleplaying, and the directory can be sorted by multiple criteria.
RPHelper’s FC Directory: Can also be sorted by multiple criteria.
RPHelper’s Old FC Directory: More faces, but it can’t sort by multiple criteria like their other one.
Diverse Faceclaims: POC only.
Notanotherrph’s Directory
Evansyhelps’ Directory
Faceclaimxhelper
Mapleofrph’s Directory
Asian FC Directory: Only asian faceclaims, obviously.
TheHumbleRoleplayer’s Diverse Directory: Only POC and gender-nonconforming faceclaims.
Faces Made for Smut: NSFW. Includes pornstars and other people with nsfw gifs and resources.
Dear-Indies has more in this tag here
Example #1 on the banner I made is Jess Plummer, the closest I could find to my OC. I found that faceclaim on bunchoffaceclaims.
Roleplay Helper Blogs (RPHs)
Overwhelmed by all those faces in the directories? Luckily there are many kind people out there who are willing to lend you a hand for free. Roleplay Helpers, or rphs, have usually been dealing with finding faceclaims for a while and may be able to point you in the right direction. Here are examples of faceclaim help requests and answers from the blog nphofrp.
Note that not all rphs do faceclaim help. I’m an rph, and I’m useless at that. Go to their blog and check their What I Do page (WID) to see if they offer faceclaim help. Also, most rphs specialize in roleplaying and tend to recommend faceclaims with gifs, so if gifs or other rp resources aren’t important to you, let them know in your request.
To find rphs that do faceclaim help, I recommend looking in the rph, rpt, and rpc tumblr tags.
Model Directories
Directories of fashion models. There are some unique faces in there that you won’t find anywhere else.
While putting their photoshoots on a pinterest inspiration board or something may be fine, especially if they are more established, I wouldn’t recommend using these people as roleplaying faceclaims or in fancasts. They are not famous and not prepared to deal with that.
Here are some directories worth looking into:
Fashion Model Directory: Can search by hair color, eye color, and nationality
Model Management Search: You can search by age, height, measurements, eye color, hair color, ethnicity, and more.
One Model Place: Can also search by age, height, measurements, eye color, hair color, and more.
Portrait Photography
Portrait photography is a great thing to look at, especially if your character has a more fantastical bent. It’s probably fine to use these on pinterest inspiration boards or inspiration blogs, but make sure you link back to the original to give the artist credit!
Deviantart’s people and portraits section: You can search by keyworks within the category, or get into more specific
Flickr: This links to the search for “portrait”, but you can search for whatever you like, like “blonde girl” or whatever.
Pinterest: You can search for portrait photography and find all sorts of good images and groups. Remember that many of the pictures are links to articles with several pictures, and those are worth following.
Selfies
NOTE: NEVER EVER EVER USE SOMEONE ELSE’S SELFIE IN ANY PUBLIC WAY WITHOUT THEIR PERMISSION. No using them for roleplay, no using them in fancasts or on fake book covers, no putting them on an inspiration board, nothing. If you’re an artist, I wouldn’t even recommend drawing them in any realistic way without changing a couple of features.
If you really want to use someone’s selfie for any purpose, go to them and ask their permission! I don’t know how likely it is that they will say yes or no, depends on the project and the person, but if you get shot down it’s not the end of the world.
Although selfies are risky business here, they have the benefit of showing faces of everyday people rather than celebrities and models. Here are places to look for selfies:
Tumblr: You’re already here. I suggest searching for most recent selfies instead of most popular.
Instagram: Absolutely overflowing with selfies. Here is a website where you can browse instagram on your desktop without having an account. The tag #selfiesunday is worth looking through. But warning, you might get some naked pictures, so watch out for NSFW!
3D Model Makers
Specialized Software
These are programs which are specifically made for creating 3D models of human figures. I’m not too familiar with all of them, but I’ll tell you what I can.
While 3D programs like this are fantastic for getting the facial features of your character down, they often lack a lot of hair and clothing options.
DAZ 3D: The most complicated to use on the list, and I don’t have the time or know-how to teach you everything (I forget how I installed stuff anyway...) If you want to use it, you’re on your own. I got DAZ a million years ago and a lot of things have changed, so I don’t know what default figures the program comes with anymore. However, if it includes Genesis 2 (which I hope it does), installing this morph pack and this morph pack will give you a great amount of control over the character’s faces.
Makehuman: A lot simpler and more straightforwared than DAZ, but with less potential for customizing hair and clothing.
Fuse: Another thing like Makehuman, although it is only available for steam. It has zombie parts I guess? I haven’t used it much.
Video Game Character Creators
If you’re a gamer, you might have some of these already installed. Some games, like The Sims, Dragon Age: Inquisition, Second Life, and EVE Online have incredible character creation options. I wouldn’t recommend buying a new game just for this purpose since it can be expensive, but if you already have it, might as well use it!
A tip for people who have The Sims 4--in this incarnation, Maxis actually encourages user creator content, and has a mod folder built into the game that you can drag and drop your downloaded mods into. You can find all sorts of interesting hair and clothing option at The Sims Resource.
2D Avatar/Doll Makers
These are online games which can be used to customize two dimensional figures and create characters. Typically they are targeted at young girls who want to have fun playing dress up with digital dolls, but that doesn’t mean we can’t use them!
Dream Avatar Creator
A dream avatar creator is a program used to simulate avatars on sites like Gaia Online where you can customize and buy items for a digital persona.
The most popular one before was tektek’s Gaia Dream Avatar, but it seems to have been taken down. eLouai has one, but it’s not as updated.
Syndrone Online: More color choices than you’ll know what to do with. You have to sign in to access female options.
DreamSelfy: I’m not sure what website this is for, but it has a lot of options.
Doll Makers and Dressup Games
These are games where you dress up a digital doll. They usually have a specific theme, and there are thousands of them out there. Here are some specific sites that gather them together:
eLouai: The centerpiece of eLouai is its Candybar dollmakers, but it has plenty more than that.
DollDivine
Azelea’s Dolls
Rinmaru Games
The Doll Palace: This thing is a fossil but it has a lot of pixel doll makers.
Deviantart’s Interactive Flash section: Doll makers buried in a bunch of other types of things, but they’re there.
Drawings
But if no photographs or automated tools are getting you what you need, the next step is to get a custom illustration of your character. Fair warning, though--this will likely cost money or take a lot of time.
Free Art Requests
There are some artists out there who do free art for people, but they are few and far between, and generally you get what you pay for. There is no guarantee they’ll finish the request in a timely manner, if at all. Here are some things to keep in mind about artists and free requests:
Don’t ask an artist for a free drawing unless they state they are taking requests somewhere on their blog/page.
Don’t try to convince an artist to draw you something for free in exchange for “practice” or “exposure”. They can practice on their own and if you don’t have the money to pay them, you probably don’t have the means to give them good enough exposure for it to be worthwhile.
Don’t make friends with an artist just so they’ll draw you a picture. This is manipulative and crappy in general.
Don’t guilt trip artists into drawing stuff for you, because that’s also manipulative and crappy. Nothing about how you’ve been following them forever or anything. Especially don’t use social justice causes as an excuse for guilt-tripping artists into drawing something specific. I’ve seen it happen before, and not only does it make you look like an asshat, it doesn’t make a very good impression for your cause.
If someone says they will make you a request but they never get around to it, don’t freak out at them. Artists have lives and the fact that you’re not paying makes it low priority. This is another one of those “you get what you pay for” scenarios.
Some places too look if you want a free request:
The deviantart pages or tumblr blogs of artists you like. Sometimes they will offer free requests or art giveaways.
Forums. Some forums, such as the NaNoWriMo forum, has a section for creative types to give away their services, and sometimes artists go there. Sometimes you can get things for free, sometimes you will need to pay with fake virtual currency of the website, depends on the forum.
The subreddit I Can Draw That
The tumblr tag for Free Art Requests
Art Commissions
Commissions are when you pay the artist to draw your character. Compared to free art, these tend to be higher quality and more reliable, although they do cost money. Often time payment happens over paypal. Getting art drawn can be as cheap as a dollar and expensive as thousands of dollars, depending on the artist. Generally, unless you want something from an established professional or a very detailed picture, an illustration won’t cost you more than $25-$40.
If an artist is taking commissions, they will usually have a commission info sheet somewhere with examples and prices. If they don’t, feel free to message them asking if they take commissions.
Here are some places to find artists taking commissions:
Tumblr’s commission info tag
Commission-an-artist on deviantart
Commish-Artify
Artistsnclients
Drawing it Yourself
This is the hard path. Sure, you can draw your character absolutely however you want them, but learning the skill can take years. I’ve been drawing since middle school and I’m still not that good compared to the pros. Learning to draw takes dedication and hundreds of hours of your time, so I’m not going to go over it here!
I can’t give much good advice on getting started, but if you’re an experienced artist, here are some good tutorials on facial and body variation in human characters:
Face tutorial
Face/nose shapes reference
Nose chart reference
Unique features tutorial: part 1
Unique features tutorial: part 2
Unique features tutorial: part 3
Catalogue of human features
Guide to human types part 1
Guide to human types part 2
Guide to human types part 3
Other Resources
Hair
There are so many kinds of hairstyles out there and finding the right one for your character can be difficult. Here are some websites with catalogues of hairstyles for your use.
UKHairdressers
Rasysa: A japanese site with all east asian models.
NaturallyCurly’s StyleNook: To search through hairstyles, click on the “filter” text under the “How it works” button.
Clothing
So you have your character’s physical appearance, but what do they wear? Here are some sites that can help you.
Polyvore: A website where you can create fashion collages using pictures of various clothing items, allowing you to put together custom outfits for your character.
I... confession time, polyvore is the only fashion site I know. I’ll update this if I think of any more.
Body types
For your character’s body and stuff.
Photographic height and weight chart: Has photographs of real people with certain combinations of height and weight, so you can give your character a height/weight that makes sense for how you visualize them.
MyBodyGallery: Pictures of real people’s bodies along with their height, weight, sizes, and so on.
