Visualizing your Character
Not everyone is an artist. Many people tend to have OCs they can draw, or art is the medium through which they like representing their character. Perhaps that is you. Awesome! But, I know there are people out there who prefer writing about the character — maybe you have a Pinterest board or a popular character you model your OC’s physical appearance after. I for one dabble in drawing, but prefer some other way to visualize my characters.
Enter the obligatory AI discourse. I admit, I’ve used AI once or twice to play around with visualizing characters. I never use it for a final copy, based on my own preferences. I prefer to use other sources to visualize my characters.
My go-to is ALWAYS picrew. I love picrew!!! The original website is in Japanese, so I use a translator when I’m visualizing my characters. These are character customization creators made and uploaded by actual artists!! Most include a watermark so you can find them on social media too. The best part is there are so many different artists and styles that you can pick one that matches your story / character / vibe.
If I want a full body look at a character, I tend to use heroforge. Total disclaimer: heroforge is a website originally created to customize and order fantasy / dnd / pathfinder mini figures. Regardless, it’s a good way to design a 3D render of your character with presets and customizable color options. You can also opt to purchase the figure or an acrylic mini of your character!
Picrew is totally accessible on either computers or mobile. Heroforge is technically “usable” on mobile, but I highly recommend using a device like a computer that has better graphics, so you don’t miss anything. Also the user interface is way better on PC.