I dont draw very many of my characters simply becuase drawing humans is hard and my dragons always come out looking...wrong. I think I have one 'decent' drawing of a dragon char named Ditri that I hung in my room and somewhere I have draw the difference between human, dragon and Scale. Other than that...nothing.

I was lucky enough to have an artist friend in high school, so one of my big epic stories has character sketches for the entire cast; unfortunately, I wasn't lucky enough to have a scanner (and still am not), so those are all sitting in a binder somewhere. My sister also did a few character things for me but these are also mostly scattered everywhere; Josephine is the only one I can find, so I guess that's my favorite. XD

(I also like to pretend I can draw, so there are sketches of people all over my notebooks, but none of these would be worth scanning even if I had the equipment.)

QUESTION #27: Along similar lines, do appearances play a big role in your stories? Tell us about them, or if not, how you go about designing your characters.

As many or as few details as you want~ Thanks for posting, everybody! :D

Depends on the story. I did one recently where appearance was huge, i was playing around with symbolism and running it throughout the entire story, including names and pretty much everything, so appearance was huge, good guys wore white bad guys black, etc. I also had key emotions/characterstics for each character, so the guy who was greed tended to wear green, the guy who was joy, bright colors and so on and so forth. Ever character had their own color scheme.

Sometimes I use appearance, but not really that much, I think. I mean, I have on 16 year old who looks a couple years older than that, so she can get away with stuff because some people think she's actually an adult, but I that's more HER using her appearance than me. Sometimes I guess characters appearance kind of fit their personality, which I guess is using their appearance, but I don't really TRY to do it, it just happens or it doesn't.

Lol i just realized none of my character sketches are uploaded, so you'll have to wait...

Appearances....recently not much. For some reason all my recent characters have been conveyed by their "character" personality, ect. I feel like you should get to know them really well first, then you can see what they look like. Or maybe introducing what they look like in small increments... but normally i shy away from an entire descriptive paragraph displaying their beautiful eyes (they are always beautiful mind you) and their gorgeous hair (because what kind of character would ever have hair loss or split ends?)

yeah... my 2cents

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Var is awesome!

I try not to go into too much description at once for my characters' appearances, though some get more treatment then the others. I usually stick to one or two descriptions; for example, in my WiP, I may mention that one of important females has icy-blue eyes, but that's usually when she's angry or in an intense mood.






A writer is somebody for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people- Thomas Mann




My writing blog: [aspiringpen.blogspot.com]

I think of my charries in 'general' terms, not specific appearances. But if they were in a cloud, I could find them easily.



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There are three rules of writing a novel. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are.
— W. Somerset Maugham

I like to have at least a general idea of what my characters look like, but I don't spend much time thinking of it. Usually it just kind of comes with their personality.

Generally appearance isn't a major aspect. I usually have a vague idea of what people look like; hair color, skin tone, eye color, and maybe build, but that's about all. The exception might be a certain group of people who happen to have some sort of scar or mark on their bodies that shows how their predecessors died. But even that's not really important. It's just something I decided a long time ago.
I also have a few groups of people who tend to fit into a specific physical appearance, but again, that's not usually a major part of the story. It just tells you a bit about their ancestry.

Sometimes. Like, my quirky characters are usually better described than my main ones, because sometimes the appearence defines them easily and you can get to know them faster that way, whereas with a MC you have the whole book to get to know them.