I don’t know why I dislike art prompt generators, but I do. I think it’s because the prompts are too generic. I figure a bunch of writers might offer something more refined. Consider it a writing prompt/challenge. So hit me with a description of a character from either one of your stories or your favorite media. If it’s not one of your characters, don’t say who it is, there might be some interesting results if I go entirely off of the description. Maybe also rate your character on the good-evil scale (0-saintly, 5-regular guy, 10-pure evil.). That affects pose and such, and if they have unique clothes, describe those too. It’s as much a challenge for you to see if your descriptions are as good as you think they are as well as my drawing ability. I’ll probably spend about an hour drawing each one either digitally or traditionally. I have a cartoony style. I drew my avatar for example.
Alright, only if you want. A common soldier from my book world. Always had various iterations of descriptions for them and have never been happy with any of them. Would be fun to see how others imagine my writing. Only if you want a challenge, though. She leaned her rifle against the groove in her rectangular shield, ready at a moments notice to either fire or switch and draw her blade that was in a scabbard attached to her waist. She was clad in full metal lamellar armour, made up of small plates attached to each other. Like her male counterparts, she wore the traditional skirt, a set of metal strips around her waist, they reached down to just above the knees. She wore a helmet which had a membrane infront of the ears and a neck guard around the back, the helmet had a clear visor protecting her purple skinned face. Her helmet had a small cylinder on top of it, from which rough black beast hair protruded and formed into a ponytail.
Oh, fun! This one is probably a 6 on the scale of evil: The grublin Yagrotta was a twisted little thing, stunningly filthy even for someone who lived in a swamp and only ever bathed on accident. She was wrapped in moldering rags of indeterminate color and fabric, which went unwashed ostensibly to preserve the delicate enchantments woven into the cloth; but being honest, at this late stage it was more a case of keeping them away from water lest they dissolve. Her feet were technically bare, but so thoroughly caked in mud and grime that it was practically shoes. Yagrotta made her slow way up the winding south road, leaning heavily on a gnarled staff, bent under a backpack much larger and heavier than herself. [...] Yagrotta raised her sharp, lumpy little face and stared at him with eyes like twin puddles of swamp water. Well, not twins exactly. The eternally squinting left one was a deal muddier than its sibling across the nose. What would ordinarily be called the whites was as wet and yellow as a peeled grape. By contrast, the left was always wide open; a pink, bloodshot, hateful thing that wept copious amounts of pus.
Grazhbarf is an old hobgoblin. His face is leathery from the sun and wind, and he has bright, cunning eyes. He dresses in furs and wears a Phrygian cap with a blue cockade, and his black hair is plaited down to his shoulders. He's not grotesque. He's like a little man with greenish yellow skin; somewhat large, pointed ears; and a prominent nose. He is short (perhaps 5'), and a bit bowlegged. He wears a long, curved knife.
Without naming author or work, (just for fun,) here goes. This is from a published work. Some may recognize the character. Character score first. equal parts 0 and 5. She is described at two stages of her life. At twenty she is a slender, petite woman with fiery red hair. I picture her with piercing blue eyes. She isn't wealthy, and her work has her in frequently in trousers. As a sixty two year old she looks fifteen years older. Her back is bent, she dresses for the cold in thrift store garb. The hair is now snow white. She is homeless and carries her possessions in two large shopping bags. Her feet look large for her size, but it is her shoes. They are stuffed with her most important possessions, and a surprisingly large hoard of cash. She is prone to standing on street corners shouting at the world. It's a world that drove her to madness.
This was a fun process. I imagined a humanoid alien about the technology level just on the edge between melee and firearm combat. So I mixed a WW1 style gear with Roman style gear. Square shield was a fun addition. Most of the description made me think of humanoid soldiers, but I wanted a little more alien looking so I stretched it a bit and gave it a predator style jaw and piggy snout.
This was a wonderfully whimsical description. I knew right away what pose and angle for her. She was a very fun character to create.
Haha, oh man, I love it! It's so different from how I envision the character, but great interpretation nonetheless.
Do you know how much I had to look up in this? I had to grab some reference images for this one, but it sure was a fun one. I had to go over a few things because I drew a nice bun, then remembered the hat. The app I use has a Timelapse function, so I recorded this one’s process. You can see my process. I’m doing all this on my iPhone with my finger. So satisfying.
Nice imagination! I was thinking human, but there are aliens serving in the auxiliary. You got the blade on the right side of the waist as well, as it ought to be. Good job!
I don't really have anything to add, just wanted to say this is a neat thread and am enjoying the art.
I am not aware of this character as far as I know, who is it? At first I thought you might be describing the crazy cat lady from the Simpsons, but you never mentioned cats, so I just went with my gut. The before gave me a captain Janeway / Jen psaki feel, so I put her in red and gave her the Janeway pose. My cartoony style gave her a Lois Griffen kinda feel in the end. The old version of her was fun, not sure I’ve ever done a before and after like this before.
Mary Kathleen O'Looney from Jailbird by Kurt Vonnegut. The young picture is in very contemporary garb. Should be depression era. Before is very working class Boston Irish. She was the lover of the protagonist in his youth, who bumps into her many years later in Times Square. Both are down on their luck, but prime for a pure Vonnegut ending.
This thread was so much fun. Thanks for all the prompts. That’s one of my favorite things about seeing artists draw characters from things you’ve read. It’s fascinating how the same description can be interpreted so differently by different people. Glad you liked it. I thought the character was human up until the purple skin remark. Thanks, glad you liked it. I’ll have to read it, I didn’t even consider placing her in a different time period.
Anyone wanna go again? I just got some new toys, so this time I’ll be drawing with traditional medium. Pencil, pen, and colored pencils. Here’s an example I did today of president Zelinsky.
All right, I'll play. I am very conflicted about where to place this one on the good/evil scale. Either a 4 or a 7. Make of that what you will.
I started with the idea of a classic comic-style lady. Big boobs and little waist, but reading through your description, I suddenly felt cringey and realized that my mental image was moving more towards teenager. Experimented and found a youthful pose I liked. I decided against sexualizing her, and figured an angsty teen might even be kind of chubby. All artwork goes through an ugly phase… and man, it was real with this piece. I put her in context, thought this angle looked right, hoped it would help the ugly… it didn’t. Just gotta trust the process and know the pretty piece will pop out eventually. Pen linework is the best part, everything suddenly turns crisp and boom, ugly phase over. Coloring was fun. Figured there’d be a lot of black and red. The facial makeup was satisfying. Here’s the my finished interpretation:
Ok, I'm kinda curious to see how this works out. Laurel from Arc of a Rainbow is five foot two (157cm) 115 lbs (52kg). She's a rock climber, so her body is compact and muscular. A or B cup bust, very low body fat percentage. Short, spiky blonde hair. Probably a 5-6 on your morality scale, she's a decent person but no saint. She has a bent left pinkie finger as a result of a climbing accident, broke it and it never healed quite right. She wears little to no makeup ever. Here are the in-text references to her looks: Please note that those are quotes from my story. Tenderiser was administering the contest at the time and posted it as a winner which shows it as a post of hers, not mine.
whoa…did you ever read that book as a kid where the character’s body is falling apart? The art style is really similar.
Oh yes, that is brilliant! It's interesting that you made her a teenager. Here's the part immediately preceding what I posted: "At barely two hundred years old, she was a teenager by Elven reckoning, and like many of those was searching for an identity she could tolerate in the long run. Last year she had been all about penny farthings and artisanal monocles. The year before that it was mime makeup, designer motley, and the musical stylings of the Deranged Harlequin Collective." So, well done on interpreting that. Again, the result is very different from what I was going for, but I could easily imagine this being one of her other phases. There is, canonically, a time when she was a hippie. The peace sign and the smiling leads me to believe this might be it, or some transitional period between that and "fool in motley". Maybe what she's smoking isn't, strictly speaking, tobacco. She's supposed to be skinny, but I guess she put on some weight from the munchies. So yeah, you actually managed to capture a lot of the character besides what I actually posted. Amazing, and very cool to see.
That sounds terrifying. Never heard of it, what’s this book? Glad you like my style, I can do realism too, just prefer stylized, especially with pencil. @Night Herald glad you liked my interpretation. This little experiment has me wondering what would happen if I read a whole book? Would I be closer to the author vision or further? @Iain Aschendale I started your character last night. Rock climbing isn’t something I would have thought to practice drawing, so I’m glad you did: it allowed me to really twist her into some crazy dramatic poses. I’m pushing my limits on perspective for this one since I want her hand large enough to see the damage, and it’s still really in the ugly phase. I’m hoping I can do your character justice because I really like her. Anyone else feel free to add more characters. You’ll get a free stylized interpretation of your character and maybe get some insight into your own ability to paint with words. I’ll do them in order and definitely get to them as I’m pushing myself to keep practicing.
No idea. I would think 'closer', on the grounds that there's more information from which to draw the "correct" conclusion. Then again, reading the whole thing will serve to place the character in a wider setting that you also have to interpret, which may greatly influence your take and quite possibly steer it towards "incorrect". That's what's so great and fascinating about the written word, as a medium. Movies are all well and good, but nowhere else does the consumer get to contribute to the story in such an intensely personal manner. And here video games get all the credit for being interactive, I mean to say... Actually seeing how my characters are interpreted by another has really driven that point home for me, the way an entire story changes shape depending on who reads it. Fascinating stuff, it really is.
Such a great character. I wasn’t sure it was going to make it while it was stuck in the ugly phase, but I think I did alright. Actually… have a confession, I actually drew it backwards, I had everything constructed before I realized I put her damaged pinkie on the wrong hand. I mirrored it to fix it rather than redraw. Construction was hard, very extreme poses and had a lot of issues getting everything right. I drew and redrew her arms a few times. I needed her hand extended so the pinkie would even be large enough to show that it’s busted. I’ll only know if I got it right once ink goes down. Very ugly phase. I did the linework super light so that when I give them weight, I have as much room to adjust as possible. Still ugly. Finally out of the ugly phase. Thick hero lines to the rescue. Pen is awesome for rock, so many jagged edges, I filled in the entire cliff with detail and drew the ground for a sense of height. I wanted her way way up. Colored in the background, did real burnishing for full saturation. Since the ground was green, I figured the cliffs should have a hint of red. Colored pencils are amazing for rocks, you can go fast and any streaks just add character to the rock. I made sure the blonde hair really shined in the sun. I put the sun behind with a bright full day, so I used super warm shading for her skin and I think it really pops. Lastly I drenched her shirt in sweat and beat up her hands a little bit; I always get cuts and scrapes when I climb. I hope you like, lemme know if she’s how you imagined.
