Art for original stories?

[serria]

Does anyone draw art for their original stories? Anything from character designs to scenes. I'm a visual person, so often when I'm setting up a new character, I'll do a quick sketch to help me think about what kind of clothes he or she would wear, the hair, the height, the expression. Not that I'm a very good artist, but they are for my personal benefit only! I like seeing scenes, too, though that's a little beyond my artistic ability. I was really honored when, back when I wrote a lot of fanfiction, a reader drew me "fanart" of my story - that was so cool, to see what I had written in visual form.

How about you? Especially for characters, I sometimes find it difficult to work with them if I don't have a clear picture of them in my head - even though I don't tend to use a lot of descriptions of people in my actual writing. I tend to like to keep it vague, unless the appearance is particularly important, but I need it in my head clearly at least.

Comments

[sarillia]

I've done this a couple times. I usually care more about getting the personality to show through rather than the looks. I was really happy with the body language in one drawing I made of this adorable couple I wrote about. One of them was trying to put her hair up with one hand because of the wind and the other was holding her other arm in both of hers and pulling her ahead. It's hard to explain but I loved it even though it wasn't very good.

When I'm trying to get some kind of visualization for what they look like, I tend to use online doll makers. This Lord of the Rings one is my favorite. It's got more choices for skin tones than most of the ones I've seen, which is good because I like to play around with those. Plus I can kind of fake different body shapes with the different races. I just wish I could find one of these that I like that lets you make fatter women. At least this one lets you make old ones.