Halp

[delight]

Does anyone happen to have any online resources for writing physical descriptions? Or, for those of you who are visual artists, things you need to get in references or written desc?

My big problem is not being sure what to include in an in-depth description, because I have the great trifecta of severe visual impairment, aphantasia and prosopagnosia -- therefore visual things are pretty meaningless to me (in both directions: I also can't parse written physical description and just ask for a picture, which confuses people a lot when I say I have trouble seeing! if you send me a picture I can get my face real close to itand understand it, but a physical description doesn't help at all) and so I don't know what to include.

When an artist asks me for a detailed description, or a role-playing game requires 2-3 paragraphs on appearance in a character sheet, I ... have no idea what to put there besides coloring, height, weight/build/body shape and a little bit about dressing style. With medical-types I sometimes remember to put in a line about their hands.

And I really need a better cheat sheet of all the things I forget.

Comments

[telophase]

As an artist, I like to know the personality of the character, because that informs the features, pose, clothing, etc. And in more detail than "She's spunky, but with a serious side," which is all I got from one person a decade or so back.

I like that better than an in-depth physical description, although important features, costumes, and props should definitely be mentioned. Photos of people who look like the character in the commissioner's eye are good, because that goes a long way to clearing up exactly what each person means by a word--I had to go back-and-forth with sketches on what "determined expression" meant to one person, and it turns out that we had completely different ideas on what that meant. (I thought it meant "serious and hard" and what the guy meant was "pleasant, not smiling.")

As regards characters' features and their personality: stereotypical, I know. But in a portrait a nervous, squirrelly person is going to look and stand differently than an outgoing, complacent one because in art you want the picture to communicate the character's personality--I'd draw the first one with tight, closed-in body language and a suspicious, worried expression and the second with open body language and a pleasant face.

[misslucyjane]

I don't have many of these saved to link for you, but I see "how to describe characters" graphics on Pinterest a lot so I know they're out there: different words for skin tones, different shades of red hair, how to describe PoC characters without resorting to cliches, etc. You might want to try some character questionnaire worksheets, as well.

Here's one I like: Build-a-Protag.

[recessional]

I don't have linked resources but if you like how I do it I'd be happy to do an email or im thread about how I decide and what I do?

[ursula]

I would personally include only a few of these things, but focus on why they matter to the character. For instance, it matters when writing Sasha that she's short, skinny, and has mixed ethnic heritage. Whether she's covering her hair tends to be important, too. Her eye color isn't terribly relevant and I may never have made a definitive choice.

[ursula]

You could also think through information that you have about a character using other senses, and try to figure out which of those things would be clear to an observer. Can you feel your way into their body language and how they take up space, for example? What's their voice like? Do people have stereotypes about humans with similar voices (deep voice + beard, for example), and does your character fulfill or defeat those expectations?

[eller]

I can only answer this from a visual artists' point of view: I'd separate a character description into three parts; general info, face, and personality/style. (Face gets its own category, because it's the most important for character recognition.) The info I'd need to draw a character from description alone is:

General info:
Size
Body type (muscular? curvy? slim? seriously underweight? ...)
Sex/gender
Hair color
Skin color (as exact as possible, preferably with hex code or similar, because this has sh*tstorm potential - some artists are already afraid to draw fanart of PoC book characters because inevitably someone will accuse them of either whitewashing or racial stereotyping if they get it wrong in any way. It's a loaded topic.)
Unique features (if, say, your character has a cyborg arm - mention it! XD)

Face:
Overall shape of face (as, for example described here: https://www.liveabout.com/is-your-face-round-square-long-heart-or-oval-shaped-345761 )
Eye shape ( http://stunningeyes.co.uk/then-determine-your-eye-shape-and-position/ )
Eye color
Nose (small? large? pointy? broad? ...)
Mouth/Lips (thin lips? wide mouth? small mouth? ...)
Unique features (If your character has freckles, a birthmark, a visible scar or a facial tattoo or anything, that's important to know.)

Personality/Style:
Body language (I'd choose different poses for a super-shy and an extrovert character.)
Hairstyle (Here, I like having reference pictures, because vague descriptions like "medium-length hair" can mean anything really, and there are also cultural differences: what the average American understands as "medium-length" for women is "short hair" in Germany!)
Fashion style (If your character only wears lime green, mention it. Otherwise it's good to know whether your character is usually fashionably dressed, whether they just grab jeans and a shirt, whether they do the anime character thing and only own one set of clothes, or whatever. If, say, your character wears hijab, that's also important information.)
Make-up or the lack thereof
"Trademark items" (If your character always wears their lucky charm or something...)
Job, hobbies and interests (this makes it easier to decide in which environment and with which items your character can be depicted. Like, if a character is a librarian, they can be drawn with a book, or something.)

[worlds_of_smoke]

I find, for me, that thinking of the person's personality helps me a LOT. I will do very generic coloring/height/weight/etc and dressing style because that's pretty much all Thorns requires. But I like to add in little personal touches to help make the character realistic. if a character's depressed, they're not going to smile a lot or might tend to stand slumped over and curled into themselves. If they're happy-go-lucky, they might grin even when it's inappropriate or have crow's feet or like to randomly dance. If they're anxious, they're going to fidget in some way or not like to meet people's eyes. If they're often angry, that's going to leave frown lines or constantly hold themselves tensely.

If that wouldn't work for you, would looking up things like "angry faces" or "depressed body language" or "elderly woman" help?

[siderea]

So, I have to describe real people for a living. :D It's part of a psychotherapy intake to record one's impressions of the physicality of the patient. This includes:

• How well groomed they are: cleanliness of body and clothes, how well tended the hair is
• Their choice of attire and any messages, implicit (e.g. social class markers, conformity to fashion or subcultural affiliation) or explicit (e.g. things written on t-shirts, religious or political insignia), it conveys
• Same for use of make-up, tattoos, or other personal adornment
• Their body language: the expressions on their face (how much, as much as which), their posture sitting and standing
• How energetic or lethargic they seem, whether they fidget, "speak with their hands"
• Pitch, rate, and volume of speech; a whole lot about speech production, actually, including whether or not it is "pressured", logical linkage between sentence topics, vocabulary register, self-interruption, etc.

We're also expected to make a quick assessment of our impression of a bunch of abstract mental things about the client: their mood, their attitude towards being there, their memory functioning, their reasoning functioning, their level of judgment, of education, of problem solving ability, etc.

One of the things I've learned it's interesting to note about new clients is what they carry with them, and how they carry (if they carry) their keys and phone and wallet/money/checkbook. It sort of implies something about what they believe they will need to have with them, and what/whether they plan for the future.