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

[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.)