Monday, July 29, 2013

The Face is the Place

This post was inspired by this post on The Bookshelf Muse

I don't know why it didn't occur to me to do this when I did my character building post back in January.

One of the things that drives me nuts when reading is to not be able to picture the characters.What I do to resolve this is Google the character's name and see which actors/actresses other people have suggested. Once I have that person's face in mind it makes reading much easier and more enjoyable. 

When reading fantasy series (which are known for being long and crowded) like Song of Ice and Fire, Wheel of Time, or Lord of the Rings, you really need to be able to distinguish the characters from each other. I think this is why the LOTR movies are such favorites of mine - top quality actors who totally look the part. Can you imagine how much different it would have been if Stuart Townsend was Aragorn instead of Viggo Mortensen? I could see him (Stuart) more as an elf.

To give a visual example of what I mean; one day I was dorking around with heromachine and created an old ranger.




He looked so familiar and I couldn't place why.....


Apparently I had Jeff Bridges in the back of my mind.

1 comment:

  1. Realmwright, I'm so glad our post at The Bookshelf Muse provided you with some inspiration. I, too, like to come up with sketches for my characters while I'm drafting. I've never heard of Heromachine, but I'll be checking it out! Best of luck!

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