Good, free character portrait creators?

[overduegalaxy]

I've been scouring the web for something similar to Hero Machine for a while now, to no real avail. Something that has fairly good fantasy support, too. Hero Machine is good, but it's a little lacking at times.

The only real alternative I've heard is using the City of Heroes character modeler, and that has the disadvantage of costing money, something I'd like to avoid.

[Thurbane]

Good luck with that - I've been looking too, no luck (other than HM).

I usually scour though fantasy art websites looking for something "close enough"...

[ClericofPhwarrr]

You can go for a simplified version and ask one of gitp's artists to make you an OotS version of your character. They look nice on a character sheet, and let people get the idea while leaving room for their minds to fill in the details. It beats waiting on /tg/ for a draw request thread, and hoping the artist picks your character to work on.

[Suleman]

There's Hero-O-Matic, a flash tool similar to Heromachine, but originally designed for generating characters in the style of DC animated series, such as Batman, Superman and Justice League. It has, among other things, a ton of weapon options for fantastic, modern and/or futuristic settings. Unfortunately, it lacks variety in some other things, like facial features.
Also, it's in portuguese, but you'll figure it out.

[Ravens_cry]

While the results may initially displease you, I find the best results can be ultimately obtained by drawing your characters yourself. Only you know the little details you want to add, so why not not do it yourself?

[kjones]

My portrait creator is Google Image Search.

[Artanis]

Deviantart sometimes has something worthwhile. Most of the stuff actually kinda sucks, but there's a lot of diamonds in the rough that might get "close enough".

...unless the character is a female of a heavy-armor class. Good luck with that.

While the results may initially displease you, I find the best results can be ultimately obtained by drawing your characters yourself. Only you know the little details you want to add, so why not not do it yourself?

Some people are bad at art. And I mean really bad. I, for example, never got much beyond xkcd's stick figures.

[arguskos]

My portrait creator is Google Image Search.

I support this statement. That is all.

[ClericofPhwarrr]

...unless the character is a female of a heavy-armor class. Good luck with that.

Go to /tg/ for that and start a pic dump thread, for properly armored females. You'll actually get a good selection of choices most of the time.

Not that I suggest going to /tg/, mind you.

[Blackfang108]

What's /tg/?

[arguskos]

What's /tg/?

The traditional gaming board over at 4chan.

[Thurbane]

My portrait creator is Google Image Search.

I tried that for my dragon shaman - I could find almost no pics of a guy in platemail with a shield and morning star that wasn't obviously a cleric, festooned with holy symbols...

[RukiTanuki]

The only real alternative I've heard is using the City of Heroes character modeler, and that has the disadvantage of costing money, something I'd like to avoid.

The CoH character creator was released for free to commemorate the Korean release.

EDIT: It appears it got taken down, though. I suppose it's somewhere out there.

[sleepy]

There's Hero-O-Matic, a flash tool similar to Heromachine, but originally designed for generating characters in the style of DC animated series, such as Batman, Superman and Justice League. It has, among other things, a ton of weapon options for fantastic, modern and/or futuristic settings. Unfortunately, it lacks variety in some other things, like facial features.
Also, it's in portuguese, but you'll figure it out.

Is there an english version? Fun toy, either way.

[Prometheus]

My portrait creator is Google Image Search.

I take it your in the porn industry then.

Make sure you use the filter if you don't want random explicit material thrown in (some do). Deviant art tends to be a database of images that is more inclined for adaptions.

[VerdugoExplode]

Well, if you don't mind doing a lot of sifting through a bunch of pictures and don't mind the japanese drawing style I recommend you peruse this thread over at rpg.net. More character portraits than you could ever possibly use.

[Artanis]

Oh, one I just thought of is tektek. It's pretty much the exact opposite of what you say you want, but I figured it's still worth mentioning because it's very good for making minis for MapTool/OpenRPG/etc. Somebody might get some use out of it.


Edit: Because I just went all the way through VerdugoExplode's link...

Holy **** that's a lot. And the first page that I was sent to (561, looks like) has a female in armor. Actual armor. I didn't know such pictures existed. Anywhere. Ever.

[Ravens_cry]

Believe it or not, the Pathfinder Beta rules has a female paladin illustration. In REAL amour.



I know, it shocked me too.

[elliott20]

deviant art is one of those places where you'll get a lot of fan-art, but often very little in the way of original works.

[overduegalaxy]

My current problem is that playing a genasi, it's not something you stumble across people drawing often. Especially not since 4e revamped the genasi's looks.

Interestingly, I can make a passable one in Hero Machine, but I get frustrated when it comes to armor and gear. Besides heavy armor, the fantasy stuff is lacking.

[ClericofPhwarrr]

Holy **** that's a lot. And the first page that I was sent to (561, looks like) has a female in armor. Actual armor. I didn't know such pictures existed. Anywhere. Ever.

You're in luck, I've got a few lying around. A number more that are mostly (70-90%) actual armor, but I won't bother uploading those.

http://i204.photobucket.com/albums/b...0375467900.jpg
http://i204.photobucket.com/albums/b...isticarmor.jpg
http://i204.photobucket.com/albums/b...0319675780.jpg
http://i204.photobucket.com/albums/b...0321164619.jpg
http://i204.photobucket.com/albums/b...0323990218.jpg
http://i204.photobucket.com/albums/b...-motivator.jpg

[Thurbane]

I'm a big fan of Claudio Pozas work: http://www.enworld.org/Pozas/gallery_main.html

[Satyr]

I have played around too much with heromchine lately and came to the following findings:

Do not try to make to make a full picture, concentrate on a portrait alone. The face of the character is much more important for the imagonation than the rest of the body and this is a way to circumvent the scarcity of equipment and the always repeating posture.
Colors are bad. Grey is good. The pictures look much better in grey scales than in full color. (And for me, it's more printer friendly).
No matter what you do, you will probably need a paint program to edit the portrait in the end. You can also create more layers or copy additional features into them.

I think that a picture like this one is sufficient for most characters.

Spoiler

Show

[Kizara]

You're in luck, I've got a few lying around. A number more that are mostly (70-90%) actual armor, but I won't bother uploading those.

http://i204.photobucket.com/albums/b...0375467900.jpg
http://i204.photobucket.com/albums/b...isticarmor.jpg
http://i204.photobucket.com/albums/b...0319675780.jpg
http://i204.photobucket.com/albums/b...0321164619.jpg
http://i204.photobucket.com/albums/b...0323990218.jpg
http://i204.photobucket.com/albums/b...-motivator.jpg

*raided and added to his own 1.7k pic collection* I'll post a few myself in a moment.

Edit: Except that this forum doesn't allow you to upload pictures... and I don't feel like mucking about with photobucket for like 10 pictures. I have some of actual RL women (that are fairly attractive to boot) wearing plate. Also some various fantasy pics. PM me and go on MSN if you are interested.

[Thurbane]

Edit: Except that this forum doesn't allow you to upload pictures... and I don't feel like mucking about with photobucket for like 10 pictures.

Try a free, no signup image host:

http://tinypic.com/

http://www.picoodle.com/

http://photomaxi.com/index.php