Character Pics: How do you choose your avatar?

[Seoulless]

So in another effort to spark activity on the forum so that I don't feel quite so lonely...

I'm curious, how do you pic your character's avatar? I find it amusing that in my time SIMming, how I keep seeing the same actresses/actors over and over in different fleets and on different sims.

Do you pic your avatar first and then build a character around them? Do you look for available uniform pics and select who you think is closest? Do you take into consideration the actor/actress' actual acting ability?

[Treymiar]

I've done things differently, character-to-character.
Some of them, I've hunted and hunted for a fitting match.
Often times, I'll pick an actor who played a role with a similar personality to the character I want.
(ex: Nick Frost for humor, R. Lee Ermey for the marine, Raymond Burr for counselor (after his noir years) .)

A few others though, I saw the picture and a story just flowed out of it.

Some characters were created on the spot as a lark, and they turned out surprisingly well.
Others, I collected themes and ideas that had been sitting in the back of my mind for a long time.
Some of them turned out to be class A duds, others not so bad.

So, in a nutshell, my avatars have very different origins, sometimes almost random.
Like you, I've noticed the regular appearance of contemporary actors who players select.
I prefer the rare. The less known, the better.

Although for NPC's, sometimes grabbing a specific character right out of a movie saves you from having to establish a backstory.
Everyone recognizes the stereotype of who and what that character is all about.

If Farscape was still running, I would strongly suspect Miley Cyrus to be part Luxan. ;p
Yes, that smiley is a clue for those who don't know FS, and a pun for those who do.

[Williams]

I usually tend to go for a bit of a blending between using an actor who plays a role similar to the character I have in mind, and thinking up a personality and looking for someone who fits.

My COs of late tend to be created around a character that the actor plays. Byrne was very much similar to the character of Daniel Jackson from SG-1 (though with obvious differences to facilitate his service in Starfleet), and so was portrayed by Michael Shanks. My current CO (though was one I used previously, and so pre-dates Byrne) I describe as a mix between Tim "The Tool Man" Taylor from Home Improvement and Col. Jack O'Niell from SG-1, with a healthy dose of Commander McTaggart from Galaxy Quest, and so he's always been portrayed by Tim Allen.

My non-CO characters tend to have a more independent personality from their character portrayal. With them I usually want to play a certain kind of character, so think of that first and then find an image to stick into a uniform after (unless I find one that's perfect that is already in uniform). Some of my non-CO characters I've played I couldn't even tell you the name of the actor I used


I do generally try to stay away from some of the actors that you see around a lot, however. I don't like to have an avatar that looks just like everybody else's.

[Alex]

I do it in a similar way. I usually think of the character first, their personality interests, etc., before really focusing on their appearance. Then I look around for actors or actresses that remind me of the personality that I want to portray. Sometimes though it's just based on looks alone. I can't remember the name of the actress used for Emily Quinn, my forums avatar, but I do know that she was the female lead from "Meet Joe Black" that I had recently watched at the time. I like her look, she seemed elegant and sophisticated.

Liarra Von uses Natalie Portman. Originally I found an image of her online and decided to just go with it, but that was a bit back in my earlier days of simming. I think she works though because of her work in Star Wars I know she can go from being a woman of words to an action girl depending on the needs of the time.

Alana Tovan will most likely be Ellen Page, once I get around to actually getting her avatar made. She has a nice mix of shyness, awkwardness, and snark that I think works well for Alana.

Some of my oldest characters were mostly just images I found scouring the internet, so they don't really hold much sentimental value. I have been thinking about about a retcon/replacement for my character Sara Archer, who is on a ship in a different fleet since her original pic was scavenged. I'd like to make one that's distinctly for her, but I've not been searching for an appropriate model so it could be a while before I get around to commissioning that one.

[Stern]

Little late to this, but I thought I'd share, since I am pretty picky about who I pick.

First, I tend to avoid really big, well known actors or individuals, as I don't want my character to be immediately associated with any particular personality based on the real person. Even actors tend to play roles that are similar, so when you do that you tend to find your character leaning towards acting like they do. I will use an actor, but often only if I can find an image that isn't immediately recognizable - for example, Stern is the guy who played The Comedian in the Watchmen, but it doesn't really look like that. Kam is a guy who plays in Hell on Wheels, but that was more because the actor resembled the character rather than the other way around (the Kam character is one I've used off an on for more than SIXTEEN (edited that, I started doing the math in my head and realized I was off by quite a bit, lol) years, so he's had a few different faces over the years.) It really just depends.

The big thing is I never start with the face, I always start with the character and then make the face fit the character. This can mean that there are times when I will go weeks, sometimes even months without an avatar before finally coming across the right face.

I have been known at times to use faces that aren't even real. Diagoras, the character I used as the CO of the Nimitz, was Joel from The Last of Us;



So in that particular case I found a solid enough image of the guy to use, as he fit what I wanted better than any real person.

The second main thing is all about the image itself. I need a good resolution, and I need a good angle. They need to be easy to cut out, so no dark images unless I want to put in a ton more effort. For almost all images I use, even civilian ones, there is going to be at least a bit of editing involved in photoshop. For Fleet characters I need to remove almost the entire image, leaving in only the face and neck, which then get put on an appropriate uniform and have a background added. Some need additional work, like nose ridges, and some need a ton of work, like an Andorian, though I tend to do my best to avoid that sort of thing. I did make an Andorian female for the Niagara, and she came out pretty decent, but far from perfect. I ended up reducing the resolution of the image just to hide some of the imperfections, but... Anyway. Most of it comes down to fitting the character, and then finding the best image to use. I NEVER fit a character to an avatar, unless I see something that just jumps out at me in a way I can't ignore.

EDIT: I am certainly not the best at creating avatars, but I do alright for an online simming game, lol. I tend to try to have clear, fresh looking avatars that aren't ones other people made as well. At least, as much as possible.

EDIT EDIT: By the way, I don't know if anyone else feels this way, but nothing rankles me more than finding someone using an avatar I made, without having asked me first. I've run into that twice over the years, thankfully it isn't too terribly common, and maybe my skill keeps some people at bay haha, but yeah. Annoying.

[Yunalesca]

I usually browse the free use stuff at stpma, and let the avatar choose me, really. I mean.

Most of my characters are hand-brewed for the sim at hand, and sometimes I find character ideas in avatars, rather than avatars for character ideas.