DE: That certain something...

[bjornwilde]

 Fresh from the presses, quoth the minkhollow :

For those with characters from non-visual/non-live-action canons: How did you pick your character's PB? Have you bothered coming up with one if you at least have art to draw from? For those with a canon live-action PB: Do you have any objections to that person? If so, why?

 

This can also be a place for people to PB-hunt for existing/potential characters, if they need to.

Comments

[a1enzo]

I just kinda searched around until I found someone whose facial features and hair were as close a match as I was likely to get. Happily, although it can be hard to find new pics, M. Legrand has continued to fit the bill nicely as he and Enzo have aged.

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

Ellen's canon lets you put together and tweak the character's face and appearance somewhat, but I've never been happy with Bethesda's graphics engine in that regard. I had picked Asian as the base race for the Lone Wanderer on the playthrough I used as Ellen's basis (your starter options are Caucasian, Asian, African American, and Hispanic), and I decided I wanted Korean ancestry because every other Asian-American character I could think of off the top of my head was either Japanese or Chinese. From there I popped up http://thedailies.grimfandango.org and went down to the Asian female faces section, picked out a couple of young-looking Korean faces, and checked against IMDB birthdates for the women in question to find which ones were reasonably close to nineteen years of age (canon starter age for the Lone Wanderer). Yoon Eun Hye wound up working best. I later added several images of a Thai martial artist/actress named Jeeja Yanin after Flynn pointed her out to me; I needed pictures for when Ellen got injured, and maybe a few more smiles than just the pleasant movie/modeling smile, and Jeeja Yanin looked very close to Yoon Eun Hye despite being of a completely different ethnicity- and there were lots of movie scenes of her with facial injuries, so I could screencap and edit those to my heart's content.

Gordon's PB, Benno Furmann, was the result of a friend of mine seeing the Speed Racer live-action movie and pinging me immediately afterwards with "CAM, IT'S GORDON, YOU HAVE TO SEE THIS, INSPECTOR DETECTOR IS GORDON." And, well, yeah, that pretty much summed things up.

Adrian Shephard's PB, John Cusack, was a matter of picking a moderately generic-looking pale-skinned actor that I liked. The only canon visual representation of Shephard is the generic HECU Marine on Opposing Force's box art, and the only thing we know about his appearance other than the uniform/helmet/mask/etc. is that he has pale forearms. I do not use pictures of Cusack at Shephard's canon age of 22 because when Cusack was that age, he was starring in movies like Better Off Dead. Most of Shephard's screencaps are from The Thin Red Line if he's in uniform, other movies and/or publicity appearances if he's not.

Varric and Mordin are both just screenshots and fanart, no PBs. Stacker Pentecost is live-action so he doesn't need one. Santo is live-action so he doesn't need one either.

Medic's PB, when I use live action shots instead of screencaps or fanart, is Stephen Colbert. Jill suggested him and I really couldn't disagree.

And while I'm mostly going to be using screencaps because Ubisoft does a really good job with their graphics, if I ever need live-action images instead, Edward Kenway's PB will be Charlie Hunnam in stubbley or bearded mode. The character bears a pretty strong physical resemblance to him in-game, if you ask me.

[sunbaked_baker]

Sunshine's physical appearance isn't thoroughly described in her canon. Just medium-tall, skinny, long hair that looks kind of weird because it's been held back by a kerchief, and with a no-nonsense look on her face. Her birth name is Raven Blaise, which could lead to the assumption that she had black hair (though her father's name being Onyx may just suggest a theme-naming trend), but I always saw her with red hair. I wanted her new names, Rae, Sunshine, to fit her better than the name given to her by her father, because that's who she chose to be. Light, to contrast with Constantine's dark.

So, in looking for a red-haired PB, I needed someone versatile, who could be happy and cheerful but also fierce and no-nonsense. And someone I didn't have to troll through modeling sites or stock images to find, and someone I didn't have to photoshop. Amy Adams had the right range of warmth, cheer, drama, and normal-expression shots for what I needed.

Yrael's PBs are all stock images I've photoshopped. His physical characteristics change, apart from his coloration, so multiple forms and faces fit. They just all have to be photoshopable into the snow-white and the green eyes framework.

[cameoflage]

I actually thought Sunshine was a blonde, since I'd never looked at her whole collection of icons and some of the more commonly used ones are a bit oversaturated. Or at least they resemble oversaturated photos of blondes. (In my defense, orangey lighting and excessive saturation produce a lot of icons of blonde actresses and models where their hair looks reddish.)

[death_gone_mad]

Amascut's canon is visual, but I didn't want to use her character model. It is clunky and non-expressive. Character models are improving in the game, but it would be a pain screen-capping the perfect expression for this or that, since what the hell are replays LOL.

Originally I was going to go with Canadian-Egyptian actress Christine Solomon as Amascut's PB, but Christine suffers from professional fashion model SAMEFACE. I decided to go full Egyptian instead and use Yasmin Abdul Aziz's face. She's younger looking and more expressive since she does a lot of comedy, but unfortunately she has sworn to never do anything non-comedic again. So, no action scenes. Unless it is slapstick. Now screen-capping is difficult because I don't understand a bit of Arabic and can't exactly find screen-cappable quality scenes easily. I have to rely on her adoring fans who love photoshop filters and put watermarks everywhere.

[boston_bruiser]

I crowdsourced with crackchat to get a PB for Voodoo. Crackchat came back with Gerard Butler, and it's actually a pretty darn good match.

The other three I don't use PBs for.

[damncompass]

Valentine's PB used to be Alicia Silverstone. She's ok, but she never really felt right. No matter what the movie tries to say, Valentine is blonde. It's explicitly stated in the text a few times, so I'm clinging to that mental picture.

When I re-apped Val, I decided to go with the younger Val that I've had in my head the entire time. Dakota Fanning just has the right mannerisms and expressions for her.

Fantine's PB is in a bit of a flux, but I'm switching, likely to Claire Danes. Blonde hair, man. Fantine is blonde.

Otherwise... I can't really explain what goes into finding a PB for people. Expressions count a lot, mannerisms, clothing definitely. A couple of my sticky characters that I've considered apping but haven't have been because I can't find the right combination. It's times like these that I wish I could draw.

[road_to_calvary]

The Bruces and Gene have the perfect PBs. No objection there.

Javert and Valjean - ha. Well. My most obvious objection is that the heights are all wrong. Canonically, Javert's the tall one - really tall - and Valjean is of average height. Which would be slightly below today's average, so I imagine him around 5'8 or 9. But Hugh Jackman is 6'2, I believe, and Russell Crowe is just a smidge under 6'0. So when playing them together, and in book!canon scenes, I have to adjust heights. Which probably doesn't make much difference, except if trying to play with power dynamics and one being less imposing at full height than he should be, etc.

As far as looks go - I wish they'd gone the book route with Valjean, and turned his hair completely white. It's again with book scenes, where his hair is supposed to be distinctively white, and HJ's isn't.

And Javert as Russell Crowe is far too good looking. There's a canon description of him which points out just what a strikingly imposing dude he is in his ugliness. Not that I'm complaining about RC being gorgeous! And if I were playing strictly musical/movie canon, it wouldn't be a problem. But the parts of book canon that are enhanced by Javert being a freakishly tall/imposing/ugly guy are lessened in my head by hot badass RC being in his place.

But they're minor complaints. For the most part, they work really well as PBs.

[la_fee_verte]

When I'm using a non-PB character, I cast them in my head. I do the same with my original writing. I write from a very cinematic standpoint, so in a way, I need to. I have to be able to visualize the character.

And the other edge of that blade is that, I hate having to pick an icon for a tag that I don't have the perfect icon for. There's times when I'd just rather use, like Dracula's seal icon, rather than put an image that I feel doesn't fit the tag. (Alex's icons drive me nuts for that reason; three seasons, three different hair cuts. AUGH.)

[minkhollow]

Claudia, Red and Woolly all come from visual canons. My only objection of the three: Woolly's scenes in his lone episode are SO FUCKING DARK because of the stylistic choices they made to differentiate between the three different time periods. (Over-saturating 1962 worked out very well for Rebecca's icons, though.)

Cata: Natalie Dormer, to the point where I didn't realise she's naturally blonde for a long time. XD I poked around on Hollow Art with 'dark hair, blue eyes' in my head, since canon gave me that much, and what is now Cata's default icon was in one of the previews on an icon set. I went '...YES.'

(Related: I think I'm going to put her through IMDb flu again, between the Neverwhere radio thing and Elementary. Anyone want to plot related shenanigans? BBC!Holmes in particular would be a hilarious double-whammy here.)

Sam: Neil Patrick Harris. A few years back I went to visit a couple friends, one of whom talked me into reading Villains By Necessity in the first place. They also sat me down to watch Dr. Horrible. Round about the beginning of Act II, I turned to book!friend and went "So. Billy and Sam, separated at birth, Y/Y?" Sam's hair is slightly longer than NPH has ever had his, but that's really my only complaint.

Apollo: Jensen Ackles. He's a little older than is ideal, but he's got the attitude for it, and nothing else I saw in browsing Hollow Art really fit the bill. (There was also an element of "AH, DEAN WINCHESTER, YOU REALLY *ARE* HANDSOME!" in the choice. XD)

Imp: Orlando Bloom, since 2003. Like, I'm still using icons I picked for his Disc RP journal. He's got the right look for Imp, when he's not kitted up for LotR stuff... and the fact that he was most famous for playing an elf at the time I first picked him added a layer of 'you sure you're not elvish?' to the proceedings.

Regulus: Robert Sean Leonard, at Quinn's suggestion. Elsegame I used Colin Hanks, which was also a suggestion (in part because he played Sirius' PB's brother on Roswell, so Sirius' mun already had pictures of them together). Both work really well, in my eyes.

[hands_of_blu]

... why do I think Medic would think the whole Adler thing just made her extra hot.

(Because he's an awful human being, that's why.)

[mighty_avenger]

All of mine are visual, but Carol is sometimes drawn very differently depending on who the artist is for that particular book, and her ever-changing hairstyle has become a bit of a gag, both with the fandom and with Carol current main scribe. For icons, I choose from my favorite art styles. Several that I use a lot have art by Terry and Rachel Dodson, since they drew her first appearance as Captain Marvel and I really like their style. I really need to update them though to include more Captain Marvel stuff. Bonus as Captain Marvel? No mask! So I can fudge the in-uniform/out-of-uniform stuff a bit easier.

There are plenty of popular actors fancast as Carol, but I've never felt all that compelled to adopt one as a PB. Partly cause there's so much great comic art anyway, partly because Katee Sackhoff is one of the best matches, but then she'd just look like... Starbuck, since I'd have to source icons from BSG XD

For Stiles and Lady Mary, they both come from single source TV canons (I mean technically Teen Wolf is a re-imagining, but they almost nothing in common beyond the names "Scott" and "Stiles and existence of werewolves). Anyway, the point is, the actors playing them have always been central to the way I imagine those two characters.

[gavin62truck]

I like Denis Leary and John Scurti just the way they are. Leary obviously wrote the role of Tommy for himself but he also wrote Lou with Scurti firmly in mind. And I dunno, I guess a thing that's interesting is that Leary was a couple of years older than he was supposed to be playing -- which makes sense, because Tommy's weathered and worn features are supposed to be a result of being exposed to the hazards of firefighting. One might also say he was too skinny, but I've seen a whole range of real life firemen (older ones, too) who run the gamut of body types, so you can't really underestimate what their capabilities are. (For example, Steve Buscemi used to be an FDNY fireman while he was a struggling actor, so don't mess with him.)

[vance_prime]

My only current pup to whom this applies is Alyx. She's modeled after an actress named Jamil Mullen, but it's hard to find pics of her online, so I browsed through The Dailies looking for someone whose face fit the bill. I ended up settling on a half-Thai, half-German fashion model named Nanda Hampe. The shape of her features is very similar to Alyx, but her skin color is too light, so I use her image sparingly.

[bbq_platypus]

Sean Connery as Caius was a no-brainer. His in-game model is bald (or balding, depending on which visual enhancement mods you're using), with white/graying ridge-hair (or whatever it is you call the bit that bald people have left), and in absurdly good physical shape. Also, he's a spy. So...Sean Connery.

It is a proper pain in the ass to find Dunmer PBs online, particularly ones that match Garyn's description. And screenshots could only ever really capture what he's wearing as opposed to his expression. So, yeah, I'm kind of limited in the icons I can choose for him.

[genarti]

Thor is played by Chris Hemsworth, who I think is UTTERLY PERFECT for the role, both in acting and in looks. So! No objections here. I don't add in any comics icons, because I'm playing a purely MCU version. Ditto with River and Summer Glau, although as River has aged I've added some icons from Summer's other roles. They tend to involve more hairstyling and visible makeup, but I try to aim for less fancy-looking ones as I can.

Regan has a canonical PB who is, unfortunately, only in one scene and without a ton of screencaps from other roles on the internet. Fortunately(?), I don't play her very often, so I can get by with what I have: her one scene screencapped to within an inch of its life, some added icons from her other roles or pictures, and a couple of judicious stock images to round things out.

Trowa and Clare are both anime and/or manga characters for whom I don't use any live-action PB. I've thought about it for Trowa, since he's a good few years older than his icons now, but it'd need to be somebody perfect for the look, and nobody springs to mind.

Enjolras is the only one I'm not totally satisfied with. I use Aaron Tveit, who played the role in the 2012 musical movie, because he's mostly excellent: he's got the right coloring, he does fantastic facial expressions, and he's in period costume. (I much prefer to use period roles where I can, because modern Western haircuts and clothing for characters who aren't actually wearing that throw me right out.) That said, to be accurate for book!Enjolras -- which is the version I play, a few details aside -- he really should look several years younger and a lot more androgynous. I'm willing to make that compromise for the costuming and the bitchfaces, but I try to strike a middle ground in narration of playing up the androgyny a bit without actually saying that he looks different from his icons. My mental image for Milliways!Enjolras is basically a more babyfaced version of Aaron Tveit, I guess.

[road_to_calvary]

I'm not altogether sure it'd be possible to find a PB to match Hugo's description of Enjolras. Unless, possibly, actually using a girl who could be mistaken for a guy in the right light.

In other news, I just found the Les Mis anon meme - not the kinkmeme - and saw your name mentioned as underrated in fandom. I had to agree, even with my general distaste of anonmemes. <3

[yakalskovich]

There was this point when I was balking mentally at apping Teja and told myself, 'Even if I wanted to it, who would I use as his PB? Brandon Lee from 'The Crow' or what?' and the rest is, as they say, history. Clare suggested Vladimir Kulich for Urquhart, and Jina long, long ago suggested Isabelle Adjani for Margolotta, still in the old Discworld RPG. Dean Stockwell got used as Tower's PB because I used him as a PB for a character who had built a tall tower in my then-else!game -- very laterally arrived at, I know, but how to cast a tarot card, anyway?

The rest are visual canons, and I'm happy with them. That is who they are, after all. That said, when I eventually app a Thénardier, I (and my potential co-Thénardier) might go with Veronica Ferres/Christian Clavier rather than Helena Bonham Carter/Sasha Baron Cohen, because those are a tad too funny-grotesque which hides the real evil of those characters.

[road_to_calvary]

sdflkjs Christian Clavier! I may swoon.

[alas_a_llama]

Atton has about thirty PBs. The graphics of KOTOR2 are not great, and there isn't much concept art, so at first his PB was Jake Gyllenhaal, and then David Tennant, and then he just kind of acquired PBs the way other people acquire stamps or disfiguring diseases.

Yugo is played by Atsumi Kanno in canon, and he's pretty much perfect for the role, to be honest, although anybody who was familiar with his previous roles (I wasn't, at the time) might not have thought so at first.

Sherral - I actually decided to forego a PB altogether and instead used the stand-in player character from the Final Fantasy XIV trailer. Most of that was that he's the right age, resembles the few other Archadian characters we see, who are predominantly pale and brown-haired with, I think, a few blond characters thrown in, and also that he has some amazing facial expressions.

For Wan I'm not bothering with a PB and instead just using screencaps, because the artwork in LoK is excellent and he has a delightful range of facial expressions.

If I ever bring in an older!Wan on a whim or something, I might use Hiroaki Iwanaga. Also seen crossdressing here. Which could be handy. Somehow.

[aberration]

All of my canons are visual, with two live-action and the rest animated. My characters are all major enough that I can find icons/screencaps without much difficulty. I do branch out with Elle because... there are a lot of pretty images of Kristen Bell, and I've occasionally used the Blonde Stand-In, but she looks like Kristen Bell. And there's also a lot of pretty fanart for Marceline which can be nice, because Adventure Time's animation style is very simple and sometimes fanartists can add nice details. I've also had to use fanart for adult!Katara, as next to no canon imagery exists for her when she's between the ages of 16 and 80.

I've also been considering a live action PB for Asami (whom I sort of already chose as Satomi Ishihara), basically so that I can have icons for her as wearing no, or at least considerably less, makeup.

[cameoflage]

Well, Thurlow had their genesis as a fun little author-avatar and then unexpectedly metamorphosed into a fully-realised character after I'd given them the first name 'Cameo' and decided that I'd just draw them looking like me due to lack of any better ideas. However, it's difficult enough to find androgynous PBs, or PBs in Victorian clothing, so I looked at my incredibly slim chances of finding an androgynous PB with the right look who had worn a Victorian suit in front of a camera at some point and said "fuck it."

Aradia doesn't actually have a PB. I haven't seen anyone who grabs me across species lines in the usual icon catalogues, nor have I had reason to turn her into a human version of herself so far. (I edited some icons into a troll version of the PB once, but she had much simpler horns...) Homestuck's art, and some panel edits to plug the gaps, has worked fine.

What I normally do is browse icon libraries/communities (the overwhelming majority of which are on Insanejournal, at least the ones I know) under a keyword or keywords and look for anyone whose face looks promising. I'll open up those candidates' pages and decide if their face does indeed fit or if the preview was misleading.

If I'm still stumped, I go to find_a_pb and write a post describing the character's appearance. Sometimes it helps.

I don't know what makes a PB snap into place in my head in the first place, though, it just happens. (Well, they do generally have to be people I find visually appealing, but aside from that.)

[ceitfianna]

PBs are hard but I find if I don't have the right PB then the character won't work for me.

When I was getting ready to play Will, I was looking at redheaded models and no one seemed right. Then Danii pointed me to James McAvoy and I went ooh, that's my Will. He's so good at changing his face and looking older than his years that he's become my Will, I wish he would do something medieval but for now I'm happy with all his icons. The main difference is that Will is actually taller than James.

Charles is played by James MacAvoy and perfect, he feels like a younger Patrick Stewart.

Moist was chosen by me browsing through Hollow Art and suddenly finding a set of Jude Law from Wilde and Moist was looking back at me. He has the perfect mix of being bland and being on that I imagine Moist does.

Sameth was tricky and another one that required lots of browsing and what sold me was a look, that's usually what does it for me. I don't mind if some physical details are off if I can find an icon that to me captures the character. Will Young, Sameth's PB has hair that's honestly lighter and not as curly as Sam's but he has the right far away gaze and in some icons, his eyes look grey.

Jane's from a movie and perfect in my mind, same with William though I need to get him some older icons as I'm playing him a few years on from the movie. Logan Lerman is one of those quiet actors that I love.

Demeter was another tricky one that I found by browsing Hollow Art, I knew she had to have two faces, older and younger and ended up with Judi Dench and Kate Winslet.

Tumnus was easy for me because I loved James McAvoy's portrayal of him in the Narnia movie and that made it simple to give him a face.

The Pirate King for me is Kevin Kline though sadly that movie's rather old so good quality icons are hard.

For my newest possible pup, I don't know if he'll be apped in December or January, TL found him for me. He has the right comfortable and smiling look that I think of for Ivan. Since he's a classically handsome man but also a nice one, someone that people feel comfortable with and who's good at blending in.

[bjornwilde]

PBs can make or break the pup for me and you never know until you play with them. I'll usually start with fancasting and then poke around Hollow Art (Thank the Gods for their improved search!). My criteria changes but ultimately I think it boils down to the PB having that core spark of how I perceive the character. I'll list that spark with each pup as I write this out.

Val has lots of great expressions from comic books but I wanted to move her past her time therein so I at first picked Adrianne Palicki. She was good but kept seeming too mature for the Val in my head; I also keep getting the actor's Friday Night Lights character creeping in and that was just not Val. Then I came across Ashley Benson while looking for someone else and she clicked; she was just the right about of innocence mixed with enthusiasm that lives in Val's heart.

Thalia has have many PBs and central to all of them, I needed a fierce hopelessness. Not quite given up on the world but not hoping for anything from it either. My first few passes I had wanted someone on the heavier side of physicality but then I reread Sea of Monsters which described her as having a marathon runner's build and they are not usually that bulky. Next problem I had to let go of was the hair. I've love for the short, spiky, black hair but I could never find it. Kaya Scodelario was a fan favorite casting from the early days of yore but that was back in my fierce, stocky fighter phase so I turned my back on her. Then I came across some icons of her from Skins that didn't read as drug addled street kid and she clicked.

Brimstone is a unique case as he's not human. I had plans on just using creatively cropped stock photos of rams but then came across the image I use as his default and loved it. For when he is human, I've chosen Djimon Hounsou because the accent the narrator of his canon gives him.

Andrea is from a fan casting and I love the range of options I get from Allison Mack. I had tried BIllie Piper before but she didn't quite work. The big thing I wanted from a PB was someone easily approachable as her first appearance describes as having the kind of face that made you want to tell her your life story. Previous ideas had been Reese Witherspoon and Alicia Silverstone but they didn't have any good action shots I could find. I also thought of Yvonne Strahovski but she read too tall.

Jessica Drew is clearly Jennifer Connelly to me; the perfect mix of confident, playful and worry. Or as Kelly Sue Deconnick likes to call it, equal parts insecurity and hubris. I've headed back towards comic book art though as I love Alex Maleev's art from Agent of SWORD and the recent artwork from Avengers Assemble and Captain Marvel.

And this is getting very long so I think I am going to stop now.

[bjornwilde]

And speaking of new PB ideas, I have a fellow who is likely Russian. Canon describes him solely having an aquiline nose, black hair (with the sides shaved so it looks like a horse's mane), dark eyes and a goatee. I'm 70% sure I have a PB but there are enough doubts that I am still looking. Help?

[misslucyjane]

Most of mine come from visual media or have additional visual media, so the PB choice was already in place.

Regarding Bilbo, true story: soon after Sherlock series 1 was broadcast I told a friend at work about it, and she said the name Martin Freeman sounded familiar so I googled him to show her a picture. We'd also been talking about the then-still potential film adaptation of The Hobbit, and I told her I wished Martin would be cast as Bilbo. "He has a perfect Hobbit nose." It wasn't much after that that Martin was actually cast. I think I missed my calling as a casting director.

Anyway, I'm pretty good with all the existing PBs I have. I can't imagine anyone else as Lydia or Merlin, and I use screencaps from Adventure Time for the Ice King (I've thought about choosing a live-action PB...but I dunno). There are a few actors who were under consideration for Steve Rogers that I think would have been interesting, but I really can't imagine anyone else but Chris Evans as Steve now.

The only pup that I had to chose a PB for is Cecil, and I use stock photography or models for him. The person images come mostly from doing a GIS for "well-dressed man with tattoos," because I kind of love the fanon of Cecil have multiple, possibly sentient, tattoos. There's some fan art I think about asking to use, but I haven't gotten around to that yet. I'm particularly fond of littleulvar, who draws Cecil as about mid-forties and with two-tone hair. There's also the temptation of using the actual Cecil Baldwin--he's so darn adorable!--but I think that would get weird.

[sunbaked_baker]

Littleulvar's portrayal of Cecil is my favorite! Also her Carlos who is perfect (and always looks to me a little like a darker Bruce Banner).