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Creating character potraits

One vital part when it comes to creating your character (at least, if you're very visual) is choosing their portrait. Some gamers draw them, others use already existing images, and some others use online avatar generators. After trying several methods, I decided to try a fourth one: Photoshop.

I wanted to create the portraits of my 4 main characters (which I use whenever I generate a party): Eryssel (a half-elf ranger), Daud (a human fighter), Gunnar (a human thief), and Jarmyel (a human monk). I got their custom miniatures from HeroForge a while ago, so I already had an idea of how they looked like. In fact, I even used the renders of the minis to create them as playable characters in my D&D Adventure System games. However, I wanted to complement their appearance by creating their actual portraits. 

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The first step I took was going all over the internet to find photos and pictures of faces that I could associate with them. It took me a while, but I was able to find some really interesting ones. I then narrowed the list to 4, taking into account the minis I had and the idea I had of each one of them.

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Then came the big question: how can I make this work? Photoshop, the answer was photoshop. I wanted to create a cartoonish version of those photos. However, using filters did not give the results I wanted. After watching some tutorials and videos, I found a nice method: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_nvuDsOpIXo It required using the pen tool, so in a sense, it was a bit like working with curves and vectors. I opted for this.

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The process was interesting because it was not that far away from drawing on paper. It took me a few hours to finish all four, but the results were worth the effort.

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From left to right: Daud, Eryssel, Gunnar, and Jarmyel
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And that's how I created my character's portraits! They all have the cartoonish effect I was looking for, and they look pretty cool. So, if you're looking for a way of creating your own portraits, you could try this! This can also be done with other programs such as GIMP (which is free), and learning how to use the tools is way less complicated than it looks like.

Give it a try, and bring your characters to life.

Cheers!
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