CW: How to get good character illustrations for TTRPGs
Character illustrations.
Always nice to have for TTRPG.
Unfortunately, not entirely easy to get for TTRPG.
But not at all impossible either. And definitely not difficult enough to just throw your hands up and say “Alright, genAI it is, ethical problems and Inigo Montoya be damned!”
So what are good sources for character pictures?
The obvious one first: Commission an artist, if you can afford it. The prices vary widely, but even in the mid-range, consider how long you’ll enjoy the picture you buy – if we’re talking about an image of a character you already know you’ll be playing for years, gazing at their picture in your VTT for probably hundreds of hours, setting aside some money from the snacks budget seems reasonable to have someone create art to your specifications!
But there are certainly alternatives. The obvious one is searching for some core parameters of your concept (class, species, ethnicity, age, era, whatever), ideally with a filter that removes AI sites from your results. You’ll land on a lot of art sites like DeviantArt and especially ArtStation where you can continue your search. If you find something that works for you, the polite thing to do is to ask the artist whether you can use the image – point out that it’s for your private, non-streamed game and many artists will be fine with it. Congrats, ethically-sourced art! Drop them a follow and spread word of their cool stuff on social media!
If that doesn’t work for you, another option is Do It Yourself. If you’re not in the mood to learn drawing, you can for example search Picrew, a site/app full of collections of paper doll generators where you can pick a style and create a character picture by selecting different features from a list.
If you’d prefer your pictures to have a 3D look, there’s a solution for that as well – video games! Many roleplaying games come with a powerful character generator and ideally a photo mode that can easily be used for making a character image as long as said character is vaguely appropriate to the game’s setting. You can either use starting gear, play the character until you’ve got something that fits or use mods to obtain what you want for your picture.
What are appropriate games? Obviously, something that you either already own or that’s free-to-play or can be grabbed cheap in a sale are ideal, otherwise we’re back at “spend money -> best commission an artist”. Many Free-To-Play games make their money with cosmetics, but you can often preview (and screenshot) them on your character before buying. I would advise against using well-known games where you can only put some clothes on a standard protagonist (say, Assassins Creed) since that makes it more likely other players will think of that character instead of yours while looking at the picture.
Here are some go-to options for various systems and genres:
Medieval Fantasy:
Baldur’s Gate 3: A decent editor for many D&D species and plenty of mods to add more outfits.
Dragon Age: Another series full of good high fantasy editors.
Final Fantasy 14: features a more Eastern style of optics. There’s a free trial of the main game + 2 expansions, but do note that the free trial doesn’t allow access to the player-run market board, so you’ll have to actually obtain a good set of clothes in-game if the starting gear isn’t to your liking.
Elder Scrolls: The venerable classic. Oblivion should work nicely for European high fantasy; Skyrim is ideal for Norse and barbaric characters and Elder Scrolls Online likely has some good stuff as well, though I haven’t checked.
Modern:
Saints Row: A good character creator for RPGs with a modern setting, though you might have to have to shop for appropriate clothes in the game.
Vampire: The Masquerade: Bloodhunt: The obvious choice for Vampire characters. Free to play and with some very fancy outfits that can be previewed in the shop. The clothes tend towards the extravagant.
Generation Zero: Swedish 80s Teenagers, probably close enough for Things From The Flood.
The Sims: FtP, with an incredible amount of mod support.
SciFi:
Star Wars: The Old Republic: Looks a little dated, but extremely helpful for all the standard Star Wars species.
Outer Worlds: Retro-futurist SciFi aesthetics, humans only.
Cyberpunk 2077: For your cyberpunk needs.
Others:
Skull and Bones: A Pirate’s life for thee, human characters in a maritime setting! Comes with a 6-hour free trial you can spend in the character generator.
Fallout (4/76/New Vegas): For that lovely post-apocalyptic chic!
Hero Forge: Hero Forge is a website that lets you create custom miniatures of various genres to 3D-print and ship to you. Of course, no one can keep you from clicking the miniature together and just screenshotting it for free…
If you have other character creators or alternative solutions for your character illustration needs in mind, do let me know please!
