Other FC's?

[Alexis-Faye]

Hello! I'm curious to know what y'all think about Face Claims, or FC's. If you dislike 'em, tell me why, and if you like 'em, show me some of your favorites!

 

[Julian Spooner]

I don't use them, at most I'll commission someone to draw my character if I want a visual representation, but I prefer to use written descriptions. Even when I get a drawing, I treat it as an artists representation rather than the definitive appearance of a character because I want my partners to be able to imagine my characters for themselves.

But what I REALLY wanted to ask, is where/how do people find their FCs? and do they look for images with a character in mind, or make characters based on what they can find in FCs? Very curious.

 

[Pine]

I like them! I have difficulty visualizing things if I'm going to be totally honest, so having some point of reference is really nice. I would love to commission artists if I was a rich bich, but alas, I'm a po' schmoe.

The one thing I do kind of resent is when people use famous people for face claims? Like I've seen Natalie Dormer used so many times. First, I don't think actors are usually the most accurate representation of people you would see on a day-to-day basis (but eh this isn't the biggest problem I guesS), and second, for the same reason that I avoid knowing actors in the first place, I just start to see that person as the actor, not so much the OC themselves.

What I do for face claims varies quite a bit. Every now and again, I'll just want to do straight written description. Other times, I will just kind of look for a FC that seems to embody the personality I'm going for. Most of the time, though, I'll have a vague idea of what I want my character to look like, then search for a suitable FC that fits within the frame of what I had in mind.

If I don't mind my character being a little more on the pretty side/I'm playing a more androgynous character, I love to use this tumblr, because they use a lot of unknown models/celebrities and will blacklist anyone who specifically doesn't want their picture being used for FC purposes. It's also VERY neatly organized in the tags, it's active, you could submit an ask if you're looking for some type of person you haven't been able to find (I personally have never had to utilize this resource), and it's just Good 10/10 would recommend.

Otherwise if I'm looking for a more average looking character, I look at photostock sites tbfh, especially shutterstock. A lot of times you can put in something as generic as "teenage boy" and find a good variety of people that way. If watermarks bother you like me, you can always search their image in google (copying the image link into your url box > search image), and if some site bought the rights to it, you can sometimes find a version of the picture of a good size/quality and without the watermark.

If I'm doing a more anime roleplay uhh I usually don't have as much luck. Sometimes I look here for a character, then maybe if I can manage to find a character that isn't too super well-known, hit up Zerochan for fanart. Sometimes I look at this tumblr but it's inactive now, never filled up much, and has a lot of well-known characters so uh, it had the right idea but I wouldn't necessarily recommend it. I may or may not just avoid using anime FCs where I can, and if someone knows a better place to look for FCs that would be mucho appreciate asdfghjkl.

I will say though that once upon a time, I had a character that I based his appearance off of a guy I knew irl, and I never found a suitable FC even though he's a pretty standard guy imo UNTIL I found this one gif with a guy in it that looked a lot like him??????? So I went to pains to find the origin of this (rumored to be from a commercial), then found out it was from a Ukranian soap opera, and just it was Wild trying to find other pictures of this dude. The name of the show is Сваты/Svaty/Matchmakers and the actor's name is александр гаврилюк/Alexander Gavrilyuk (probably) and literally finding that information again took me like at least thirty minutes because a lot of cast lists for the show are incomplete and IDK if he's a thing outside of season 6 episode 13 and just man googling things for another language is SO HARD LOLOL. It's further complicated by the fact that I'm p sure he shares the name of some other famous (?) Ukranian (??) composer (?????????) (Tbh I'm only being so specific because I know I'm going to have to look this shit up again in the future but I mean he's a perfect FC so I can't be toO mad sobs. I would maybe share other FCs but I'm just Tired now.)

 

[Faricarnon]

I think it's a matter of personal preference and what it really works best with you and your character. If it helps you envision the character to a better extent than by all means. But for me, FC's aren't my kind of thing and as said above I prefer literature and rather a description since it helps visualize your character and build a persona around it.

 

[Miniapollo17]

I don't use them, mostly because I like describing appearances more than showing a picture of it, but it's not like I don't like them or anything.

It's a little weird when someone uses a face claim from some obscure game and you actually know of that game/character, though

 

[kibou]

I like faceclaims when I don't recognize the person used, kinda like Pine. Having everyone be flawless models with similar face/body types is a little obnoxious I guess? You can tell most people only use someone as a faceclaim because they're their favorite youtuber/they think they're hot. Which, I mean there's nothing inherently wrong about that- most fc's I've used have been of random people I don't think are ugly. I guess it just gets old seeing the same people over and over and it makes it harder to take the rp seriously when you're rping with like, Tyler Oakly and Nicki Minaj, even if I like them.

I don't have any good resources for finding realistic faceclaims but Pine already gave some starting places.

For anime zerochan, safebooru, and even google images (if you search for example, "anime boy with white hair" you'll get a variety) are usually my first places to look.

Same thing with anime though, a lot of people use popular/well known characters for their face claims which puts me off a bit, mostly because I've seen people literally copy their oc's personality, backstory, etc from anime characters before, and then even use the character as their fc and think somehow it won't be noticeable on a site with a large anime fanbase. Also like, it's weird if you're in an rp with 3 sword art online fcs and, like, Sasuke.

I think in all my rps in the future I'm going to require people to hand-draw their oc in ms paint or something. Not for any reasons listed above, but because the results are hilarious and it's really fun seeing them.

 

[Nano]

I'm not really big on realistic FCs, because I feel awkward using images of a person who actually exists in real life, haha...
I have no issues with FCs in general, however. A lot of people nowadays are very visual people, so I don't think it's wrong or lazy (not necessarily anyway) to use FCs to add on to your character's appearance description. Similarly to what some others have already said, using a super well-known FC (such as a celebrity or a character from a really mainstream anime) makes me lose motivation to RP with the person using that FC. Idk, I think it just makes me feel like that person was too lazy to do a deeper search for something that suited their character? There's also that point about how these people also often rip off personalities, backstories, etc. Q - Q

I used to not care so much before, but recently I've been preferring to use FCs that aren't as "out there." I'm not a huge fan of that thing where you google search things like "anime girl with short red hair" and prefer knowing my sources to prevent any potentially awkward moments, so I'll often take FCs from some game I play. I tend to play a lot of CCG (and I experiment with a lot of different rhythm ccg), so a lot of my FCs tend to come from there, although I sometimes end up having to go through pages and pages of pinterest, pixiv, huaban, etc just to find good art if the FC happens to be particularly obscure.

I would like to be able to draw my own OCs, but I'm not too confident in my digital art atm (my coloring technique is trash), haha.
It's hard when I can't find a FC that suits the image I have of my character... *cri*

 

[Collidias Rex]

I prefer using written descriptions. While a mandatory faceclaim won't turn me away from an RP - I'll be a bit irritated by it.

 

[Destiny7]

The more detail, the better. If text does it for you, then so be it, but I know a lot of people like to use visual cues with their writings and that's fine for me. I'll provide whatever a person wants when possible.

 

[Umbrie]

i generally have a character in mind. and generally come up with a description at first. i send the description to artistic friends as an artist request when they do free requests, if i have to wait more than a week for the drawing, i look up images that closely resemble the character, and sometimes, have to make a request of a friend to recolor the image. or else, i use a different base image that is similar but has the desired colors.

but i generally have both an image and a description. but most of my characters are slight framed tomboyish figured women with an excess of testosterone keeping them from developing maternal assets such as breasts or child bearing hips for example, often appearing as and pretending to be young tomboyish girls who dress in cute but simple and practical, somewhat feminine garments that are either easy to move in or are modified to be easier to move in. comfort and mobility are important when adventuring. which is why i put a lot of my characters in miniskirts or hotpants. because raiding tombs in a robe that drags along the floor is not a good idea.

 

[welian]

I've taken to requiring a written description in my roleplays, I'm surprised by the number of lazy people who complain about having to fill out bullet points when there's a picture to look at. But one day, as a GM, I realized... The more skilled roleplayers don't rely as much on faceclaims. And, I've run into a lot of users who are great writers, but suck at finding images. So, why punish them for a skill that's not technically related to posting well?

(I use Pinterest for the sheer number of high quality images people pin, and Safebooru for the ability to exclude tags)

 

[PandaBrady]

I usually write mine, but I end up forgetting to describe certain things, or not being descriptive enough. If that happens I'll search up like "Green Hair Anime Boy" if that fits the character I'm going for. Recently I've taken to making either original Sprites for my characters (via MS Paint) or doing sprite alterations (take a preexisting character and change colors, add or remove bits of hair, etc.

As for like or dislike, I guess it goes either way. Though I will say it looks odd when people use real life photos of other people.

 

[Nana_MelaNinja]

I almost always prefer face claims. "A picture's worth a thousand words", and all that jazz. Unless the written description is highly, highly detailed, there's going to be gaps that could easily be filled with a visual reference. (IMHO!)

Another way of looking at it is, an author could go use three+ pages to go into incredible detail on the geography/topography of the setting... or they could just provide a map for reference with additional information thrown in where applicable.

When I first started RPing, I stuck with anime FCs. Then sometime down the line there was this huge shift to using realistic FCs, and I just went with it. In either case, Pinterest and Tumblr are good resources, though I think they've been mentioned before.

As for favorites, I like the anime FC because it was one of the first FCs I ever used. The realistic FC I like because I feel it fits the personality of my OC like a glove. Plus, floral shirts are snazzy. ;-)