Viewpoint Recognising Faceclaims as actual characters.

[Crow]

You know, during my casual browsing of RPs, I like to take a look at things. You all know the saying - one picture, ten-gazillion-words.

Sometimes I look at the picture of these characters. And I think - What's Yang Xiaolong doing with my favourite Vtuber? I didn't know Shibuya Rin was friends with Ichigo from Bleach.

Simply put, I see characters I recognise. And also characters everyone and their mothers recognise. Being used as faces for an internet story thing.

Latter is less common, but people actually do use Cloud Strife and Goku's sons as faceclaims. It happens, go with it.

Ahaha. Jokes aside, I guess I'll say it straight - do you do this often unintentionally?

How about - do you do this deliberately?

Do you think this is alright? Not alright?

 

[Crayons]

When I've picked FCs from manga/anime I always picked ones that I didn't know who they originally were, but I don't know if they were necessarily little known or not, it was more for my own benefit. XD I think people could do with picking more obscure characters if they are going to use existing characters as FCs, because it does throw you off a bit if someone is very obvious.

 

[Sir Fungus]

Picked a faceclaim image for a post apocalyptic RP I’m in, though I swear I’ve seen the image I’m using before.

 

[Onmyoji]

I've never used FC, moreover I haven't heard about FC until I started to rp here.
So... yeah. I still can't get used to them, doesn't matter what people use.
I would rather draw the character or ask someone to draw.
I'm used to descriptions for OC or playing canon characters whose FC would be the same character.

 

[Crayons]

Speaking as an artist, I literally wouldn't give two hoots if someone used my art for a roleplay FC. The only reservation being if someone had paid me for an art commission, in which case I wouldn't want someone else using it. But my own art, knock yourself out - as long as I'm not using it on the same site for one of my own characters. Afaic roleplay characters are not profit making, they only occur on one place on the interwebs (usually) and so I consider it fair use.

 

[Idea]

do you do this often unintentionally?

Yes

How about - do you do this deliberately?

Hmmmmm... I can't say I've never done it, but I've never done it because I want to use that character, but I just remembered a character who would make a perfect faceclaim for what I had in mind.

Other times I come across a character which I know is an existing character and I think "yeah, this one looks good" and use it. Which is less doing it deliberately and more just doing it knowingly.

Do you think this is alright? Not alright?

Faceclaims are a visual reference. They aren’t supposed to define your character and aren’t a 100% faithful representation, just a very good one that gives others an idea of what your character looks like so they can imagine it more easily.

Well, another reason to use them may bebecause you want the character to look like that, in which case they are a more faithful representation, but the point is the face claim isn’t the character. I think that it is alright to use such a faceclaim so long asone isn’t making a carbon copy of the character that originally had that appearance.

This goes double or triple if the person using the faceclaim doesn’t even know the character it came from. Most art created that is used in faceclaims is either someone’s OC or based on a fandom character, you pretty much can’t avoid them already having something attached to if you are using faceclaims at all.

 

[nerdy tangents]

So funny story when I started out you were expected to use real actors or models for face claims. There were whole threads to help people out by putting little thumbnails of folks and their names.

GMs would provide links to model sites where you could find images too.

It was years before I realized you could even use anime face claims.

Now I mostly use dollmakers from places like picrew or just describe characters.

 

[Delinquent]

So it bothers me that people would take an artists character, who has a story personality and its own world building and claiming it's "face and body" as their own character

But using someone's real "face and body" to do the same thing is okay?

 

[Phantom Thief of Hearts]

My issue stems from OCs in a Multifandom setting having their appearance be directly lifted from popular anime and/or video games.

It's just gonna lead into confusion.

 

[Skawly]

I guess I usually just try to suspend my disbelief lol

For non-RL face claims, I pretty much always draw my own now. Sometimes I'll upload them to my art blogs and I have this dumb fear that one day I'm going to join an RP and see someone already using my own art for the character I was gonna use.

Like,

 

[Malphaestus]

Generally, I write a written description in combination with the 'FC,' or as I like to call it, the picture. Sometimes there are differences to the picture which I want to present. Though that only applies to character sheets where I am able to do so. Seeing characters I recognize hasn't exactly registered in my brain as anything to care about.

 

[SP3CT3R]

I don't use faceclaims at all when I can help it. It's my character, I should get to decide what they look like.

 

[Yoga]

As long as it makes sense, it's fine. I've seen a number of great OCs using faceclaims and haven't really had much issue with them.
The deciding factor on whether or not a character is fun to do scenes with has very little to do with whether they look like Death the Kid or not.

 

[Murdergurl]

Personally, I don't like it when people use faceclaims that are easily recognizable. Celebrity faceclaims are particularly bleh. As far as peeps from fandoms, I don't really know a lot of fandoms, so I likely ont recognize them in the first place. Concerning anime (I don't like anime faceclaims at all) they look pretty much the same as one another, so its whatever. they all got the same big, googly eyes and cheap noses. I prefer to use drawings for faceclaims. That way there is no alternative associations.

 

[Sara Sidereal]

Wouldn't it be easier to just write "my character looks like X from Y, feel free to use google", and completely sidestep the copyright, privacy, and creep concerns? Now you don't have to bother finding an image, and you don't have to write a four paragraph description that people will rarely bother to even skim anyway. Seems like the best of both worlds.

Or I mean, you could just use your imagination and write a few sentences in the course of participating in a hobby that is supposedly about writing. You don't actually need to "claim" anyone's "face" (christ, even that phrase gives me the creeps). What does it matter if people have slightly different ideas about how dreamy your cheekbones are? Tell a story.

 

[Murdergurl]

Wouldn't it be easier to just write "my character looks like X from Y, feel free to use google", and completely sidestep the copyright, privacy, and creep concerns? Now you don't have to bother finding an image, and you don't have to write a four paragraph description that people will rarely bother to even skim anyway. Seems like the best of both worlds.

Or I mean, you could just use your imagination and write a few sentences in the course of participating in a hobby that is supposedly about writing. You don't actually need to "claim" anyone's "face" (christ, even that phrase gives me the creeps). What does it matter if people have slightly different ideas about how dreamy your cheekbones are? Tell a story.

back in the day, faceclaims weren't even a thing. it was all text. I'm sure a few oddball people and places might still operate under this premise, but the vast majority of RPers nowadays like the visual counterpart to a character description. Personally, I do both. I provide a pic (usually heavily art-bashed) and I give a more comprehensive physical description of the character to go along with it.

 

[Crayons]

back in the day, faceclaims weren't even a thing. it was all text. I'm sure a few oddball people and places might still operate under this premise, but the vast majority of RPers nowadays like the visual counterpart to a character description. Personally, I do both. I provide a pic (usually heavily art-bashed) and I give a more comprehensive physical description of the character to go along with it.

The word "faceclaim" wasn't a thing but people did have images to represent their characters for at least as long as I've been RPing which is ... 22 years.

First time I heard the word faceclaim was around ... 2010 ish?

 

[Murdergurl]

The word "faceclaim" wasn't a thing but people did have images to represent their characters for at least as long as I've been RPing which is ... 22 years.

First time I heard the word faceclaim was around ... 2010 ish?

I started back in 93'. Didnt add pics to any of my RPs for quite a few years as it just wasnt a thing anyone was doing. Guess it just depends on the venue

 

[SP3CT3R]

The word "faceclaim" wasn't a thing but people did have images to represent their characters for at least as long as I've been RPing which is ... 22 years.

First time I heard the word faceclaim was around ... 2010 ish?

I didn't start hearing it until when I joined this site in 2016.

 

[Jannah]

I generally don't like using FC's, but I will if the RP requires it. If using animated or drawn faces, though, I won't use already established canon characters. I'll usually search around the internet for art pieces I like and use those. I know, that could potentially bring up issues with copyright and such, but I've never even heard of any RPers having legal problems because of that. I also don't pass them off as my own.

 

[Murdergurl]

I generally don't like using FC's, but I will if the RP requires it. If using animated or drawn faces, though, I won't use already established canon characters. I'll usually search around the internet for art pieces I like and use those. I know, that could potentially bring up issues with copyright and such, but I've never even heard of any RPers having legal problems because of that. I also don't pass them off as my own.

There shouldn't ever be issues with copyrights unless you are profiting off of the written work, or otherwise trying to pass of the art as your own.

 

[le-toose]

Hmm usually I use FCs as a general idea of what the character looks like (hair color and texture, skintone, etc.) until I draw my character myself. I usually like to dig around and find where the FC comes from. I've found some artists that I now follow consistently to this day through doing that. Usually I don't choose FCs that are from popular shows or comics or anything like that. I usually dive on some deep end of Pinterest and one that just seems to fill everything in. FCs are only like a temporary mental image of the character for the people I roleplay with so they know what my character looks like.

Do I deliberately choose FCs from popular origins? No. I don't think I have before; at least recently.

Do I think it's alright? I don't see the harm in it as long as you're not profiting off of stealing someone else's artistic design to claim as your own. If you gain inspiration from it, that's cool. But so long as you're not using the FC as some kind of ultimate design for the character and making them look exactly like it and then putting it out into the world as if it's your own, I think you're fine.

 

[nerdy tangents]

Hmm usually I use FCs as a general idea of what the character looks like (hair color and texture, skintone, etc.) until I draw my character myself. I usually like to dig around and find where the FC comes from. I've found some artists that I now follow consistently to this day through doing that. Usually I don't choose FCs that are from popular shows or comics or anything like that. I usually dive on some deep end of Pinterest and one that just seems to fill everything in. FCs are only like a temporary mental image of the character for the people I roleplay with so they know what my character looks like.

Do I deliberately choose FCs from popular origins? No. I don't think I have before; at least recently.

Do I think it's alright? I don't see the harm in it as long as you're not profiting off of stealing someone else's artistic design to claim as your own. If you gain inspiration from it, that's cool. But so long as you're not using the FC as some kind of ultimate design for the character and making them look exactly like it and then putting it out into the world as if it's your own, I think you're fine.

If your just using general idea I would use a dollmaker from picrew, azaleasdolls, meiker.io, rinmarugames, etc.

Those are designed for the express purpose of making avatars of OCs, and if you aren’t looking for an exact match anyway than it’s actually better.

Cuz you know exactly where the art is coming from, the artist is telling you specifically what they’re okay with you using the art for, and you can often times get a LOT closer to what you really want than just picking random art from Pinterest.

Personally I only use Pinterest for settings or animal images. Because a lot of the art is Uploaded without permission from the original artist. So it seems like a good way to go against someone’s express wishes involving their work.

 

[le-toose]

If your just using general idea I would use a dollmaker from picrew, azaleasdolls, meiker.io, rinmarugames, etc.

Those are designed for the express purpose of making avatars of OCs, and if you aren’t looking for an exact match anyway than it’s actually better.

Cuz you know exactly where the art is coming from, the artist is telling you specifically what they’re okay with you using the art for, and you can often times get a LOT closer to what you really want than just picking random art from Pinterest.

Personally I only use Pinterest for settings or animal images. Because a lot of the art is Uploaded without permission from the original artist. So it seems like a good way to go against someone’s express wishes involving their work.

Ooh Rinmaru.com... that takes me back. I'm a veteran of using that site lol. I'll definitely look into using them more often. Now that you've reminded me I'm more inclined to check up on them. Picrew, however, is not very diverse and a lot of the avatar creators are very... exclusive. A lot don't have any skin shade range, any curly hair types, freckles, unique eye colors, etc.. Of course there are some gems on the site but I always forget them... I remember one time I literally scrolled through every single avatar creator they had on there. The good ones were few and far between. Maybe it's different now that its been awhile!

Thank you for the suggestions!

 

[SP3CT3R]

Picrew, however, is not very diverse and a lot of the avatar creators are very... exclusive. A lot don't have any skin shade range, any curly hair types, freckles, unique eye colors, etc.. Of course there are some gems on the site but I always forget them... I remember one time I literally scrolled through every single avatar creator they had on there. The good ones were few and far between.

And if you want to make a male character with Picrew, you're pretty much straight out of luck.