Resource Spotlight: Character Portraits Tools pt.1

Time to boost the signal! This September I am planning on doing a roundup of some favourite resources for Table Top Role Playing Games. Most of which are free and online.

Hero Machine

I enjoy drawing my characters. I have a great deal of fun trying to come up with poses and activities that help convey who they are. However, I am well aware of the fact that not everyone as the saying patience or confidence to reach level of drawing skill that they are comfortable sharing. The next resource I am featuring is a tool that helps players creative character portrait when they aren't comfortable drawing one.

Hero Machine is made by UGO.com and takes the concept of a paper doll and turns it up to eleven with the power of Flash. It is a browser-based application that lets you design fantasy, science fiction, and comic book hero characters.

With a little patience you can get a pretty solid character portrait made several be pretty close to what you're looking for.

It can take a while to master, and because the portions are based on DC and marvel character designs, you might have to learn how to grow the heads and shrink the hands in order to make a character who looks more to your taste.

If you are particularly patient, you can create your own assets to upload, allowing an almost infinite amount of customisation. Taking the character into Photoshop or GIMP, afterwards, and let you tweak the final bits and pieces.

Hero Machine has been through several versions. Many of the early versions are downloadable and can be used I need a local machine. The newest versions a lot a lot more variety in poses and character shapes, but are entirely used online.

Unfortunately, as Adobe Flash is currently bring sun-set we are awaiting a new version in a more modern software engine. In the meantime, if your browser supports Flash, it is well worth a look.

Hero Forge for Character Portraits

An alternative way to create a character portrait online is to go to the Hero Forge program, which is a website that allows you to design custom miniatures using a very similar interface. Once you have something you like, you can capture it with print screen and then imported into something like gimp for colorizing and editing.