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Edited: Mar 07, 2021

Character Portraits/Appearances

Not that this is anything particularly vital to the gameplay, but I'm sure we all like to have a good idea what our characters look like (and give a good reference to others). This is something I've shared with a couple of my chats but I figure others might find some use in it as well, for those of us who don't feel comfortable showing our faces, don't have the costuming, or just look nothing like our characters.

https://www.artbreeder.com/browse - AI generated images, good for painting style portraits or pretty realistic portraits, although it takes a little bit of practice, patience, and the right "parents" to get something that's not too uncanny valley (especially with the painting creator), and it can be admittedly difficult to control specific facial features.

(generated with the painting creator and portrait creator respectively)

https://www.portraitai.app/ - upload a picture and the AI will make it painting/portrait style. The caveat is that it definitely tends to round out the face a lot and is not good for characters with dark skin or light hair, or older characters, but if you have any skill with editing this might be a minor problem for you.

(I actually used Artbreeder first and then ran one through PortraitAI for this)

Anyways, hopefully this helps some people get a more personal feel for/more control of what their character looks like rather than having to dig through stock images to find something that seems mostly appropriate. Feel free to add more resources/tools if you have them!

25 comments

25 Comments

Bishop William Lincoln (Dan)

Mar 15, 2021

The Right Reverend William Lincoln, 86th Bishop of Winchester

(Inactive)

Mar 12, 2021

I like 'em!

Meet Miss Beatrice Ballard.

Primrose Hazelton

Mar 08, 2021

Primrose's favorite portrait.

Imogen Hester Steele nee Dosset

Mar 07, 2021

Another very good reference for normal looking (or sometimes uncanny valley) people: https://thispersondoesnotexist.com/

The AI combines thousands of photos to create portraits that look incredibly real, but are indeed fake. there are stories online of this creating portraits of people who you may know but this is actually all AI driven.

They do end up rather modern looking, but can then be saved and run through the portraitAI link above. The only thing that's a bit frustrating about it, is that there's no way to indicate a preference for generating more masculine or more feminine faces.

Hope this helps too!

Earl Nicholas Howard (Evan)

Mar 07, 2021

Replying to

@Imogen Hester Steele nee Dosset yeah seems like downside is there is no way to control any features, the person is entirely random. Upside - inspiration for NPCs? Plus a random chance of encountering something you hadn't thought of/expected but like for your character.

Thanks!

Imogen Hester Steele nee Dosset

Mar 07, 2021

Replying to

@Earl Nicholas Howard That's exactly my thought - I enjoy looking through, especially for for the older faces. When looking at art portraits or other AI creators, they seem to cap out around approximately late 20s or non-wrinkly 30s.

Earl Nicholas Howard (Evan)

Mar 07, 2021

Replying to

@Imogen Hester Steele nee Dosset yeah unfortunately PortaitAI is pretty terrible in that regard, it's very difficult to control age, colors, or even gender -- it makes most characters appear a lot more feminine, much rounder, no wrinkles, often eliminates facial hair, plus darkens hair considerably and lightens skin. You can remedy that a little with some manual recoloring if you have any knowledge of any art tools. The upside, I guess, is that the round, smooth features are pretty characteristic of portraits from the current time period, so it definitely works in getting an idea of what a painting of your character might look like -- but if you want a detailed, realistic image of what they might look like in person it's not always effective.

Artbreeder is much better in that regard, since you can control things like age, gender, hair and eye color, and race (I've managed to get some pretty good portraits of older people, and the neat thing is that once you figure out the right settings, you can actually make images that are effectively "age up" or "age down" of the same person, or with more or less facial hair, etc.). The downside is that it's very difficult to control things like hair length/texture (it generally defaults to short hair for guys, long hair for women, and there's no particular setting to adjust that), and you can't control specific facial features (like eye shape, nose/mouth/chin ratio, jawline curve, etc.) so you just have to introduce "parents" with the right features and home it randomly generates something with all the features you want from them.... but maybe it's just that I'm very particular haha. It also takes a little bit of practice get anything other than chiseled, intense, & full-lipped OR distorted uncanny valley monstrosities.... but once you figure it out it's pretty spectacular what you can do with it (with some limitations still).

Anyways, thanks for coming to my TED talk on AI programs I have spent WAY more time than is necessary or appropriate with..... (I'm sorry, I'm just really passionate about these kinds of dumb things lmao)

tl;dr: PortraitAI makes everyone look smooth, young, dark-haired, and light-skinned. Artbreeder gives you more control but you have to actually get the hang of it and it's still hard to control very specific features.

Lady Kaeitha Vale {Allison}

Mar 07, 2021

My, my- this took some trial and error. I present Miss Kaeitha!

Lady Yvette Bellamy (Kitty)

Mar 07, 2021

It could get addictive just playing with these art AIs, but I think this is vaguely what I'm wanting for Yvette (using an old original character and trying to revamp her a bit)

Duke James Richmond (Greg)

Mar 07, 2021

Thanks to @Earl Nicholas Howard, I have these two of James:

Lady Olivia Curtis (Helen)

Mar 07, 2021

This top image most closely resembles how I imagine Olivia to be painted in a formal portrait, but the generator was too much fun to ignore all of the other images.

Lady Theodosia Graves (She/Her Rachael)

Mar 07, 2021

I'm still playing with the app and some editing to make it look more era appropriate, but this is a rough idea of Theodosia!

Flora Owen

Mar 07, 2021

Here’s Flora Owen (I was actually wearing regency attire in the 2 photos I used).

Lady Kayleigh Blackmore (Carolyn)

Mar 06, 2021

This was fun! This is Kayleigh.

Earl Nicholas Howard (Evan)

Mar 05, 2021

I am loving seeing all of these

Duchess Rosaline Daniels (Kim)

Mar 05, 2021

It took a minute to find the best picture for the generator but here's Rosaline

Miss. Dinah Wolverton (Melissa)

Mar 05, 2021

Here's DInah! Or, at least, a decent approximation of her. Artbreeder took me SO LONG to get the hang of lol

Lady Violet Heloise Blankeney-Coventry (Elizabeth)

Mar 05, 2021

Alright, I think this is what I'm going with for Violet!

Earl Nicholas Howard (Evan)

Mar 05, 2021

Replying to

@Lady Violet Heloise Blankeney-Coventry (Elizabeth) I thought you were just going with yourself tbh

Lady Violet Heloise Blankeney-Coventry (Elizabeth)

Mar 05, 2021

Replying to

@Earl Nicholas Howard Hah, I mean, this is my picture run though the filter still, so.

Earl Nicholas Howard (Evan)

Mar 05, 2021

Replying to

@Lady Violet Heloise Blankeney-Coventry (Elizabeth) ye I figured as such lol

Lady Eloise Snowden

Mar 05, 2021

That was fun! Thank you!

Lady Arabella Ashbrooke (Mitzie)

Mar 05, 2021

This was a fun exercise in figuring out my character, and as a highly visual person (photographer, go figure), I appreciate character portraits to help keep track of who is who.

Here's a rough idea of Lady Arabella Ashbrooke: