Character Sketch

I enjoy role playing enough to do it a couple of times a week during lunch breaks at work.

For the past couple of weeks, I've been working on a character sketch for a sailor character, and thought I'd share the final result:


The image was created in Inkscape, which is currently my favorite open source graphics editor.

The frizziness of the hair was created using a filter in Inscape which gave the shapes a 'crumpled paper' texture. The pattern of the shirt was created using another filter to give it the faded/bleeding/rumpled look. I also took and applied a couple of different gradients over the hair to give it the sun-bleached/darkened look.

I traced three individual images to get the final result: I started with a picture of some random dude on the internet who had the general musculature and posture I wanted, then took a picture of myself making the expression I wanted for the eyes, and then looked through a Google Image search for 'portrait' to find a nose that looked interesting. The 'final result' (as in, I may add more stuff to it at some point) is what you see.

Ideally he's supposed to have a bunch of tattoos, trinkets, charms, etc. because he's a superstitious character, but I haven't gotten around to blinging him out. But over all I think the sketch does a good job painting his as a wind-tossed, no-nonsense type of person who has a decent idea what he wants and how to get it.