Coming up with a physical description for your character is sometimes the easiest part of creating a character. It’s very common for a writer to visualize a character first and then be stuck with trying to come up with a personality or a good motivation for the character. But if you have trouble coming up with the “right” look for a character, here are some places to check:

Hairstyle Sites
While they usually feature the “beautiful people” these sites can have some extreme, but interesting, models for your character. I like Friseur. It appears to be a German site (which I don’t speak), and it has some great pictures of models with unique hair styles (and colors). Even if you can’t read German, click some of the links and look around. If you’re doing a fantasy or scifi type story, you’ll want to check out the 2007 Trends and 2008 Trends.

For more conventional looks try Matrix or Hairstyle Design.

Model Sites

Again, these sites often highlight the pretty people, but they can also be a treasure trove of photos of more regular-looking folks. Look for sites that allow people to upload their own photos in hopes of being chosen as a model. I like New Faces. Click on the Model tab and then scroll to the bottom of the page. There’s a search function there that lets you enter gender, age range, hair color, skin color and body type. The search results will give you a wide variety of faces to choose from.

Face Generators

Can’t find a real person that looks like your character? Make your own face. Singular Inversions have a free download available for FaceGen. (You’ll get their logo on the character’s forehead, but if it is just for you, who cares?)

The Perception Lab’s Face Transformer lets you load a digital picture and then change the age, race or sex of the facial image.

Sketch Generator lets you upload a photo and it will create a “sketch”-like abstraction of it. This can be useful if you have a model or hairstyle picture that is close, but not just right for your character. Maybe a sketch would be better for bringing the character to life.

Try using one of these methods when you need to put a face on your character.

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