I use photos of celebrities, usually from a role that suits the theme of the roleplay. For example, I use LeeLee Sobieski in the [s]god awful[/s] film In the Name of the King for a character in a medieval-ish world, Seychelle Gabriel's character in Falling Skies for a demigod, so on and so forth. Using celebrities is a pretty safe way of establishing appearance, because there's no real ethics issues. They performed in media meant for consumption and I'm not making any money off it. A lot of my games are grounded in realism, and I'll use the height of the actor/actress and make references to notable characteristics. I have some games off the guild where I'll use gifs of my chosen faceclaim to add to the end of posts and help illustrate the mood of the post. I roleplayed on tumblr for a while where gifs/icons in posts are common.

In games where there's no suitable person (usually when playing non-humans), I'll end up painting my character myself. I will look at other art for inspiration, and use photo references, but I don't like to use other people's art if I can avoid it. I have the capability to make my own, and enjoy doing so, so I'm a lot less limited in that regard.

Even though I don't view using personal art for RP description as stealing, I'd rather not risk upsetting the artist. Paintings can be pretty involved and I want to respect the creator's right to control their work. Sharing it online doesn't mean that they don't have ownership of the piece. I would be hella flattered to have someone ask me to use a painting as a character-- and I'd probably want to paint them [I]more[/I] things just for asking.


When I do make character sheets, which isn't often, I almost always include a text description with the photo/art. There's certain things that don't come across in art-- fashion tastes, the way someone walks, additional features that the character possesses but the photo/art might not have, and so forth. That way I get the best of both worlds.