Just curious how everyone makes their characters, looks-wise

in Fallout 3 and NV, I found myself using real life people for look bases: in 3 I made the lone wanderer look like Chris Pine because I wanted a young punk with charm who would go out and help the wasteland in his own rogueish/punkish way, and in NV my main courier got modeled after Anson Mount because I wanted a grizzled ,silent, cold deathdealer who did the bad [censored] needed for good to prevail

I just found that odd since in all the TES games, I don't use real world bases. All of my characters just come out of nowhere, even the humans of the world like Redguards, Imperials and Nords have no relations to outside influences. Just strange.

So how do you craft your FO characters, and how will you do it for FO4? After people? Yourself? Make it up as you go? Randomize? Base model? anything you do to make them

I usually use one of the presets and tweak it a little, I primarily play in first person, so I dont see much use in putting to much work.

For 4 there doesnt seam to be presets, but you can randomise, so Ill use that till I have a good base, then tweek details.

I look in a mirror.

I make me.

Sometimes I go with a theme such as "she's a 40 year old rugged survivalist loner" and design a character to fit, sometimes I just wing it.

I mostly just fiddle with sliders until I get a face the intrigues me. I'm looking for a face that makes me wonder, "Who is this person? What is their story?" When I feel that kind of reaction I know I have an appearance I might be able to roleplay with.

The one thing I never do is try to recreate my own face. "Playing as myself" is not roleplaying to me. I am not my characters. All of my characters are different from me and different from each other.

I usually make myself. I make the hair more of a dark red in some cases or a bright blue, but other than that I try to sculpt my own face, while tweaking certain aspects at the same time.

My husband looks a lot like the male PC, except he has much longer hair. He'll probably adjust him a little for me, but ultimately I'm the one playing. Now that third person is better, he may pick up the controller for his own play-through, and I'll redo the wife.

i generally make them look like me but play first person so its not a big thing to me

I don't recreate people and definitely not myself. I just make what I like/think looks good and that in turn is based on the story, setting and character background.

I tweak around with the preset until I get someone who looks satisfying.

This time, I'm quite taken by female default...

Pretty much the same. Real life figures. I think my first fallout character will be in the image of Mad Max, the new one from Fury Road.

I try to aim for something aesthetically pleasing; my courier and Lone Wanderer were light-haired Audrey Hepburn clones.

I tend to make my characters blonde and 30-ish. Always kind of had a liking for golden-haired heroes.

For games that offer me a choice of species? Well! I can get lost in them for hours trying to make my first character. On the morning after it released, my friend asked me how Skyrim was, to which I had to reply 'I don't know, I spent three hours playing with the creator and I only started actually playing about an hour ago.'

Games that only offer 'Human', though? Spam 'Random' to see the far ranges of the creator's ability, then keep hitting 'Random' until one looks like a good base to begin from. After that? I rarely know going into it what I'm making. Heck, I went into New Vegas intending to 'continue' a male character from FO3 and ended up with an entirely new one that was a woman.

Even with just one species option, though, I've gotten carried away and ended up still in the creator into the wee hours of the morning on Launch Day if the system allows enough variable to be altered [ESO, Saints Row, SoulCalibur].

I so do love variables.

typically i start with a decent looking default, get a concept for what my character is then shape the looks until it matches what i would think they character looks like. if i can actually work the creator well that is

Whatever is most appealing to me but with a male character, I try to base him off myself but facial hair may vary. Sometimes I like to be clean-shaven but sometimes I like the wasteland veteran look.

I'll either look through the presets to find an interesting one and then tweak it. Or I'll fiddle with sliders to see what looks good. This does have a tendency to get me characters with similar features (like, many of my female characters look somewhat related, due to me picking similar things in any game I make them. Sharp/high cheekbones, red hair, thin nose, etc. Depends on the facegen system, of course. And how many characters I make for a game.)

FO3 and FONV had just terrible CC. Honestly all I would go for is to make something that could pass for human. Later I'd get mods and use other people's work.

To be honest the default guy looks fine and I may just use him on the first play through (might add a thin beard). Same with the female on the next play through (but no beard). After that I'll be looking for the mods with characters created by those much more talented than I.

I try and make them look like me, but I tend to get impatient and just settle for "close enough".

Typically i just modify it till i feel it fits the character's theme but i do have the issue of my personal preferences subconsciously influencing my choices (like 99% of my characters have black hair and blue eyes)

I normally need mods because BGS has lousy visual aesthetics for character design (i.e., they refuse to offer appealing choices and force players to only use so-called "realistic" designs which are simply not appealing for many people). This has been the case since Morrowind, at least, so they really need to stop claiming "be any character you want and do anything you want" when players have shown (via mods) that such claims are simply not true. Those are some of the most popular (and first) mods, too, so it isn't a minor point.

For specifics, take my avatar of Hatsune Miku for example (in 3D CG of course). No one can create such a character with BGS assets because the basis is wrong. In FO3/FONV, the shoujo race mod used meshes from the Angel mod to allow for proper youthful shoujo visual aesthetics. Likewise, in Morrowind, the community created a major body mod that allowed for a far softer, rounded visual appearance.

It might be hard to explain in words, but it's quite clear if you have followed East Asian entertainment for decades like I have. Also, unlike popular perception, East Asian artists have a wide variety of styles including the so-called "realistic" visuals. The market there simply offers far more choice for players. For example, they've made everything from Xenosaga, Tales series and Star Ocean to Biohazard/Resident Evil and Silent Hill. Heck, even fighting game visuals offer a better variety/choice in visual appearance than almost any Western offering. That's why character modding for BGS is needed by me and many others.

First character, I'll try to make him look like me. Second one, I'll make her look like my wife. In FO4 I'll do both characters upfront--I just hope it lets you save before choosing which to play as, so I can go back and play the other one later. (It will be interesting to see what our son looks like, assuming I meet him as an advlt later in the game.)

For subsequent playthroughs, I'll mess around with the extremes of the character generator and see what kind of freaky looking guy I can make (in FO3 I made a very ugly Fishboy character). An interesting-looking character helps me define the personality for role-play purposes.

Shoujo race........

I regretted having entered this thread. Bye.

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