How to Visualize Epic Fantasy Characters and Bring Them to Life
Using epic fantasy monster and character mood boards
Writing is about creating visuals in the reader’s mind with words, but sometimes, it’s nice to see them with your eyes too.
Over the years, I’ve used many different means to create these visuals for myself. Collages were fun in school—taking magazines and cutting out photos and gluing them to a posterboard. It was fun to layer the images that fit the mood, colors, and look of the places or characters I had in mind.
Pinterest is similar to a collage. You create boards and add links to images from the internet. No glue stick required. I’ve used Pinterest to collect images into boards for a while now, but only recently have I started playing with Canva to create character boards.
Canva has a new feature called Text to Image. You enter a text prompt, and an AI creates images. It’s fun to play with different styles from watercolor or oil painting to anime or even a specific artist’s style, like Leonardo Da Vinci.
Creating character boards with Canva’s Text to Image
So how do I create a character board with Canva? I start with a 1920 x 1080 design, because I like that size for blog posts. Then, I create a collage of images I create with the Text to Image feature.
For example, with a text prompt like this:
Smoldering Jason Momoa as a viking warrior, detailed face, detailed hair, high detail, photorealistic.
I might get results similar to this:
Skarde is concerned with only one thing: claiming the huirvaard throne by any means. When King Isleifr disappears and is feared dead, he knows his chance has come, as the highest ranking warrior other than the king’s second born, Prince Olavi. The only thing standing in his way? The disappearance of Princess Jilli, the heir to the huirvaard throne, several years before.
Now, let me include this caveat: The AI can be fickle. Results may vary. Sometimes I get better results with more words. Sometimes less words work better. Test to image is a dangerous blackhole that can suck away a lot of time. But it’s fun to play with. You’ve been warned.
Here’s some more of the character boards I’ve been working on.
I’m excited to share these, but please remember they were created with an AI program. AI art is pretty controversial right now. These boards only resemble famous people. They are for REFERENCE ONLY. These images will not be used for book covers or for anything that I sell.
At the beginning of Monsters & Beasts Book 1, Lola-Grace is an orphaned assistant scribe in the library of Northend. She has no family and keeps to herself, but she makes friends with a xichu. She knows she’ll never get out of there, until the library is destroyed by erebus (demons).
In Monsters & Beasts Book 2, Lola-Grace trains to become a bard, learning to cast magic through music. She’s chosen the life of an adventurer for herself, and she’s determined to earn her keep and not be a burden to her friends.
My main character, Lola-Grace, meets Leito and his group when erebus (demons) attack the desert city of Phiur. He’s a charismatic and talented bard. He teaches Lola-Grace how to be a bard and how to use music to create magic.
Lakeerae thought she had her life all figured out. When she completes her druid solitary, she begins training to take over as a cultivator on a farm, using her druid magic to keep the farm’s produce healthy. But fate has a different idea. During a chance encounter with an erebus (demon), she discovers she wields an uncommon magic called Jadeflare, and that changes everything.
The mzisk are traveling people who make their living performing in various villages and towns. They have a small, tight-knit community like an extended family. Roidar grew up with his grandmother, a blind seer, who took care of him after his mother’s death. He’s asked, but he’s never learned much about her or his absent father.
Rosaelyn likes to play with fire. It’s her favorite element. She grew up in Swordsbreak, capital of the Seven Cities of Sarleon. Her mother was the Undying Queen who ruled there for 400 years. Rosaelyn is also older than she looks. That’s because, like her mother, she is an elementalist with control of all four natural elements and the fifth, life.
A bronze dragon with life magic, Silouanos spends most of his time disguised as a siofra (sun elf). He also has a hybrid, half-dragon half-human form for when he has to fight in close quarters. He’s recently become involved with Rosaelyn, but it seems he’s still keeping secrets.
As you see from Silouanos’s board (based off of images of John Krasinski), they don’t always work out exactly like I’m hoping. The top right image is my favorite face/expression, and I see Silouanos in it. So that’s all that matters to me when I need a quick visual to get me back on track.
I’ll probably tweak that board some more.
This is how I visualize my characters. Do you have any preferred methods to visualize yours?
Find Effy’s serial fiction on World of Dadreon.
Effy J. Roan is a writer of dark and epic fantasy. She loves dragons, dogs, and endless worldbuilding. She likes to create monsters and research cultures and food for her fiction. You can find her on Facebook and Instagram.
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These images are amazing! I can definitely see how they help the writing process.