Descriptions Wanted 1.0

Tyrmalon

Vallie said:

I think the way you worded it just now would work, something like:

'His slender body is covered in a dull beige carapace with faded auburn markings that begin as thick, wavy lines before diminishing gradually into strands of petite dots.'

Maybe make it sound more manly by not using petite, but that's off the top of my head :P

I like it!

Nicola

No metres, we use feet and inches!

Merevaika

Using that as a 'model' face for my character since my imagination creation needs some work. This is my current description.

He is a human, an atheltically-built, strapping lad standing nearing an inch or so above six and a half feet. The man's stature is defined by broad-shoulders, thick and slightly veined arms, a slimmed waist, and long, muscled legs. His chocolate-skinned complexion seems aglow with a charming tranquility, a calm and easygoing disposition. Lax almond shaped eyes are framed by rather lavish sable lashes, light cerulean irises peering with an easy warmth against high cheekbones. Merevaika's visage consists of a thick, broad nose, complemented by a strong chin, straight jaw, and shapely, firm lips. His naturally thick, coarse, and kinky dark brown hair has been cropped close, well-trimmed and clean.

I feel like I could describe the hair a bit better, but not sure how. Otherwise, I'm content for now, though suggestions and such are always welcomed.

Antonius

You have a typo in athletically. "Broad shoulders" shouldn't be hyphenated. Complexion already refers to skin, so having a "chocolate-skinned" complexion doesn't make sense. Should hyphenate "almond shaped", and probably put a comma after "Lax" immediately before it.

EDIT: Stature refers to height, so not appropriate in the way you've used it. Possibly you want "silhouette" instead?

Vallie

Few things I'll poke at!

1- Since you're already using 6 and a half feet (a set, measurable number), it's odd to then specify an additional measurable value with it (an inch or so above), because you'd normally  say so and so is 6'7 - as opposed to so and so is about an inch taller than 6'6.
2- 'charming tranquility', despite being a lovely set of syllables that I encourage you to use, is an odd thing to say about skin. It'd be like saying 'his skin is charmingly peaceful' - charmingly I can see working, but tranquil as an adjective doesn't really fit for skin. What do you mean to imply about his skin?
3- I have a terrible love of commas to the point that I overuse them often. I think you're bordering kind of close on it too, in particular the line about his face (around a comma per 3 words on average, or something like that). You could try something like 'Merevaika's visage consists of a thick, broad nose, complemented by a strong chin set with a straight jaw that accentuates his shapely, firm lips.' I'd tinker around with that a little more (accentuate doesn't feel right to me), and it may just be because I try to restrain my abuse .

I also wanted to point out that 'rather lavish sable lashes' is really soothing to say, I like it a lot. Gives me an ASMR-y vibe!

(why did I not ever look into this thread before this is so much fun)

Nazihk

Vallie said:

1- Since you're already using 6 and a half feet (a set, measurable number), it's odd to then specify an additional measurable value with it (an inch or so above), because you'd normally  say so and so is 6'7 - as opposed to so and so is about an inch taller than 6'6.

Along these lines, I would do something more like "a bit over six and a half feet".

Merevaika

1- Since you're already using 6 and a half feet (a set, measurable number), it's odd to then specify an additional measurable value with it (an inch or so above), because you'd normally  say so and so is 6'7 - as opposed to so and so is about an inch taller than 6'6.
-- I went with "... an athletically-built, strapping lad standing at six feet, seven inches." Thanks to you, too, @Nazihk

2- 'charming tranquility', despite being a lovely set of syllables that I encourage you to use, is an odd thing to say about skin. It'd be like saying 'his skin is charmingly peaceful' - charmingly I can see working, but tranquil as an adjective doesn't really fit for skin. What do you mean to imply about his skin?
-- Well, the whole line ("His chocolate complexion seems aglow with a charming tranquility, a calm and easygoing disposition.") is meant to convey a sense of mild serenity/calmness and friendly sort of thing. I figured just going with "a tranquil disposition" seems too much like his head was in the clouds (like Luna Lovegood's usual super calm and hyper peaceful look), so I added the "calm and easygoing disposition" to balance it out to make it a usually peaceful and calm look while appearing a bit more grounded, friendly, and social. Of course, I'm guessing it can use more work, lol.

3- I have a terrible love of commas to the point that I overuse them often. I think you're bordering kind of close on it too, in particular the line about his face (around a comma per 3 words on average, or something like that). You could try something like 'Merevaika's visage consists of a thick, broad nose, complemented by a strong chin set with a straight jaw that accentuates his shapely, firm lips.' I'd tinker around with that a little more (accentuate doesn't feel right to me), and it may just be because I try to restrain my abuse .
-- How's "Merevaika's visage consists of a thick, broad nose, complemented by a strong chin and straight jaw, further diversified by his firm and shapely lips."?

Altogether, my new description is 

He is a human, an athletically-built, strapping lad standing at six feet, seven inches. The man's stature is defined by broad shoulders, thick and slightly veined arms, a slimmed waist, and long, muscled legs. His chocolate complexion seems aglow with a charming tranquility, a calm and easygoing disposition. Lax, almond-shaped eyes are framed by rather lavish sable lashes, light cerulean irises peering with an easy warmth against high cheekbones. Merevaika's visage consists of a thick, broad nose, complemented by a strong chin and straight jaw, further diversified by his firm and shapely lips. His naturally thick, coarse, and kinky dark brown hair has been cropped close, well-trimmed and clean. 

Sena

I wouldn't be bothered much by an atavian having four wings, but you'd need a very good explanation for why you have them as a human (especially since "human with wings" is almost the definition of atavians). If you really want them and don't want to change race, you could get artefact wings and customise them.

Merevaika

Yea, sorry about that. Was an atavian for like, ten minutes..... Until I went human again, lol. Figured it was better to just edit instead of making a whole new post just saying "whoops, so he's a new race, here's a description with only one new line."

But then I ended up doing that anyway with this one, soooooo...... Yea. He's a regular human without wings.

Exxia

Was interested in seeing descriptions that people legitimately took pride in making, I can imagine that pushing something out there for applause/criticizing can be hard, but here's my knight description as a troll. Probably doesn't meet with standards and is a little larger than it should be. Note: I know not to really describe clothing or how you want the observer to feel when they see you. 

He is a powerful troll. Standing stalwartly at over eight feet tall, this necromantic death knight is encased in 

horrifying meteoric black steel. Insidious plating of gnarled metals spike out in wickedly artisanal fashions. His head 

is fully encased in a stygian armet of terrifying grandeur. A faint light flickers inside the slits of the helmet as if 

a candle were burning inside. A humongous disgusting malformation has overtaken his left arm covering it in puss and 

thick salival excrement. Large eyeballs, some holding multiple pupils of kaleidoscopic design, rip through the diseased 

skin, by the many, down the tumorous disgust of an arm. Hundreds of blinking pupils dart around in an almost restless 

resolve desperately taking in the gaze surrounding them. Clearly the taint of Evil, the overgrown musculature is lined 

of boney appendages with rigid spikes ripping through the already sickening skin. Blood trickles down the globs of 

excrement from eyeballs unfortunate enough to be pierced by some of these protruding spikes. Up to the shoulder larger 

curved bone skewers rip upward in defiance mutilating the remaining armour. His hand, now hideous and unrecognizable, is 

a large incredulous claw gripped in obvious destructive strength. Flies and gnats hover around the rotting and diseased 

flesh. Clawed gauntlets envelop the other of his rigid fists, bolts jutting from the knuckles. A foul miasma seeps from 

his evil soul. He stands in a strict militaristic dispostion. Imposing upward from his back is a daunting black 

sashimono bearing the heraldic pennant of the city of Mhaldor raging proudly on. In his front right breastplate is the 

symbol of the Leviathan gleaming in a black taint seemingly pulling in the light surrounding it, the Coat of Arms of the 

Dread Legates. Hanging around the upper neck of the sinister cuirass is an exquisite plate with the Barony House of 

Lichlord Family Coat of Arms hammered beautifully into the blackened steel.

Exelethril

Wtf   

Ahmet

@Exelethril Why pay to customise items when you can just bypass all oversight and put it in your description, instead?

Krypton

What are the rewards for killing this Bloodborne boss?

Exxia

Let's see yours. Don't talk shit if you can't at least level your own, and if you call that one you posted months ago good you're lying to yourself

Puxi

Woooosaaaaaa!!!

Nicola

Another PSA people:
If you post a description in this thread you are explicitly asking for others to weigh in with their opinions. Opinions and criticisms are not always nice, but do try to remain constructive.

If you don't want the forums public to give their opinions about your writing, don't post here.

Vallie

Exxia said:

-mutated troll stuff-

I actually have a soft spot for nifty, gore-y, monstrous descriptions, and I felt it was a fairly good mental image. Ever since I saw Nightmare's design from Soul Calibur, I thought eye-arms were pretty neat, and I could get a mental image of Exxia pretty well off of this. Few things that might help!

1 - to avoid the 'don't describe armor you're wearing', I think you've got an opportunity to just describe it as literal chunks of metal jammed into his body. So like, instead of him being 'encased in steel' or describing particular pieces of armor he's wearing, you could do something like 'Twisted, corroded plates of metal protrude from his body, embedded directly into diseased flesh and cancerous growths, while tendrils of skin squirm like pulsing vines across the blood-rusted metal.' The Lichlord symbol could still be on a piece of plate, but just literally screwed/nailed into his chest, for another example. Get really nasty with it, I think things moving on their own (like the blinking eyes) is awesome for making descs uncomfortable to think about.

2 - A number of the sentences are fairly short, which makes it jarring for the mind to read through. It's like if you described a boy and a dog as 'Jack is a boy. Doug is a dog. Doug is a furry dog. The dog belongs to Jack.' as opposed to 'Jack has a furry dog named Doug.' So instead of 'His head is fully encased in a stygian armet of terrifying grandeur. A faint light flickers inside the slits of the helmet as if a candle were burning inside.', you could do things like 'His head is fully encased in a stygian armet of terrifying grandeur, a fight light flickering inside the slits as if a candle burned within.' You'd still want to probably do something about the worn armor bit here, but mostly just highlighting ways to combine some of the thoughts.

3 - A lot of juicy adjectives and words throughout ('excrement' is such a good one) . One I would point at would be 'humongous', which often has more playful, not-gross connotations - you could replace it with something like uncontrolled or thriving, which has a 'living' connotation, making it seem more like it's a mutated growth.

4 - If you want to go more gross, rather than just flies and stuff buzzing around, you could have something like 'Festering holes and sloughed masses of tissue reveal slime-filled tunnels of maggots, insect pupae and flies actively birthing from the living nest of troll flesh.' , 'cause buzzing bugs just means you're stinky, whereas having them hatch from your body is straight up wrong  

Vallie

Oh 'cause it's almost lunch time and I read an article about guinea worm eradication, another creepy one would be having live tapeworms (or Achaean equivalent) actively burrowing out of his abdomen or arms or legs or whatever, kept in check because troll regen. I think there's some necro ability where they maggot/worm you anyways (maybe I'm thinking Lusternia >.>), maybe @Exxia literally cultivates his own, tears them out of his body, and feeds them to you

Krypton

Vallie said:

Exxia said:

-mutated troll stuff-

One I would point at would be 'humongous', which often has more playful, not-gross connotations - you could replace it with something like uncontrolled or thriving, which has a 'living' connotation, making it seem more like it's a mutated growth.

The proper Achaean spelling is also "humungous."

Minifie

Krypton said:

Vallie said:

Exxia said:

-mutated troll stuff-

One I would point at would be 'humongous', which often has more playful, not-gross connotations - you could replace it with something like uncontrolled or thriving, which has a 'living' connotation, making it seem more like it's a mutated growth.

The proper Achaean spelling is also "hugh-Mungus"

Junnan

Here's my new description for Junnan, the Grook Turtle Magi. It is a massive work in progress, because oh hell was that shell a pain for me to describe. I'm just not really good at describing. And before you any ask - yes, I used the TMNT dudes as a model for my Jun. Probably a little too much, but I thought it would be pretty cool to be a very large turtle that casts spells.

I'm still working on trying to get some real personality into it - Junan's more of a quiet, reserved, and calm yet critical guy, never sweetening his words and telling it like he sees it, no matter who's feelings it hurts while also somehow looking very bored while he does it.

In any case, I just need help improving it, period. I always thought I was decent at describing stuff, but this ninja turtle was friggin' difficult and I'm nowhere near satisfied with it. But I'm stuck, so.

He is a frog-like grook, but he looks much more like a turtle than any sort of frog. He stands at a tall height of six feet, nine inches, his rough, dark green skin mottled with small black blotches on everywhere but his head. The front of his shell, the plastron, is not unlike the chestplate to a suit of armour, made of six thin, symmetrical plates, attached entirely to his torso instead of the massive, dome-shaped shell on his back, or the carapace. The incredibly hard, rough carapace is made of different shaped plates, the left and right halves symmetrical in appearance. Junnan's build is surprisingly muscular, only that much more imposing due to his shell. His head is bulbous in nature, with black, pupil-less eyes and wide, thin lips, his nose merely two holes.

Nazihk

Sorry, that's terrible. "He is a tiger-like Rajamala but fuck you he's actually a wolf" is never going to be a good desc.

Junnan

GG. Will become slimy frog.

Nazihk

Sorry, but that's just how it is. It would be cool to be a turtle-man, but that really isn't in the cards for here. "He is an X but is really a Y" won't really fly with most people.

For what it's worth, though, I think the turtle desc was pretty solid and it would be good if we had a turtle race. The only real problem with it is that we don't have a turtle race.

Minifie

From a personal "what am I ok with" standpoint is to also think of your parental races, since these aren't recessive genes, surely your parents have some form of effect on your appearance, but turtle-grook is somewhat of a no-no because why are you more turtle? Where did that come from?

You can be a grook with some more defining humanistic features, or a human with some grook-like characteristics too, as long as you aren't pulling too hard at the fabric of plausibility. This means, as a Siren, I could have a few grook like qualities since min's birth father is a grook, but I wouldn't be a siren with raja features with a atavian-grook parents. 

Some people are a little more fierce on this, saying grook=grook NO OTHER FEATURES YOU JERK, but personally I think as long as it CAN make logical sense, go with it.

Exelethril

I guess Junnan likes turtles

Trey

Exelethril said:

I guess Junnan likes turtles

     

Tahquil

There use to be a help file that said that due to cross breeding of the generations a Rajamalan and Atavian parents can give birth to a Xoran baby. However, there is no such thing as a half-and-half children with wings and kitty ears.  Your biology picks one race to express and supresses eveything else.

Exelethril

Trey said:

Exelethril said:

I guess Junnan likes turtles

youtube   

(that was the meme I was implying)

Minifie

Tahquil said:

There use to be a help file that said that due to cross breeding of the generations a Rajamalan and Atavian parents can give birth to a Xoran baby. However, there is no such thing as a half-and-half children with wings and kitty ears.  Your biology picks one race to express and supresses eveything else.

There is a massive difference between xoran's with wings and human's with minor traits relative to grooks, such as croaking. I mean, I wouldn't expect an atavian/rajamala to give birth to a raja with wings and human traits, but an atavian with a bit of fur? I can't see any problem with it, if anything, I see it as more creative, otherwise, I'd rather just buy a gem and just go the @Jhui route :P