My how time flies…
Back in May, 2015, I wrote a post about faces which included photos of real people who reminded me of Miira Tahn and Kenneth Wu, two of the main characters of the story I was writing. Then, late last year [2019] I discovered Plotagon and learned how to create animated cartoon characters for a different kind of storytelling.
These are some of the faces from Innerscape, then and now:
I haven’t found photos for the rest of the characters in the trilogy, but here are some Plotagon versions:
And last, but not least, Charles McGragh and Peter McAlister, both of whom work for the Innerscape corporation:
If any of you come across a real face that you think might suit one of these Plotagon cartoons, please let me know!
And now a reminder – the Innerscape Omnibus is still free and will remain so until midnight April 24, in the northern hemisphere.
If you’re as timezone challenged as me, you can look up the time conversion here: https://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/converter.html?iso=20200425T065900&p1=234&p2=152
To start, type in the name of the first city. I chose Seattle because that’s where Amazon is located.
Next, choose your own city. For me that was Melbourne, Australia.
The converter will now show you the current time in both cities. To work out what the time will be when the free period ends, click on the date in Seattle and change it to April 24. Next, click on the time and change that to 23:59 – i.e. one minute to midnight.
The timezone converter will now show you precisely when the promotion will end in your part of the world. For Australians along the east coast it will be at… :
…4.59 pm, Saturday April the 25th, 2020.
lol – you’re welcome. 🙂
Meeks
Meeka's Mind 
April 29th, 2020 at 12:01 am
That’s pretty cool. I like the way you envision the avatars, and they match the characters in my head. That looks like way too much fun though. 🙂 I have no focus as it is. Lol. Happy Writing, my friend, and be well.
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April 29th, 2020 at 9:28 am
-giggles- yes, it is fun and we all need a bit of fun so go on, indulge!
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April 24th, 2020 at 2:31 pm
These pictures are interesting, Meeks. When I first saw them, I thought of the movie Mr Incredible.
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April 24th, 2020 at 3:10 pm
lol lol lol! I hadn’t thought of that, but yes, the character designs are a lot like caricatures, emphasizing some features and minimalising others. I guess it’s a case of looking for the essence of the character.
You must do something similar with your fondant characters? How did you come up with them?
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April 24th, 2020 at 5:11 pm
I don’t really know, Meeks. I see something, like an ice cream, and I think ice cream fairies and take it from there. They sort of just come to me. The figures lead the Sir Chocolate stories.
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April 24th, 2020 at 8:26 pm
However it works, keep doing it. 🙂
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April 24th, 2020 at 1:31 pm
Plotagon has discontinued the Mac version. I could still use their previous one, as I can’t upgrade to Catalina for several other reasons, but it would require asking them to let me use it (I wouldn’t use it often enough for a paid version).
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April 24th, 2020 at 2:55 pm
Ah that’s a shame. 😦 They’re adding more and more backgrounds to the PC version. Makes imagining ‘scenes’ heaps more fun.
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April 24th, 2020 at 1:29 pm
Wouldn’t have thought of doing Plotagon – but Dramatica, which I use for organizing and plotting, has a way of putting in photos, or using one of their little cartoon images, so I do have at least something for each character; that icon is used in the software, so it’s a shortcut for some of the plotting to know who’s interacting with whom.
Shall have to look up Plotagon.
It really helps to have some idea what characters look like, although, when they are based on a real person, even in part, I won’t put that actual person’s image into the software, as ‘based on’ is a very fluid concept, and my models are often actors, and I wouldn’t want to bias someone else’s vision of the characters. Not unless I was casting a movie, and had the right to make the decision.
Better to take my characters – than to think I’m trying to pin down a real human.
I got the Kenneth Wu one, but not sure that’s the image I would have created in my mind for Miira, as I didn’t pick up that the Refugees were of that ethnic background. I didn’t pick up any ethnicity for her – Australia has so many different imports and aborigines. I have an image of my own – everyone does.
Fascinating subject for something which is ultimately word-based. Or should be.
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April 24th, 2020 at 3:06 pm
Dramatica? That sounds like software for screenplays?
I agree. This is the first time I’ve tried to externalize any of my characters. The actor? model? for Kenneth Wu was pure fluke. There’s a part of the story where I was literally channelling John Cusack in his role in Grosse Point Blank. I could almost hear his voice, so stumbling across that picture felt like fate. 🙂
Miira was different. There are references to her being Eurasian but they’re few and far between so I can understand you not seeing her that way. Neither picture really captures her, but if I had to pick just one, I’d say it’s the younger one.
-sigh- I’d love to see Innerscape made into a movie but doubt it’ll ever happen. Then again, Andy Weir probably never imagined that The Martian would end up as a movie either.
lol – I live in hope. 🙂
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April 24th, 2020 at 3:21 pm
Hope is good. I can see the gaming element played out in anime style, and the rest with actors. Best of luck with that! Wish I ‘knew someone.’
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April 24th, 2020 at 8:33 pm
Yes! That would work beautifully. Fingers crossed. 🙂
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April 24th, 2020 at 3:24 pm
Dramatica was created for screenplays, but it is more of a ‘story’ tool; some day, when I finish, I may offer again to write the Dramatica for Novelists which would have made my life easier. Armando Saldaña Mora wrote Dramatica for Screenplays, and was the guru on a group I learned from for many years. He’s still writing scripts.
It is a huge investment; I’m glad I have it in my blood, would never have started had I known. Amazing – but not easy. But gives me a lot of depth and crosscurrents.
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April 24th, 2020 at 8:33 pm
I use StoryBox. It’s like project management for writers and I believe its similar to Scrivener but for PC only. I have to use Word for technical writing because of its graphics capability, but I honestly can’t imagine writing fiction without StoryBox, not any more.
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