Oh, if I could "Like" this...<3

FA needs to adapt that from Facebook =p

I wish there was a way to fave journals...xD

This is really well said. I do like the idea of breaking down a paragraph like that, especially when working with commissions and such. Knowing me, I'd probably do the same. It's simple and straight to the point and I can get an idea of what I'll be doing. I know I plan to do ref sheet commissions so I know if I keep this in mind, it'll help me in the long run. :3

you're the second to comment and the second to say that =p i must have a valid point! XD

yeah it helps a lot :3 good luck!!

I have good character ref sheets for all but 5 of my characters on my front page and will take your advise for future pics, up to and including a couple of pics from you in the future (hopefully for your Iron Artist challenge)

character ref sheets are great and any good reference picture that shows at least most of the character is great. this is sorta more for those that don't actually have any pictures of their character but they want to commission you for it.

i hope this helps ^_^

It does, and to let you know, when  ajna did the first pic of Ainoko, she did it off written refs, but when I was watching her do the pics on live stream, I was learning things about him I never knew despite knowing him intimately

cool ^^

One thing that Ajna did suggest and I think it is a good idea for refs sheets is to have an RGB swatch with the color codes to make it easy for other artists to get the characters colors right, as my ref sheet shows: www.furaffinity.net/view/3056830/ .

ah yes i see =o

i don't go as far as to put the code numbers, as I actually just use the color picker and i also make a color chart on the ref sheet which you can digitally color-pick from.

color codes won't help much though if you're doing traditional art =p

True, but they do come in handy for artists that do digital art and even those who do mixed media art

yeah =)

I totally agree! I have found many a time that when I commission a picture of a character who has not yet been drawn before, my character descriptions always seem very helpful to the artists I commission. I actually go by two different kinds: The Extensive Biography, for characters who are very much fleshed out, and The Basic Biography, for more simple characters I'm only just begun work on. As an example, this is an extensive biography for my character Ronya:

Name: Ronya "Gentlepurr" Fiorella
Age: 28
Gender: Female
Length: a bit over 6'7" (188cm to be precise)
Weight: 174 pounds
Breast Size: 36B
Sexuality: Lesbian
Species: Feline, Cat
Eye color: A very deep, warm dark yellow
Fur color/pattern/length: Ronya's fur is a very lovely shade of deep chocolate brown, laced with a couple of markings in a soft vanilla yellow color. These yellow markings appear on her face, showing as a sort of ellipsoid over the right side of her face, running from just right-off-center on the top of her head, along the right side of her muzzle and curving over her right cheek to the right side of her face and back up to the top of her head, just behind her right ear. Her right ear, therefore, also is a soft vanilla-yellow in color, and her right eye is situated in yellow fur. On the left side of her face also is a yellow spot, but only a very small one, on the very left side of her face just under the left lower point of her left ear. This spot is hardly ever seen as her hair usually covers it up. Other yellow markings are on the left side of her neck, forming a slightly oblong shape with rounded ends which runs crookedly from the left side of her neck half across her throat and dips down over her collar bone to just over the top of her left breast, the underside of the long end just grazing the top of her left shoulder. There is also a yellow marking on her stomach, forming an irregular splotch just below her belly button, this splotch being wider than it is high, and it stops just above her pubis. Furthermore there is a yellow splotch on the back of her left hip, covering the upper part of her left buttock and reaching to just beside the base of her tail, and there is a yellow splotch over the top and inside of her left foot, coloring yellow the front half of the right side of her left foot, the front right 'quarter' of her left foot, her left big toe and half of the toe next to that.
Her fur is very thick and fluffy, being of a medium length and making her look slightly bigger than she in reality is. Her tail is very fluffy as well, like the tail of a raccoon, but without the rings, and being evenly thick along the entire length, from the base to the tip, which is slightly rounded.
She has medium-long, slightly curly, deep brown hair which reaches to just below her shoulders and medium-long whiskers which are a deep golden color on the right (as they are positioned in the yellow patch over her face) and deep dark brown on the left.
Appearance: Ronya stands quite tall at her length of 6'7", and she has a, for as far as visible beneath her medium-long fluffy fur, quite athletic build. Though her fur makes her look rather big, she is in fact somewhat slenderly built and in excellent shape, and she works hard to keep up that shape as well. Everything about her is in the right proportion to her overall length, except maybe her breasts, which are slightly on the small side with their 38B cup size. Her nipples are also rather small, and a deep dark brown in color, surrounded by small dark brown areolas. Her arms have a decent deal of muscle in them, not so much that it shows, but enough to know that this feline should have no trouble lifting anything that's as heavy as she is herself or even heavier. These strong arms end in very soft, almost delicate paws with velvety dark brown pads on the inside and long, slender fingers. Her legs are the same deal; a good deal of muscle in them but not so much that it shows, in size and length perfectly in proportion with her body, and ending in soft, medium-sized feet with dark brown pads under them and four soft, dainty round toes. Between her soft, fluffy thighs, you find this kitty's most delectable treasure; a soft, warm vagina of which the deep dark brown outer labia are thick and silky, always slightly parted to allow a glimpse of her dark brownish pink, fleshy inner labia which curiously peek out from between the outer labia. Many women have already enjoyed this delicious kitty treasure, mmm.
If and when she wears clothes, she can be seen in either a kind of professional-looking long white coat, like a dentist's coat, closed up only a bit to reveal plenty of her fluffy body underneath, or in loose-fitting tee-shirts and a skirt that reaches to just above her knees. She hardly ever wears clothes, however, much preferring to go around in her beautiful nakedness. And even when she does wear clothes for whatever reason, she still never wears underwear. Ever.
Background: This fuzzy cat just kind of sprang into existance. All her life, she was pretty unnoticed by everyone, even despite her fluffy fur and the cute markings on her body. And being the romantic cuddle-whore she is, that bothered her greatly. So as soon as she was of legal age, she took matters into her own paws and decided to draw the attention to herself in a manner no one could miss. She began hanging out in a large lesbian bar, always sitting at the counter fully naked. And as she loves rubbing and touching other girls, she offered massages to any of the girls in the bar who noticed her and came to talking with her and wanted to get to know her a bit better. She became really quite good at giving massages, too. All the girls who went with her to a private room for a massage certainly came out of the room... very satisfied and content and relaxed.
A stroke of luck hit Ronya when one night, a girl that went with Ronya to one of the private rooms in the lesbian bar for a massage turned out to be a woman working with the large adult film studio Pink Xes Studios. She was very impressed by Ronya's skills, both at the regular massaging as at the sexual rest, and she invited Ronya to come with her to the studio the next morning to display her skills. At the studio, it soon became clear that firstly, with her uninhibited nature and her always going around naked, Ronya fit in just perfectly, and secondly, that her massaging skills were quite above par as well, and the fluffy chocolate-brown kitty was offered a job as studio masseuse. Needless to say Ronya grabbed that wonderful opportunity with both paws, and she grabbed the lady from hiring with both paws too a couple of times.
She got herself a medical diploma and a masseuse diploma, and within a short time, Ronya was one of the top masseuses of the studio, favored by all lesbian and bisexual actresses of the studio, and even by a good number of the straight actresses. Having found her place in the world and fulfillment in her life, Ronya is now happy at her job of studio masseuse and still performs to the very best of her abilities. She has even been training one or two young new girls who were hired to add to the studio's massage parlor. And she still hangs out at her favorite lesbian bar where her 'career' started from time to time.
Personality: Ronya is a very mild-mannered, friendly kitty, always happy to give to other ladies what they want to the best of her abilities. At her massages, even while both she herself and her subject or partner or whatever you'd like to call it are both naked, she always starts out by just giving a massage, letting the other girls know it's up to them if they want the massage to move into the sexual phase, and if yes, how soon and how intense. However, as she has been ignored for so long and had to take matters into her own paws to get noticed eventually, Ronya sometimes likes to take the lead and instigate a number of her own initiatives on the girl she is rubbing. Still, that's mostly only after she has the certainty that the girl under her paws wants the massage to turn into something very sexual. It has certainly made for very interesting situations from time to time.
She is a bit of a nymphomaniac, and as all cats she is very playful, always up for a game of strip poker (one of the very few occasions she will put on clothes for) or sexual dice. She is also a bit of a romantic and a daydreamer. And she is strong, both mentally and physically. She regularly uses the studio gym or the studio swimming pool to exercisize to maintain her athletic figure and her physical strength. She kind of needs that strength too, as it has happened more than once that one of the actresses pulled a muscle or cramped up or sprained something in a bad way and had to be carried to the massage room. But so far, Ronya has always been more than able to carry any of the actresses through the studio without too much of an effort.
A rather funny kind of controversy about Ronya is that although she loves to get down and dirty, literally, with massage oils and all kinds of edible things she can rub all over a girl's body and her own, she is somewhat vain about her fluffy fur and goes out of her way to keep it in perfect condition. Even while she absolutely loves getting into the messiest and stickiest situations (with using honey as massage oil, you can imagine the stickiness^^), she always takes very much care to get herself totally clean afterwards, spending upwards of two to three hours in the bathroom to get her fur back into its beautiful fluffy and glossy and silky state. She is very, very proud of her fur.
Likes: Ronya likes a lot of things. On other girls, she likes them being naked all the time, and she likes whiskers, soft big plushy ears, big fluffy tails and cute little round toes. She likes cuddling and snuggling big fluffy tails and nuzzling and kissing and licking plushy ears and fuzzy toes
She also likes romantic things, like lying on a rug by the fireplace, staring dreamily out of the window on a rainy day, and lying on her back in the soft grass of a meadow and gaze up at the sky and the clouds while the breeze caresses her fur. She likes good old-fashioned rock&roll music and soft, gentle ballads. She likes to read, and strangely enough for such a fluffy cat, she likes swimming.
Sexually, she totally adores giving and receiving oral sex; she's a definite pussy-lover! She also very much likes making another girl feel great, without even needing to be caressed or brought to a climax herself in return. And she loves getting dirty with edibles. And she likes to tease quite a bit. A thing she absolutely loves is her lovers being vocal, or just downright loud. It's a big turn-on to her, hearing the girl under her paws moan and gasp and squeal with pleasure and begging for more.
Dislikes: There is also plenty that Ronya does not like. Pushy or whiny people who just won't get out of her hair after she clearly displayed a non-interest in them, for instance. Any sort of violence, and gory stuff, even in movies or art. She does not like restriction one bit, or anything forced, and she is not enthused about anal sexual stuff. An although she can enjoy playing the mistress sometimes, she does not really like domination.
She does not really like following the news or reading newspapers, though if there is something that catches her interest, she will still check the papers or TV channels for information about it. She definitely does not like any kind of beans, or cauliflower. She doesn't exactly like the meetings at her work very much, but they are a necessary evil, and plenty is always done to keep them entertaining and lighthearted anyway. She hates the insane price of gasoline, and all the silly rules that keep you from parking your car in a convenient spot, or smoke wherever the heck you want to.
Habits/Kinks: She has the rather funny habit of always going around naked. Even when sitting in a bar or when going to a meeting at her work. And she has the habit of cracking her knuckles and wiggling her fingers at random times. Call it a job deformity. She also smokes, but just a bit; about a packet per three days.
Kinks, she has plenty. Without a doubt her biggest kink is that she loves fooling around with her massaging oils, especially when applying them to another girl. Or just about anything she could use for a massaging oil... her 'special' stock also contains sunflower oil, olive oil, several kinds of body creams, and, uhm... honey, mayonnaise, pudding, whipped cream, butter, custard, yogurt, jello, several kinds of syrups, molasses... She's even been known to use motor oil and ballbearing grease (fresh, clean jars, of course). But she prefers the edibles, because... well, rubbing it onto another girl already is very nice, but licking it off is even waaay nicer...
Some of her less unusual kinks are her love for nuzzling, rubbing, and licking at and suckling on soft plushy ears, and soft fluffy toes. And she can kind of lose herself in snuggling a great big fluffy tail, like a skunk tail, fox tail or raccoon tail.
Other/Special: Well, what more is there to say about this fluffy kitty? Pretty much everything has been covered so far.

And this is a basic biography of my rather un-used and very old character Domino:

Name: Domino Fleetpaw
Species/breed: Housecat
Gender: Female
Age: 25
Sexuality: Lesbian
Height: 5'8"
Breast size: 36C
Description: A very special little cat to see; deep glossy ebony fur is speckled with snowy white markings like the spots of a cheetah. This unusual combination earned her the name of Domino, which really fits her rather well. She's not too large, but slender and well-built, her entire body in proportion. She stands a modest 5'8", her breasts being rather on the tiny side, being a mere 26A-cup, capped with petite deep black nipples. Her figure is not exactly hourglass; a decently developed muscle tone is visible at her midriff and stomach, and a quite regular muscularity is visible on her arms and legs as well. Her paws and feet are a bit on the small side as well, fingers of medium length and slender, feet elegant with cute dainty little round toes without claws. Though she is a housecat, the cheetah-like markings cover her entire body, which somewhat gives her the appearance of a wildcat. Her ears are small and perky, pointed like a regular housecat's ears, perking up from a headful of medium-length, straight hair that’s as black as the rest of her fur and comes down to just below her shoulders. Aside from the snow white dots in her deep black fur, there's another thing which is rather unusual and special about this kitty; her eyes, which are a soft silvergrey in color. Her whiskers are regular; not too long, and glossy black in color.
In daily life, she always goes around barefoot, with almost her entire body hidden under a long silk kimono, usually a black one with silver or white embroidery to match her fur. This kimono covers her from her neck down to her ankles, flowing around her like a wide robe, tied at the waist with a matching obi, while the sleeves are wide enough to fit two arms in, and come down to her wrists. She also wears glasses, a dainty pair of small round glasses.
She's rather shy, blushing easily and afraid to make her presence known in a crowd. She likes to talk with someone friendly and calm, and she likes to cuddle a lot too, but she's just too shy to make the first moves. The only first moves she ever makes is going to a bar or something, but whenever she's inside, she just sits in a corner and remains quiet until someone notices her. Every time when she sits in a bar, she has a book with her, usually hiding half of her face behind the book and reading to kill the time.

As you can see, I go by a pretty standard form, outlining the most specific details in loose lines; Name, Gender, Age, Measurements, Colors, those kind of things. Of course, being a writer helps me a lot, but it's definitely a very good help if you go with a steady kind of form. I'll put one here for everyone to copy if they want

Name
Age
Gender
Species/Breed
Eye color
Fur color(s)/Pattern
Height
Weight
Other Measurements
Description

I hope that'll help for everyone needing to put a character description together!

you've been quite young lady, I miss reading your stories

*chuckles*

I know, I've been really really busy and very distracted. But rest assured, there's plenty of works in the works!

Good to hear! Hopefully I will have a couple of stories posted later this month or early next month

*chuckles*

Good, good! It's always good to keep them ol' writing muscles flexed!

yeah, tho I am taking part in a contest that is literary based than drawing based, to help kick my muse in gear. I would honestly say that the theme of the contest is not for the easily squicked.

*chuckles and sticks out her tongue*

Sounds like I don't wanna know about it, then

And my other story "Treasure's Guardian" is nearing completion as well.

And I have four new characters that will be appearing in future stories. They are Ainoko's offspring Puti and Obsidian and their half siblings Mysty and Taulien

yeah it can also help with having both the list of specifics and then a more elaborate description too :3

a lot of my PERSONAL problem, is that my right eye is ever so slightly lazy. It functions and can see just fine, I don't have a problem drawing or reading. But when i'm tired it really turns outward and makes things harder to focus on, and i struggle reading LARGE amounts of text, i have trouble focusing and get a lot of double vision, skip lines etc so big descriptions can be hard enough as it is, and then it's even harder with my own problem. Which is why i break it down into a simple list because i can actually read it and visualize the character without struggling.

Oh yes, I definitely know what you mean! I tend to get a similar problem especially when I'm starting to get more tired at late in the evening or when I've been working on a story really hard, also because I'm far-sighted since I was seven, hee! What I do notice helps me with reading things on a website like this for instance, is upping the zoom function of my browser so it makes the text bigger and better spaced out

yeah i need to do something like that.

*nodnods and gives a little huggle*

I hope it will help a bit for you, dear

Thank you. I've bought quite a few commissions now, so I'm starting to get a feel for what helps artists out as far as character descriptions go. But it's great when an artist will sit down and outline exactly what sort of things will work best for her. As it happens, I've started to give out descriptions pretty much like you've done with your examples, with different items broken down into a list. I don't get quite that detailed. Most of my characters are normal animals, so if I'm asking an artist to draw a red wolf, for example, I'll add a brief description of what a red wolf looks like, adjusted for any odd markings my character might have, and then (if I don't have a picture of the character) I'll link them to photographs of the real animal as well. So far it has all worked out pretty well for me, and nobody has had to come back and do a lot of back-and-forth checking of details. Still, I know that every artist works a little bit differently, too, so this was really nice to read.

yeah that's great =)

as i just said to someone else: a lot of my PERSONAL problem, is that my right eye is ever so slightly lazy. It functions and can see just fine, I don't have a problem drawing or reading. But when i'm tired it really turns outward and makes things harder to focus on, and i struggle reading LARGE amounts of text, i have trouble focusing and get a lot of double vision, skip lines etc so big descriptions can be hard enough as it is, and then it's even harder with my own problem. Which is why i break it down into a simple list because i can actually read it and visualize the character without struggling.

^^; sorry for not sending a pic, I sort of forgot^^;; next time I while remember and now I know how you want to form the description

hahaha it's ok =p you didn't even say who it was specifically so you're lucky i already recognized your irl name and your characters description =p

and well unless you're going to get a different character drawn up, you don't need to give me another description :3 i already know your character now. but at least if you are going to write out another description for me you know how to do it so it's easier for me to read ^^ thanks :3

Well I do have another character http://www.furaffinity.net/view/5293232 but I have to get the details figured out for her

oohh she's gorgeous! =D

thank you for faveing her too^^

i know, i know, inappropriate spot, but when I get the details figured out on her I just might have you add her to the iron artist spot

sure :3

^_^

agreed with you. if i have to give a written description of my characters (often one that I don't usually draw) I try to keep it simple and to the point with everything bunched together in groups. it's hard decifering a lot of waffkle. i wish i could like this

awesome ^^

Ok, now I'm all curious to see what you think of my shitty description...
Punch me on MSN sometime and I'll give you the link to the file, if you're interested.

sure =)

can't wait till the second journal =^_^=

i'll post it tomorrow :3

i try to keep things concise, but it is still quite a large block of text. it doesn't take long to read, but i do worry about it being daunting, and people not bothering to read it. i just want to explain things fully to make up for my horrible drawings D:
http://www.furaffinity.net/view/4086051

it is a lot of text but i enjoy reading thorough descriptions like that too, you've listed everything like I listed it with just some extra words and specifications =) I can easily follow that description so good on you ^^

oh good. thank you for taking the time to look. it's good to have a second reader to ensure it makes sense and is easy to follow.

no worries ^_^

That's good advice!
I've only ever done a couple of pics from text references but I agree with you, the simpler and more concise the better.
A list is definitely easier to work from than a paragraph.

yup yup!

it's definitely easier if you give the description and artistic freedom to the artist, then. spares both sides the wall of text VelvetKittie has provided, which I'd find more useful for writing a story featuring that character. :)
before I finally sat down to create a new ref I had one very old, and without colours. so I always had to describe the colourings. :)

if I can manage I try and get the customer on IRC. I have found out those who are new to have a character picture/ref done forget about a lot of important details, like eye colour, finger count, jewelry, and so on. that way I can ask what I need to know. and meanwhile make then think a bit more about their personal character, which sometimes leads to curious results. :)

for me it's important to nail the given character down to my best possibilities. I could design it, but then it would be my design, not the customer's one. and that can lead to abandoned characters, because they "don't feel right". which also renders my work somewhat futile. paid or not, it feels like having worked for nothing to me.

*pscht* you forgot to mention fingers and toes in your above example. :)

yeah that's all true!

and lol well it seems they're always the default 4 fingers and a thumb and my default for drawing is natural animal legs, i find if people specifically want different hands or feet they specify it.

yes, but sometimes they forget to mention it, for dunno, having been working with other artists who do four-fingered hands per default. :)

even on lemurs. XD

true :3 but i do allow for fixups once i've finished a pic (digital at least), or i also send sketches and stuff to make sure i've got things accurate so they can see mistakes and point them out before i finish.

as long as they look closely. I had a customer mentioning that I took his fox SL avatar for a wolf only after I showed him the inks... XD
I had to start over again. including the complicated UV-glow tattoos. *dies*


one time I owned myself. for whatever reason, one of my characters, Jelakris, has only four-fingered hands, whereas my characters usually have five fingers. I had some artist do a comission and mentioned the missing finger...
"But on your reference she only has four fingers."
"D'oh! my mistake. continue your work, please."
I think I went red that moment. :)

aw geez D8

hahaha =p