Having read the title, you may be thinking, “She’s lost her mind. It was fine when she recommended books, music, and even a tea shop, but now she’s recommending character creators?”
Yes, I am. Before you write them off, check out these three websites.
More than a decade ago, for reasons I no longer remember, I decided I wanted to create a superhero for someone. Somehow I ended up at HeroMachine, where I had so much fun that I took the time to make more than the one hero I’d originally had in mind.
HeroMachine has been around since 2001. It’s designed for non-artists who want pictures of the characters they think up. When I decided to revisit the site late last year, it had been a while since I’d played around with it. This time it felt frustrating — perhaps because it is more complex than it used to be. Go to HeroMachine 3 and start looking at standard male bodies. Adding legs alone took me far longer than it should have. In the end, I got tired of messing with the options and never completed my superhero.
In order to be certain that the problem wasn’t just me, I asked my artistic teenager to visit the site and create a hero. She completed her character (and it looked pretty good!), but she agreed that the process was clunky, and she felt that the options, at least for female characters, were too limited.
That said, HeroMachine is a true character creator, and it probably will appeal to males more than the other sites in this post. My guess is that, if you put in the time to play around with it, you can make some pretty decent characters.
Doll Divine and Azalea’s Dress up Dolls
I’m willing to bet that both of these sites have an audience that is largely young and female. That’s not to say there aren’t options males might enjoy, but most of the characters are female.
Both sites include character creators from a variety of sources, so the interfaces change from one game to the next, but all of the ones I’ve tried are easier to manage than HeroMachine. Some doll makers are exclusive to one site or the other, but there is overlap between the two sites. Both sites have different categories of characters, including animals, historical characters, characters from pop culture, and fashion dolls. Almost all of my play has been in the sci-fi/fantasy realm.
The really fun doll makers are the ones with lots of options. Given enough variations in skin tones, hair styles, and clothing choices, you can make drastically different characters. Both characters below were made on the “Sci-fi Warrior” doll maker exclusive to Azalea’s Dress up Dolls. One I deliberately created to look like Princess Leia; the other I just made up as I went along. Although the poses and body shapes aren’t variable, pretty much everything else is.
I don’t spend much time on these sites; I’ve probably created no more than 10 characters over the past three years. But I do find that playing these dress-up games from time to time is an enjoyable way to relax. Consider taking a break this week to visit one of these sites and see what you can create.