Raissa Baiard, I draw or paint my OC's
This is Kaagi Adin (my diarist and main character for a lot of my stories)
A portrait when he is young



and older (after his escape from Coruscant) and having a son

 

I'll draw my OCs to finalize their looks. Though, I tend to do that more for RP characters than fics, as I primarily use canon characters and OCs are often just extras.

 

Lovely paintings of your OCs, earlybird-obi-wan. And taramidala, those are quite nice avatars of your characters—the generator even didn't do too bad a job getting the Jedi clothing to look convincing. Now I'm curious to give this Azalea's Dolls thing a try...

Many moons ago—as in, back during my high school and college years when I could actually sort of draw—I did do a few quick sketches of a few of my OCs, and I still have the little sketchbook in which I did them. Unfortunately, whatever drawing talent I used to have is now gone with the wind.

But thanks to links that have been circulating in this forum, I have indeed discovered the joys of avatar generators, particularly this one at Rinmaru Games. Now, most of my OCs at the present time are aliens, so the best I can do with avatar generators at this point is to sort of approximate how they might look if they were human. Here is one example (no name given since this character has yet to appear in my posted work):

Spoiler

I also did customized action figures, both at 3.75" and 12" scale, of a few OCs, and all involved handmade clothing (sewing 12" doll clothing used to be a sort of hobby of mine). I'll see if I can dig up photos (most of the actual figures are boxed in the basement right now).

Anyone else done custom figures or dolls of OCs, incidentally?

 

I'm old and lazy, so I just resorted to finding actors that matched my characters' physical descriptions and used those to help visualize how characters would look in any given scene. Those are the limitations of being a generally non-creative person who can't even draw a proper stick figure.

 

earlybird-obi-wan Those are beautiful paintings! I especially like the one of Kaagi and his son.

This the Azalea's Doll version of Princess Clarys Antilles:

The ironic thing is, I was disappointed that all my sketches turned out looking like Ariel from The LIttle Mermaid,and the doll maker I used for this was "Snow Queen" (AKA Frozen). Apparently, I was just channeling the wrong Disney Princess. It's not perfect, especially the clothes, but a lot of the other fantasy avatar makers made her look too old, when she's only supposed to be 16 or 17.

 

Here are my OCs. I have written five very long stories with these characters (usually between 75K to 125K words per fic).

 

Raissa Baiard, Princess Clarys is adorable! And I actually really like her dress.

 

I can't draw so I tend to use actors as mental references for my characters. My OCs are technically in the middle of a major overhaul but these are the best representations of their latest incarnations.

Jakov (jay-kove) 'Jake' Lerann is currently wearing the face of Tyler Hoechlin for his ability to look serious and thoughtful and the whole strong-silent-type thing he's got going.

Darra Kallos has the face of Jessica de Gouw, specifically for her performance as Helena Bertinelli in CW's Arrow with the whole vengeful rage thing.

These two have been revamped several times since I first came up with them in '04, when I was twelve. So they've definitely changed and matured with me over the years. The one thing that's never changed is that their relationship isn't entirely healthy when you consider how codependent they are...

 

Ink.Knight I'm the same way with my OCs. I've always pictured Tyran Numeck looking like Russell Crowe from Gladiator.

 

I threw together a kind of sloppy manip using the actors I mentioned. It's not great, cause I don't do these often. But it works.



I used a stock image of the Hoh Rainforest on the Olympic Peninsula in Washington state for the background because that's the area I based the weather and landscape of their home planet on.

 

So, when might we expect the Next Big Thing on this thread? Whatever it is, I away it eagerly.

 

Findswoman I submitted my challenge idea to the sock a fewdays after the last challenge and I was told the next challenge would go active in a couple months. So I would say sometime soon hopefully.

 

We'll have Mando-Man's challenge idea up and running by the 7th of October. This time everyone will have 4-5 weeks to finish -- hopefully that will give more people time to participate.

Speaking of which, a poll: do you all want 4 weeks or 5 to do your challenge entries?

In the meantime, earlybird-obi-wan provided a prompt (not a challenge, just for fun) to me earlier this month and I've neglected to post it while floundering in my lack of organization.

The prompt is: school.

It's not specific, so anything for that prompt is fine. My suggestion is to pick an OC and write about their experiences with school, whether it resembles Earth's forms of education or not. Did they have the opportunity for schooling at all? Was it an apprenticeship (Jedi?), something more like a classroom, or something else altogether? How did they relate to their teachers and the other students? Was there a subject that they especially loved or hated?

 

One particular OC that had education involved throughout her life was Nalieza Fejier. She was the daughter of a history professor who met her mother in an acting class while attending a university on their home planet. (Her father met her mother, I mean).

Nalieza was raised by her father after her mother died, and he placed a great emphasis on learning for his daughter. She attended an expensive day school where she made some friends, but never brought anyone home to play with after school. The structure of the school was similar to most private schools, although with a stronger emphasis on the humanities. Her favorite subjects were literature and drama, which was something inherited from her mother.

She left the day school at ten years old to focus on acting, which means she received an on-set tutor for the remainder of her pre-college years. Eventually she decided to give up acting for several years and attend the same university where her father was a professor (she was never in any of his classes because that struck them both as rather awkward). Her chosen major was Holocinema Studies, which her father wasn't terribly fond of since it wasn't very marketable, but it reflected Nalieza's commitment to the holofilm industry and her desired career path (which sort of happens for a few years until she gives up that profession to become a full-time Jedi in the early New Jedi Order).

 

Jake and Darra, because I really can't write about one without the other, grew up in a small rural settlement on a colony planet. The main settlement had grown exponentially since the first colonists came and the people who set up this one did so seeking a quieter and simpler life. They're among the oldest kids of the settlement, and schooling was split between a classroom education and a rotating apprenticeship schedule. In the mornings they worked their assigned job around the settlement, a way to make sure everyone had some experience with everything necessary to keep things running smoothly. Both of them showed an aptitude for hunting and flying the cargo freighter that made a weekly trip to the main settlement for what few things they couldn't get off the land. Then in then afternoons they went to classes to cover Galactic history, current events, mathematics, and sciences. Despite wanting to keep their lives simple and separated from the conflicts of the galaxy the settlers knew that they couldn't cut themselves off completely, and that there were still valuable things to be learned from the rest of civilization.

 

Oh, so I dunno if any of you guys have heard about this site. But it's a great way to flesh out OCs. I have Jake and Darra both in there if you wanna take a look and get a feel for what sort of thing you can do. There's the basic info and then there's questions like their favorite color, what they smell like, do they have allergies or collect anything? It's fun and easy to use. And you get a hundred character slots free.

 

T'lor was prepping for her Trials during the Temple's exchange program where Coruscanti youth who were not Force-sensitive did a study-abroad type experience. It was an attempt to more broadly expose the public to the ways of the Jedi. When T'lor was first apprenticed to Gi'den Dway, her master, she attended classes. T'lor's favorite classes were military strategy and mathematics. Her least favorite was lightsaber training, mostly because it was something that she really had to work at to be good and she was teased by some of the younger students about her lack of prowess. As she became older, her education was more on the job training while Gi'den was stationed on Berchest, a resort planet that provided them with ample opportunity to ply their trade of espionage. T'lor returned to the Temple for her Trials and almost didn't get to stand for them because of a punch-spiking incident at the dance organized as a special activity for the exchange students. Her Trials were a two day affair. The first day was a day long grilling that covered everything she had learned about the Jedi and its doctrines, including ethics particularly as it pertained to her role in the punch incident, as well as a defense of a research project on the use of Battle Trances. The second day was a series of practicums: mechanics, piloting, athleticism, and saber technique. The final Trial was a trial of the spirit in which she made peace with the darkness within. At the time that these were written (right after Episode I hit theaters), what the Trials were was unknown, so I modeled them off of my own experiences in graduate school with my quals and my defense.

 

I wish I had drawing talents, and I thought about asking a friend to draw Katya Starstar for me but in the end I used azaleasdolls to come up with the closest thing I could. My site avatar is the result. You can't see all of it, but this is her wearing Nubian style since she's currently a palace attendant in Theed. The avatar-makers are very limiting, but the Renaissance version fit fairly well for Theed so I lucked out. I had to use a different one to try and show her in what I consider a traditional Alderaanian look. I saved one, but it wasn't really close to what I envisioned.

I was going to include something about Katya's education soon, but since updating is taking a long time these days I might as well spill here for the time being. Since the Starstars are one of the oldest families on Alderaan and aren't really noble but do associate with the noble class, Katya was given an education similar to children from the best Alderaanian families. This meant that she attended a public school during her early years in Crevasse, but was mostly tutored at home in Aldera in subjects and with teachers hired by her parents. She also studied for several weeks or maybe months with the Inghen monks. Inghens were a group on Alderaan who lived an ascetic life dedicated to learning, teaching and understanding all forms of knowledge but more particularly the arcane and esoteric. They served society by preserving forgotten strands of knowledge and sharing what they knew freely with the public. They also preserved information about galactic and Alderaanian social history that weren't remembered even at the university because they had (often mistakenly) been judged too obvious to record officially or scientifically irrelevant. The Inghens were not intellectualists - they did not distinguish between the scientific, social, emotional, or spiritual implications of what they knew. In a sense, they weren't strictly a religion since they didn't subscribe to any particular belief system of necessity, but they were concerned with knowledge as far more than just a mentally gratifying exercise.

Although students did officially enroll in courses as a matter of record, the education didn't really follow a system focused on or limited by the concept of coursework. All teaching was done in the same great hall, in sunken seating-circles that allowed students the freedom to roam around, listen to, or join any discussion they were interested in. Courses ran continuously throughout the year without the structure of semesters or terms. Students spent anywhere from a few weeks to a few years at the monastery, but personal circumstance/choice determined when they began or ended their study there. And while much of the educational style was more freeform, life at the monastery did have formal aspects. For one, students were to adhere to the egalitarian lifestyle of the order, but this also meant a strict code of etiquette that made student-teacher interaction highly controlled. The Inghen monks were not Jedi. They did not carry lightsabers and were not Force-sensitive. But they were often as knowledgeable or even more knowledgeable about Jedi writings than some Jedi themselves since they had ample time to study Jedi teachings and didn' deal with its practical aspects.

It was during her time with the Inghens that Katya studied Jedi history and meditation methods. I imagine she also studied galactic history, aesthetics, ethics, and some of the other philosophical traditions found in the GFFA. (If you have OCs from interesting cultural backgrounds, I'd love to have you PM and pitch me your tradition as something she might have studied!) Her regular education would, of course, have included much more than that. Anyways, Katya continued her working with tutors during her family's diplomatic service on Criyyus, but she began training to be a handmaiden very shortly after arriving on Naboo with them. She was still in her early teens at that point.

I've basically written a wiki. Sorry for that! But one of the things I'm trying to explore with KS is the relationship of non-Jedi to Jedi beliefs. Hence, someone who understands Jedi ways clearly more than most, but who isn't an Order-member herself.

 

Fall Challenge (October 5 – November 2)

Challenge idea from Mando-Man:

Your original character(s) help someone through a difficult time. This does not have to mean a death or major tragedy, but also applies to any situation in which the other character could use their support.



Due dates:

PM your story link to the sock by November 2. Votes will be due on November 30.



Reoccurring Challenge Rules
Just so we're all clear how all of these challenges are going to work:

1. For your response to be accepted for voting, it must be OC-driven. This means that it features only OCs or any canon characters that appear only play a minor role.

2. You may write your responses in any era (Before/Saga/Beyond). We are not, at this time, accepting responses from Non-Star Wars fanficion. I believe there is a NSWFF OC thread somewhere.

3. Do not post your challenge responses or links to them in this thread. Instead, PM them to the OCDatabaseSock. When time for voting comes the thread hosts will post a list of links to stories that were entered into the challenge.

4. Each challenge will have a deadline. In order to be qualified for voting, your story link must be PMed to the sock by that deadline. If you are late, we will still share it with the thread, but it is ineligible for voting.

5. The voting period will usually be about a week long. Each challenge will specify this length. Votes should be PMed to the sock within that period to count.

6. You cannot vote for yourself. Also, please don't just vote for your friends. Read everyone's responses and chose the winner after you have read through them all. Let's be fair to everyone.

7. The winner of each challenge gets to set the theme for the next challenge. The winner should PM the sock with their challenge idea after each challenge finishes.

 

New Discussion Question: (thanks to Thumper09 for the list)

If your OC had to live in seclusion for six months, what six items would s/he bring? (You can pick 2 or 3 of your characters if you're feeling ambitious.)

Challenge Update/Reminder:

We now have two entries for the Fall Challenge. If you're participating, be sure to PM the link for your story by November 2. That deadline will be here in just under two weeks.

Voting time will be from November 3-17.

 

I'll give the discussion question a try with one of my new OCs: Bonvika Deseradii Féolla, my artsy, mahvelous bon vivant of a Hutt.

First, I'll say that Great Bonvika would probably not do so well in seclusion—she's a social butterfly (!) who thrives on having others around constantly, not only to order them to carry out her schemes (in true Hutt fashion) but also to show off her rich gardens, rare artworks, collections of curious artifacts, etc. But if she absolutely had the to bite the bullet and seclude herself for six months, I'd say she'd be likely to bring the following:

1. Her biggest, softest couch- or dais-like piece of furniture
2. Her biggest, softest, most colorful pillow
3. At least one box of chocolates or bonbons (Mea'Sley and Hoole's Quinfruit Petti-Bons are a particular favorite)
4. A favorite painting from her vast art collection, probably showing another extremely corpulent female-persona Hutt lounging on a big soft dais with lots of big soft cushions
5. A favorite rare plant from her magnificent display gardens, preferably something with huge, colorful, showy blooms (does the GFFA have the equivalent of hibiscus?)
6. Some kind of audio device with the last several years' worth of recordings of the famous noonday salon concerts held at her palace ("Midday Music at Bonvika's")

 

*snickers* Considering Jake and Darra's whole story is the reversal of that this should be interesting. I'll be doing them as a joint list cause they'd bring the same things.

1. Each other
2. A weapon of some sort, hunting rifle for Darra and a spear for Jake
3. Extra clothing (having something to wear that's not scrounged from a bombed out settlement would be nice)
4. Strong, thin line and cable for traps and fishing
5. Holos of their family, didn't have those last time.
6. A shelter or the supplies to build one.

 

My OC Aaqu Maerhin left the Jeditemple one month before the purge.
He had to live in seclusion for four years before he was taken to his friends (also escaping and returning to their home-planet)
Items he took were:
1. His lightsaber - only used for meditating exercises
2. A diary
3. Medical supplies
4. Set of clothes
5. Seeds
6. A key for the cabin

 

Doran Blayne fled the Jedi Temple during the Purge and was on the run for a while before settling down on the planet Merkesh and buying the Cafe Alderaan, so has has very few possessions that mean anything to him (other than the Cafe itself). If he was going into seclusion, he'd take:

1. A good blaster. Never know when you're going to need one.
2. Several bottles of good Corellian whiskey.
3. A deck of sabacc cards, to keep himself occupied (solitaire, building card houses, taking up cartomancy-- the options are endless)
4. The remains of his lightsaber and some tools. Again, gotta do something to keep himself busy, might even be able to get the thing working again.
5. Spoiler for "Everyone Comes to Doran's Place"
   Spoiler

   Paolo L'szelo's holocron, if only to keep it from falling in the wrong hands.
6. Several more bottles of Corellian whiskey. Six months is a long time.

 

I've been meaning to participate in this thread for ages, so let's say that today is a good day to start. Hello everyone

A few words about my OC from the fic Ἀνάγκη – Necessity beyond sway: her name is Ayesha Eskari, she's a 27-year-old half-Human, half-Kiffar, she's a sculptress and she's currently working in the Imperial palace. Her parents passed away when she was a little girl and she was adopted and raised by a Wookiee family on Kashyyyk before coming to Coruscant as a student.

If she had to live in seclusion for 6 months, the six items she would absolutely need are:
1. Her toolkit,
2. Her adoptive family holos,
3-6 Minor spoilers for future chapters

Spoiler: Spoilers

3. An abundant supply of Fijisi wood,
4. An equally abundant supply of Cortyg brandy,
5. Her miniature ryyk blade,
6. The lineage shield her adoptive father carved for her.

I hope I'll be participating more in the coming weeks. This is one of my favourite threads!

PS: Raissa Baiard Doran's list (except item 5) sounds pretty much what I'd take myself!