NPC pictures?

[MaxKaladin]

It's not *too* hard to find pictures and sketches of more or less stereotypical adventurer types out there. What I'm looking for is pictures of the non-standard people adventurers run into so I can represent some of my NPCs. It's easy to find a musclebound barbarian or a bearded and robed wizard. It's a lot tougher, for instance, to find a fat barkeep, his young stableboy, the plump, middle-aged woman who cooks for them, the street urchin begging for coppers outside who happens to know where the PCs adversaries are staying, the old crone who the wizard buys herbs on the edge of town, and the old but weathered caravanmaster who is looking for guards for his next trip.

Where could I get them?

I've seen programs like that Heromaker and Character artist for CC2, but they focus on young, fit adventurer types. The problem, of course, is that most of the above people don't fit that description. The innkeeper and the cook are overweight, the stableboy and street urchin are kids (who are shorter and proportioned differently from adults), the urchin is probably also skinny, the crone and the caravanmaster are both old and the crone is hunched over. And, of course, any one of them could be ugly or non-human. Those programs don't address this and neither does most fantasy art as both focus on young and fit heros and heroines who are likely to be handsome unless they're a half-orc orc something like that. Modern pictures really aren't appropriate since the clothing is all wrong.

Is there some source for this that I'm missing? What do others do for NPC pictures?

 

[Chaldfont]

We have recently started using pictures in our games. It is hard if you have a specific image in mind. It works best when you just go looking for pictures and choose one that sparks your imagination.

Google.com has a tab where you can search for pictures instead of web sites. I have found this really useful to come up with interesting pics (like the hidden tasting cellar underneath the player's winery!)

One tip I saw on the net involved using pics of celebrities (Like from movies and such). I would love to start having bit actors show up in my games ("the beggar in this session will be played by Steve Buscemi" or, "There's a guy in the corner of the tavern that looks just like Paulie Walnuts from The Sopranos")

 

[Sodalis]

the DMG has a couple of the images you described. One that comes to mind is the fat barkeep- it is in the DMg under hirelings

Like Chaldfont said, it is hard to find pictures of something that you already have in mind. rather, you shoudl just spend a couple minutes a day and search for random pics. If you see something that you may use in the future, DL it, and print it out later...

If you haev any artistic talents at all, you can sketch one out before hand. I find that no matter how lame the drawing is, the players will still recognise it and relate to it better than a paragraph of descriptions. With a face, they react to him, because a face is usually the t hing that tells you the most about a person...

also, you can dig up old books. they usually have the best illustrations- who knows, you might even find some inspiration to reread them- or weven incorporate an old favorite into your campaign