Bringing the Story To Life

[Magnus Maximus]

Hey there, fellow Machiners! I’m in need of your help. I’m currently in the process of writing a story, and I need help creating the characters. I will pick the winner every week. The story is set in the Roman Empire during the reign of Emperor Hadrian (2nd century AD), and the Empire is on campaign in what will later become Ireland. I’ll provide descriptions of my characters straight from the text as we go along!

[Keric]

It sound like a gr8 place to…

[Magnus Maximus]

Thanks! Alright, here’s the first character, the lead:

Cadeyrn:

“He was about twenty years old, and he was tall, handsome, and strong, with broad shoulders and lean, hard muscles. Curly, brown-blond hair tumbled down to his shoulders, and his bearded face showed signs of experience, with a scar crossing it here and there, and his tumultuous grey eyes flashed with youthful wisdom, knowledge, and the fiery spirit ever so common of the people of his homeland.” He also has Celtic tribal tattoos on his arms and shoulders. They can be either shown or hidden with sleeves.

Have at it Machiners! Let’s see what you can do! I’ll pick a winning entry one week from today.

[Magnus Maximus]

First week down, aaaaand….nothing. I’ll extend it one more week, then.

[Folkly]

Right! This is fun, was just getting bored looking for something to do.
I don’t know what Cadeyrn should be wearing. What kind of rank is he, and is he with the Imperial troops or the Irish? Name sounds Irish. (I say Irish, though I’ve an idea the people who lived in Ireland at that time were actually called the Scots. Hence why I get confused!)

[Magnus Maximus]

Cadeyrn is Irish, but he is a slave to the Romans, and he follows his master into battle. If you want, you can just have him wear a regular set of rough, villager’s tunic and pants, or you can have him wear some kind of light leather armor for battle. Or you can do both, if you want!

[DC-Lover]

Okay. Cadeyrn should be in a green tunic with runic embroding on it. Perhaps some Celtic ruins on his body as well having been the son of a Druid. He should wear a cloak to keep him warm in the winter. A simple wolf in sheeps clothing appearence. A warrior dressed as a villager would work. As for whether or not his tattoes should be shown is up to the weather. As he wears a simple peice of clothing or no shirt during the warm summers but for the rest of the year warm clothes to deal with the irish cold climate.
Upon being enslaved by the romans his old clothes are burnt in front of him and is forced to wear rags that no longer honour his tribe or the people he once fought for. However he still wants to follow his dream and become like one of the many irish celtic heros he heard about in his youth. To be like Cú Chulainn or Fionn mac Cumhaill was always his dream, but now hes no longer sure if he can follow his dream.

[Folkly]

Now I’m a bit confused; did you want pictures of the character or help working out what he’s like? Still and all, I’ve drawn the pictures so here they are (three versions for you to choose from, I couldn’t). Hope you like them. I’m not too expert at this so by all means say if you want to alter them and I’ll post the text.
edit: There ARE three pictures there, the third one has run off the edge.

The scar was being a complete nuisance so that’s why I pushed it up there out of sight. Just realised that it’s somehow not on the other two versions, anyway! The right-hand picture is also, I think, my first cautious attempt at zypping, I don’t usually try it as I just love the plain line drawings, but they don’t really seem to go with a historical novel.

[Magnus Maximus]

Pretty good! Thank you sir! And, since you’re the only entry, I’ll give you the win by default. If you want, for a prize you can post a picture of one of your own characters here, and I’ll do a redo for you. Just post a picture here and let me know if there are any parts you want me to keep or take out.

[Folkly]

Thank you very much! Glad to know I’m doing something right. I’ll take you up on that offer if I may…

Magician, circa “The Worlds of Chrestomanci”. Unfortunately the forum doesn’t seem to want to upload pictures tonight, but here’s the text.

HeroMachine 3 Character
Sat Dec 7 21:58:44 GMT+0000 2013

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I only did him just now for practice, so play about as much as you like, obviously no hurry. I’m just keen to see anything you might think of to do with this – I’m still finding out just what things are possible with HeroMachine.

[Magnus Maximus]

Alright, I’ll take a look at it!

[hawk007]

Ok, so what’s the next character?

[Folkly]

Sorry about that. That text string seems to have gone completely kersplat – I was having connection trouble while I was posting it, so maybe that did it – and I forgot to save a backup and my computer has now eaten the original, but luckily I still have the image file. I’ve hosted it elsewhere and used an tag, but can you remind me exactly how to do an attachment, please? It still won’t do it and I’m thinking I must be doing something wrong, and it’s a very handy feature. That background is one of the Rooms with a patterned rectangle over the top covering up the windows, by the way – the rest is pretty straightforward.

[Magnus Maximus]

Alright, I’ll play around with it and see what I can come up with!

[Magnus Maximus]

Okay, here’s the next character:

Gaius Cassius Horatius:

“After a heated auction, Cadeyrn was sold to a tall, handsome Roman whom he guessed was not too much older than himself. He was well built, and walked and carried himself like a soldier. The expression on his face was either stern or quietly amused, Cadeyrn couldn’t decide which.”

I know it’s not as descriptive as Cadeyrn was, but have go and let’s see how it goes!

[Author]

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