Characters are the heartbeat of all stories, it would be impossible to tell a story without them, whether they are animals or people, so you want them to come alive in your reader’s mind. You can picture them in your head, hear their voices, and feel their emotions, but how do you describe it all? It’s not just ‘he has brown eyes’ or ‘she has a cute smile’ and you don’t want all your characters to be the same.
I love character creation, but even I have found myself stuck trying to get their descriptions just right, and that’s when I turn to the good ol’ internet. Pinterest and Google are like my best friends when it comes to finding references for character creation, and I’ve compiled a whole slew of resources over the years for skin colour, eye shape, and more—so many that it can be overwhelming. But I find myself going back to specific sites time and again, so I have pulled out my favourites for you.
Bryn Donovan has been an excellent source of master lists covering every category you can think of. You can find her Master List of Physical Descriptions here:
Master List of Physical Description for Writers | BRYN DONOVAN
It covers pretty much everything you might need. But she is not my only source, you’ve got to diversify after all.
Face Shape
To find a way to describe facial features—that are not just expressions—I have found makeup and hair style guides are a great resource and usually have reference pictures to go along with them. Most sites feature only female faces, but a lot of the basic descriptions of facial features are the same for men.
You can find an in-depth look at female faces here:
I found this image on pinterest that gives a visual reference for men’s face shape:
Style Craze did a post I found interesting about the link between face shape and personality.
Skin
Our skin colour is based on our ethnicity and the land of our ancestors—you can check out this image to see what I mean: https://i.pinimg.com/originals/7b/ea/bb/7beabb1550035dee78265a1402fa11f6.jp Today most people have a mix of ethnicities and have lived away from our ancestral homes for generations. The Pink Raven has a great blog post that talks about skin colour and tone, diving into the complexity of ethnic diversity and how to describe people while being respectful. It’s a good read, and at the end there are samples of skin colours divided by light, medium, and dark tones.
This image on pinterest has a nice simple chart of skin tones, great for a quick reference.
Eyes
The shape and colour of a character’s eyes are usually the first thing writers think of when describing the character, and though it’s still important to lock those details in for yourself, the expressions and emotion they display is what matters most. But since you are still going to want those descriptions, here are some go-to references:
What’s Your Eye Shape? | Beautylish
330+ Striking Words to Describe Eyes | YourDictionary
Best Ways To Describe Eye Color In Writing – Online Spellcheck Blog
Hair
There is an incredible diversity when it comes to hair; texture, length, style, and colour, the options are endless. Hair Stylist colour swatches are great references to have bookmarked because they usually have pictures paired with the colour names.
This page has a ton of stuff on it, it can be overwhelming so I have a few others to add as well.
https://lovehairstyles.com/hair-color-chart/
This one focuses on mostly non-white people, and goes into different head coverings as well:
Writing With Color — Words to Describe Hair
I like this master list because it covers styles as well as colour and texture:
Describing Hair | The Master List (writing guide for young writers) | Quotev
Body Type
Bodies come in all shapes and sizes, but generally we break them down into five basic types. For women we get rectangle, apple, pear, hourglass, and strawberry as seen here:
And for men we get rectangle, triangle, trapezoid, oval, and inverted triangle. The Dark Knot goes into more detail on men’s shapes here:
How To Dress For Your Body Type: A Man’s Guide
and Kathy Steinemann has a great list list broken down into sections:
500+ Ways to Describe Body Build and Physique
Now you have your character’s looks all figured out, next time we’ll dive into their personality and voice. Until then, live long and prosper.
Verbum Amoris 
