Hero Machine

I have a slightly odd tip for you today. But give it a chance because I genuinely think it’s a good one.

My boyfriend, Tim, is currently working on a fantasy children’s book that he’s writing for an online children’s writing course. He claims that he can’t draw, so, for the illustrations, he used a site called Hero Machine.

Hero Machine, as you may have guessed, is a site on which you can create visualisations of your characters – or your ‘heroes’. It’s free – which is great – and lets you create modern, historical and fantasy characters. Even zombies.

Tim suggested I write about it so I gave the website a go. It’s a little confusing at first and when you load a template it literally does give you a superhero. But once you get used to how it works and find some clothes that don’t look like they belong on Wonder Woman, it’s a lot of fun.

Obviously my boyfriend needed this site for his illustrations and a lot of you are probably thinking that this doesn’t apply to you because you don’t illustrate your writing. But, even if you don’t, it’s really great to have strong visualisations of your characters. It helps you picture them as real people.

When you see a character in the flesh, so to speak, they automatically acquire all sorts of character traits you hadn’t thought of before. When I tried out Hero Machine I was just messing around to see what it was like but now I’ve created a character I want to write a whole story about.

Tim learnt things about his own characters whilst creating their illustrations. One character, Alessandra (I’ve posted her below as an example), ended up wearing a red cloak which was never in her original character description. But it is now an integral part of her back story. It belonged to her late mother who was the only member of her family she got along with.

Another character, Sylphius, ended up with a blue gemstone around his neck which, again, wasn’t in the original character description but is now the magical mechanism that allows him to communicate with the other characters in the story who speak a different language.

So, even if it seems slightly pointless, next time you write a story I’d really recommend creating your protagonist on Hero Machine... or an equivalent. And even the other characters if you have the time. It makes it so much easier to picture what your character would do in your story, what their facial expressions would be like, even picturing what they’re wearing can help you form a more rounded character. Even if you’re really good at drawing I’d recommend this because, personally, I find it hard to visualise my characters and having a whole range of pre-set faces and hair types etc. can really help.

So, like I said, it’s a slightly odd tip. But please give it a go.

Thanks for reading.