I create my characters.

I know who they are. I know what they do, what they like, what they fear. I understand their hopes, ambitions, dreams, desires and quirks. I designed their fears, backgrounds and understanding. I know my characters.

And then my more artistically inclined friends turn around and say “But what do they look like?”

And I blink dumbly wondering why they can’t see the character the way I see it, and then whether it actually matters.

If you’re an artist the character you draw is only what they look like. Every emotion, thought and quirk has to be portrayed simply in whatever media you’re using, and often people will interpret the same thing in different ways. What you draw is definitive.

But when you write there is so much more to the character than how they appear. Expressing what they do, feel, think and interpret the world actually becomes much easier. It becomes more natural (for me anyway) to describe who they are and not what they are in terms of how they look.

Here’s a piece from my writings that describe a pair of characters the first time they’re introduced.

There was a thunder of hoof beats as three horses raced through the hills. One horse was huge, dappled grey with a surging power that made things get out of his way, much like things preferred to get out of the way of an avalanche. A girl sat of his back, from a glance she seemed almost delicate, but there was presence about her that suggested she was no fool, and could hold her own. It might have had something to do with the crossbow bolts in a quiver across her back, or the two knives in her belt. The horse beside her was not as big as the white one, but still fairly big. It was jet black, the kind of dark that only exists in the deepest regions of black holes, but his mane and tail were contrasting white. On his back there was also a rider. She wasn’t tall, but she gave a feeling that there was nothing that she’d let get in her way. A whip coiled on her back, and something shiny glittered at her belt when the light hit it. There was an underlying ferocity about her and her horse that could have been frightening, if it was fully unleashed. The girl had ears that stuck farther out her head that some would consider normal for a human, but then, she wasn’t. The third horse with them was sandy coloured, the colour of dawn, but its mane and tail were jet black. It was much faster than the other horses, but each time he raced ahead he would look back to see where the others were, and why they were so slow. Although saddled there was no rider on his back, but he didn’t seem to care.

all that and I didn’t describe what the characters actually looked like. You know what they horses look like, and you know a bit about them, but try to draw these too and you hit a dead end.

No wonder my artistic friends get frustrated at me.