NPC/PC Pictures

So, over in the "Organizing NPCs" thread (and elsewhere) there's been lots of talk of printing out pictures of apocalypse people  to put faces to names. I know lots of people might balk at having their imagination constrained so, but I find the idea great!

Unfortunately, I have no idea where/how to find images of appropriately apocalyptical people, so this is my cry for help:

Please post links to collections of AW-useful pictures of people! (Photos, drawings, whatevs)

Or else just tell me what to feed the Google, and I'll be on my way.

I can't for the life of me remember where I saw this link, but it is very AW-ish. Shit I only saw the link yesterday as well. To tie back into the original thread you could organise them and NPC details via Stixy.
John

I have a number of Flickr galleries I use for NPC portraits. You can see them all here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/94313484@N00/galleries/

I posted a couple of these before and, as Meg mentioned, many of the photos are not released under any kind of license. My personal feeling is that using them for a private campaign is kosher, though they have to be referenced via the galleries since you can't obtain the files for print-outs.

I maintain a separate (but overlapping) Picasa webgallery of photos that were available for download -- unfortunately they are consequently stripped off their Flickr-attribution -- and I make (relatively low-quality) printouts of these to use at the table.

As Johnstone has emphatically repeated in the thread on tracking NPCs, a good photograph really does go a very long way. For example, the moment I showed this photo for Pimple, a local hardholder, he was pretty much guaranteed mental immortality. He hasn't showed up the last few sessions, but I am confident that even if he doesn't appear for another six sessions, none of the players will have trouble remembering who he is.

For those of you who, like Daniel, are enamoured of pictures hosted on sites that do not allow you to directly download the photo:

Tools > Page Info > Media > scroll until you reach the picture > Save As.


Make sure you get the file extension right, it is not always automatically a jpg.

Oh, I know how to do that (or things like that), I just mostly try to avoid it -- especially on Flickr, where the photographer has after all made an explicit choice not to let me have the image file.

Some nice images in this set:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/yatsutko/galleries/72157622416159594/

Thanks to everybody so far, these are great!

Was thinking of putting together a big gallery of Apocalypse World pictures - some for each class, then some for scenery, then some for threats. If I kept it for private use in my own games, and then maybe shared it here, is that violating anything or causing any trouble - because I damn sure just snatched up the pictures I had and didn't ask.

Also: deviantart is good for Skinners, Brainers, and Hocus...es.

Keith, if you want to create a shared resource for character pictures, probably the best approach would be a series of links to pictures on the webs. Or, since this is for personal use, a cache of actual pictures that is members-access only.

That said, usually when artists set it so you can't (easily) download their art, it's because they are concerned with art theft, and people using their work for commercial purposes without paying. I don't think too many artists would be all that concerned that you're just looking at their work during an rpg session, or expect you to pay for that art, if they've allowed people to view it online.

There's also always the option of contacting the artists/photographers and clearly spelling out what you plan to do with their pictures (though they may be like "WTF?") and see if they give you permission, though I'm inclined to agree with Johnstone that it's probably more of a "to be on the safe side" thing as long as it's clearly attributed and not for any commercial gain (note: after spending lots of time on comics and art mailing lists and boards, I know how very very likely this is to start up a lay-person discussion of copyright, let's please not do that)

Jeff, good point.

I can't speak for Keith, but I read him like he was more concerned with the artists' feelings than purely legal issues. I mean, if you think somebody's art is awesome enough to use as a prop in your game, obviously you want them to take it as a compliment (because it is) and not piss them off.

I've read and heard artists complain about their images being used as art on blogs, or being sold as prints, etc. without permission, and that sucks! I don't think too many artists would be put out by you printing their picture and making it talk in funny voices in the privacy of your own home, especially if you told them later how their art enriched your life by being in your game.

However, if somebody disables dling on flickr, for example, in order to deter the really lazy art thieves, and you post it somewhere else where it's easy to dl, you're kinda screwing them, right?

I imagine the best and most user-friendly version of an online AW picture resource would be a site that randomly selects portraits and/or landscapes from a database for you -- either singly or in small groups. So when you need a picture, you press a button, get a small handful, pick one, print it out, and draw on it. I'm thinking of a version of Abulafia for pictures, basically.

If this were something that was only visible/accessible to logged-in members, of this forum, or it's own members list, whatever, that severely limits the amount of lazy people who end up art-thieving, yeah? And because everything should be properly attributed, it might drive some traffic to the sites of those artists.

Anyway, that's an idea. I don't have the skills to make it happen, fyi.

I love this idea, but man, handing out pics for every NPC that shows up? I've got enough prep work as MC as it is! Maybe if I'd been used to DMing D&D for years it would seem like no problem, but man...

There's no prep involved. You don't choose pictures in advance, you just have a giant pool of them and when you get a new NPC you look at the pictures you have and go 'that one!' Alternately, you could save pictures only for 'important' NPCs -- I am definitely running low on printed-out portraits in my game.

I can't speak for Keith, but I read him like he was more concerned with the artists' feelings than purely legal issues. I mean, if you think somebody's art is awesome enough to use as a prop in your game, obviously you want them to take it as a compliment (because it is) and not piss them off.

A little bit of both! Ultimately the end goal: don't step on any toes, this is just for fun.

I love this idea, but man, handing out pics for every NPC that shows up? I've got enough prep work as MC as it is! Maybe if I'd been used to DMing D&D for years it would seem like no problem, but man...

Haha - I've never done it for NPCs, but I've always played with people who either want to sketch their character out, or find an actual picture to represent them. Like, personally, it's a no-brainer. Mileages tend to vary, of course.

If I knew how to set up private databases, and I had a spare few hours, I'd go back through and try to find the original pictures again and attributions - but, still. Sometimes the right picture can be quite evocative.

Hans, if you don't think you have enough pictures yourself (like Daniel says, don't assign pictures to people before play), you can also ask the other players to bring pictures for you to use.