PB Memeage!

[solo_sword]

This meme is brought to you the thread on a Star Wars message board from 2005 and made me late for work this morning! But dammit, it was interesting.

So for those of you who have never had to choose a PB, I envy you because it can be very very hard. For those who have, who do you use? Why did you choose them? Or do you have any future journals you want to talk about how you searched high and lo to find that one perfect face for your character, or complain how you haven't?

Comments

[thismaskiwear.livejournal.com]

I . . . have not had to choose a PB yet. I do have two potential future journals (*EYES PERSON WHOSE FAULT THEY ARE*) that I'll be damned if I could pick PBs for them. I suspect this is difficult because I've never had to, before. :P

[solo_sword]

Um. So. I might be compiling a list of suggestions for you for one of them. NOT THAT I AM ENABLING OR ANYTHING.

[stocksgrrl.livejournal.com]

I have been, admittedly, sincerely and incredibly blessed as far as PBs go, which is good, because I do quite a few book characters. The book character I have lying in waiting also have PBs all nicely set up. Then again, I'm an icon whore and constantly considering things like this. I still feel I couldn't have picked better PBs for Turtle and Adah (ignore the fact that technically, Adah's eyes are "dark," but it's only mentioned once, so I can totally get away with it!). Cal I struggled with a little, but, once I saw Cillian's work in Disco Pigs, I knew I had the right guy (even if, again, the blue eyes, but what the hell, I seem to like my blue-eyed photobunnies).

Even the PBs for my manga characters that had them (Bae Si Gaul for Setsuna, Kirsten Dunst for Rosette) were really easy to come across. This is probably the obsessive icon hunting I do, though.

How obsessive? I have 200+ folders of icons saved. *cough*

So, yes. *pets obsessive personality*

[missed-the-gate.livejournal.com]

You are not alone!

*cough*

*shifties* I might have 1200 icons just for this one alone.

[tricksy-spy.livejournal.com]

HAHAHAHA, I asked kawalsky for a blonde with hazel eyes, and she said "Hey, have you ever looked at Leslie Bibb?"

It took all of two seconds and kawalsky's awesome brain. I almost feel badly for how easy it was.

[morpherboy.livejournal.com]

I'm pretty sure that's also the story behind older!Alanna PB and about half our NPC's...

[solo_sword]

Oh, hey, I suppose I should do this myself, huh?

I created the journal a year before apping Jaina and drove myself nuts trying to find someone to play her. You'd think finding a pretty brown-eyed brunette wouldn't be hard, would you? I was freaking out like two weeks or something before apps opened and had a really bad day at work one day and izzyalienqueen went "Here's a meme of pretty people!" and I jokingly went "Maybe I'll find a Jaina" and then I went "Huh. Who's that?" She just really looks like the book model a lot, though in my head Jaina does not have Sophia Bush's voice.

And for the record, there is someone else on I think a MySpace RP who uses Sophia as their Jaina, too. I feel validated.

[not-a-mused.livejournal.com]

It still freaks me out and makes me boggle over how perfect I think Sophia is for Jaina. Srsly.

[likethegun]

Luckily, all the characters I've played so far have come from movies and television shows, so the PBs have already been decided for me. I still haven't quite figured out who to use for apping Will Stanton though. I'm convinced one of the reasons they screwed him up so badly in the movie is that there are no actors who look right for the book version.

[thismaskiwear.livejournal.com]

*froths juuuuuuuuust a little at the mention of the movie*

[sixstandingby.livejournal.com]

This PB's also the indirect fault of trickster_twin. YA RLY. When I was considering who to go with, I was originally going to go with Jamie Bell but something didn't look right.

So, I was bouncing ideas off of her (cuz she's the expert) and brought up The McAvoy's name and she went 'YES, THAT ONE.' So, la. I used him. From the point in canon he comes from, I think it was just about the perfect choice.

Though, I still wanna use Jamie Bell for something, dammit.

[solo_sword]

...I totally forgot about that. Yay me!

[shyest-eyes.livejournal.com]

Really, I've only got the one character with a PB, which is a good thing because I seriously loathe looking for them. I'm too picky really. Viki's got Hanna Beth at the moment, who I'm fairly happy with but wish the girl would seriously smile a bit more. She's too serious, really. ^^;

Hinata and Ino I don't worry about, caps are definitely easy enough to find (...and then I wind up cursing the icon limits of LJ, for real).

Juli is, uh... yeah. The amount of hair ripping I have done over this, and searching, and pondering have left me with... nothing. So, for now, she's PB-less. Which continues to make me facepalm because this is now her third term/semester here. Yeah.

[thebluespirit.livejournal.com]

For some reason I could see Roxann Dawson for Juli.

[thatsamilkshake]

Francine's the first character I've potentially needed a PB for, and the order went "I could totally app Francine if um, *looks Katchoo-ward*" --> *randomly watches Popular in the spring to check out Aly's PB in action --> "OH HAY OMG." --> *collects lots of Sara Rue pics* --> *enables enables enables* --> makes tons of comic icons to enable the enabling --> *actually gets character accepted* --> *now has too many comic icons with canon faces of win to actually use the PB ones*

I've done a lot of searching for someone else's character, though, and ended up going with a stock photo model vs. a public figure, just because I couldn't find a public figure that gave both a good match for ethnicity and personality. There's (shocker) a lot bigger range of young Hispanic women on Getty than there is on the big or small screens.

And conversely I find myself randomly collecting PB's I don't have characters for, just because they have arresting faces when I catch them in a movie, or they're doing something that makes go "Ahahaha FH icon!" Especially if they were also a child star because yay weetiny icons. And then Hollywood comes along and snatches up my mildly unknown actors and steals all the obscurity and in conclusion when we inevitably get a Bella Swan, boy do I have a crapload of presents for her.

[thismaskiwear.livejournal.com]

I'm still fascinatedly terrified by your PB suggestion for Katchoo, you know. Mostly terrified. But in a fascinated way.

[nojesusfreak.livejournal.com]

Biff took me FOREVER to find--there aren't a lot of 30-something Middle Eastern actors around in icon form, shockingly. They tend to be Scary Man Not Appearing Longer Than Five Minutes, and I needed a PB that smiled more than not.

And yes, I was being picky and didn't want to chose a random white guy. It didn't seem fair to the character.

As for future characters, there's one that I've been beating my head into a wall for for about, oh, six months now. There are no cute 14 year old boys with red hair and blue eyes, dammit.

I'm settling for a blond.

[laceycantlie.livejournal.com]

*merely points at icon*

[walks-two-paths.livejournal.com]

Savannah was the first book character I did and I had tested her out somewhere else, first. When I wanted to play her, I was offered a journal and the PB for that character was Mila Kunis. Since she looked a lot like Savannah's description in the books, I decided to go with her. :)

I have a couple of other book characters that I have been/am having trouble finding PBs for, but then I start visiting one of my favorite PB journals and end up amassing icons of people that I want to find a character to use them for.

[flashesforinfo.livejournal.com]

Ohh yeah, I do that. I have whole folders of icons of random people who are just crying out to be used for a character somewhere.

... and then I go apping ones who already have PB's all picked out thanks to canon. Ah.

[the_merriest]

Rikku is astonishingly hard to PB, if only because her look is so eclectic. Barrettes in the hair, feathers in her braids, every color known to man, and massively long fingernails. Neon yellow fingernails.

Having said that, I finally found some IRL icons because I could not get over how much this cosplayer looked like my mental picture of Rikku. So many Rikku cosplayers go for HOT AND SLUTTY and not GIGGLY DORK. I just want to pinch her cheeks, dammit.

[thismaskiwear.livejournal.com]

. . . wow, yeah, that's way closer to my mental image of Rikku than most of the cosplayers I've seen.

[notqueenyet.livejournal.com]

All the other book characters I've played have had movie adaptations, so their PBs were remarkably easy (even if certain people don't look much like their graphic novel counterparts, *coughEVEYcough*), but Aravis was a toughie. And it took me FOREVER and I still am not entirely satisfied with my choice of Eva?

Calormenes are never really outright described as being Middle-Eastern-looking, but the implication is pretty heavy. The men are always described as swarthy or dark, but not a lot is said about Aravis or Lasaraleen (who are the only Tarkheenas we really meet) except that they have long, dark hair.

So, I was all *searchsearchsearch* when I decided to app her, and the choices were getting kind of hard -- I couldn't find ANYWHERE with, say, Bollywood icons or anything like that, and my choice of PB was getting to be like, Aishwarya Rai or Parminder Nagra. Who are both fine, but the biggest problem I was running into was that they both look very friendly. I really needed someone who looked like a haughty little bitch.

So, I'm flailing at once_a_king and kawalsky for like...a week, when I ran across a fanlisting for Aravis that used Eva Green in Kingdom of Heaven, which takes place in Jerusalem in the twelfth century. I immediately went YES PERFECT OMG, and spent the next little bit scouring the book to make sure that using a blue-eyed, fair-skinned and freckly woman wasn't actually in direct violation of canon. It wasn't, and Eva in the film was dressed PERFECTLY, plus she looks kind of terminally pissed off. (I think part of it is that she is Very Srs and doesn't smile much, and part of it is that like Sarah Michelle Gellar, who -- to me -- often looks sad when she's not, her eyes slope slightly downwards at the outside edges. *rambles*)

Incidentally, Aishwarya ended up being Lasaraleen when I was doing my big kidnappy plot last year, and the decision to use Shawn Ashmore as Cor for that plot was exceptionally easy, since if I ever need to use Corin as an NPC as well, I needed blond twins. :D

[nojesusfreak.livejournal.com]

Also, she gets to kiss Orlando Bloom, and that can only be a plus :)

[morpherboy.livejournal.com]

PB's and me are a nightmare story. For Alanna, I actually don't remember why/how/when I decided to go with OMG can't remember her name right now. Alicia Witt! And of course, she did two movies as a red head after Alanna became an alumni.

Marco has an actor who plays him, so I've been using him as PB. Honestly? If I ever find a better actor, I will switch since the Animorphs TV show is only out on VHS and there are no high quality images around. At all.

Cimorene's PB was a result of about five hours online, poking at various icon sites and archives before I settled on Missy Peregrym from Reaper and Heroes. I'm not 100% happy with the choice, but at that point I was just happy to have a PB.

So yes, me + PB = hell.

[thismaskiwear.livejournal.com]

Gah, yeah, I hear you on the lack of high quality screencaps issue. Er. For Jen, that is.

[notyourpawn.livejournal.com]

I wasn't going to app Alice without a PB, since I only had like three icons of her from the game and I'm a major icon whore. And I could not find a PB who looked quite right. I wanted someone with brown, relatively straight hair, somewhat plain features, simple clothes, and -- if I could at all swing it -- sharp, arresting green eyes (http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v328/Rellyjean/alice/greeneyes.jpg). And more importantly, I was hoping to find someone who seemed a little ... unnerving? As though she was staring through you. Very young and yet old and jaded.

While browsing for ideas on hollow_art, I stumbled across this picture (http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v328/Rellyjean/alice/ds_prm01.jpg) of Dominique Swain, and I stared at it in awe. And I knew I'd found Alice.

Most of her pics are from the movies "Tart" or "Girl" (the latter of which I'd kill for more source from) because wow, Lolita is usually very not Alice. But I have a few icons from it here and there, when I think I can get away with it.

[crazypilotman.livejournal.com]

I think you made a very good choice. She seems to fit Alice very well. Some of those icons you have give the very sense of madness lurking at the edges.

That one of her and that grin for example.

[flashesforinfo.livejournal.com]

Major benefit of TV show and movie characters over the rest is totally the ready picked PBs.

One of the only times I've actually searched for a PB, was for a Zoe Castillo (http://dreamerofstatic.livejournal.com/profile), and I was quite proud of actually finding anyone I really liked since, as mentioned above somewhere, finding young hispanic girls in film or TV is so much more difficult than you'd think.

[the_merriest]

Holy crap, Zoe's perfect. I keep looking between the CG version and the RL one and it's amazing.

[light-a-spark.livejournal.com]

I actually have a Roy PB, but it's harder to find pictures of the PB than it is of finding decent FMA icons. And then I decided that he's too pretty to PB anyway.

The PB is pretty (http://img254.imageshack.us/img254/9374/flydanny40rp1.jpg) too, though. And he's the actor Arakawa herself has in mind for Roy so... I didn't have to think about that.

[thismaskiwear.livejournal.com]

*clicks*

asi[odfaiosjfasjf Y HELO THAR.

[harrydresden.livejournal.com]

I...fail at PBs. As you might have noticed.
*stares at empty icon spaces*

I just have not found someone I like for young Harry.
Older Harry I'd probably just go with TV!Harry, but I didn't want teenage!Harry to be so old.

Although Thomas Dekker was suggested a million years ago and that might be good. I just don't know. Someday I will not be indecisive. Today is not that day.

[thismaskiwear.livejournal.com]

*eyes* Thomas Dekker yes.

[l1ttle-billy.livejournal.com]

In retrospect, if it'd occurred to me when I was searching for a PB for Billy, I might have gone with Josh Hartnett instead. I needed a guy with a decent physique with brown hair. And when I thought of Christian Slater, it just clicked. I really felt like he looked like the son of Cobra Commander.

Back when I was playing Tim I needed NadiaMun's help figuring him out, but when we hit upon the kid from Pete and Pete, it was perfect. Except for the difference in hair color and the lack of iconage.

[brujita-lily.livejournal.com]

This is my journal for Lily "Witch Baby" Wigg from the Weetzie Bat books, and I am commenting with it because a)Emily Perkins is spooky right for the character (except for the eyes, but no one has Witch Baby eyes for real anyhow) but b)NO ONE ICONS HER unless she is screaming her head off in "Ginger Snaps."

But. This is what Witch Baby will look like, if I ever play her.

[notyetpretty.livejournal.com]

And this is for Tally Youngblood from the "Uglies" series. I'm still trying to decide if she looks like Hayley Westenra or like Misti Traya (http://p-userpic.livejournal.com/76867472/15779669); Misti's probably a better match for the description in the books, but she almost always looks too happy for the character.

[notthehulk.livejournal.com]

I swear to god, Jim Cheung must've been a HUGE QaF fan for Teddy's design.

[death-and-pies.livejournal.com]

I don't know the comics Teddy comes from but I have always thought there was an UNCANNY resemblance between the comics icons and Randy Harrison. It's AMAZING.

[dojima-hime.livejournal.com]

With Dōjima, her canon is easily available, so I have no end of material to cap from. It's just all very...dark. The tweaking so it doesn't look too dark was driving me nuts, so I went in search of a Real Girl.

I was leaning towards Sophia Myles, and she was darn close, but just not quite right.

Then I randomly found a bunch of Gemma Ward icons (http://foxglove-icons.livejournal.com/65633.html#cutid1) at foxglove_icons, and fell in love. Totally perfect, and I just can't stop making more icons of her!

[withoutverona]

That is because she is gorgeous.

[thankgoditsme.livejournal.com]

I've been playing on games that were original characters only (no canon characters as PCs) for about 14 years, so that led to a lot of searching for suitable PBs there as there were never any PBs at the ready. Add to that wanting pictures for NPCs to flesh out some of the games with background fodder and a tendency to be OCD and hoard things and, well, I have several gig worth of photos organised on my hard drive into alphabetical order by the person's surname. Then there's the folders of unknown actors (etc.) I've collected over the years that are sorted by gender and a special section for weetiny which I normally upload to photobucket for everyone to use. So if you're ever in need of a PB, email me with the physical features and I can probably set you in the right direction. A big portion of my collection is little-known actors and actresses as I prefer to use those over big stars.

I'm quite lucky in that a lot of my Fandom High characters have had ready-made PBs (although since Kawalsky isn't in a lot of Stargate episodes, I'm in the process of hunting down screencaps of Jay Acovone's earlier guest star spots. Do you know how hard it is to find good screencaps of shows like The Sentinel, Viper and Strong Medicine?).

When I played Thursday Next, someone (sorry, I forget who!) suggested Laura Kightlinger and based on the expressions in the pictures I saw, she fit the attitude I associate with Thursday. But then I went looking for Landen (Thursday's husband) and found Carmine Giovinazzo from CSI: NY (which I'd never seen) and then saw a young but appropriately looking woman in photos with him (Anna Belknap) who caught my attention. Kightlinger was more suited to Thursday's age, but Belknap had more icons and I'm nothing if not an icon whore.

Friday's easy to explain. I wanted to fit the physical description from the book First Among Sequels. It also had to be someone who fit the voice I had in my head for him and be a little known (or unknown) actor. Voila, thanks to a PB comm on Greatestjournal, I got Tom Schilling who's a decently well known actor in Germany, but not so much outside.

Wow that got talky.

[lil-yellow.livejournal.com]

Tom so totally fits Friday. Also, mmmmm Carmine.

[laidanegg.livejournal.com]

While I've played a lot (A LOT) of characters from comics and cartoons and such, I haven't really felt the need to get a PB before. With Dick, though, I thought it might be fun to actually go for it.

I started by looking around comic message boards for lists that people might have posted of who should play Dick Grayson in whatever various movies he could appear in. There was one thread in particular about "If Robin was ever brought into the Batman Begins series..." and there were a ton of horrible, horrible, horrible suggestions. The only one who actually clicked for me was Jesse Bradford.

Not wanting to leave it to comic geeks on message boards, I hit PB comms on GJ and LJ, and out of everyone on several PB comms the only one who clicked for me was... Jesse Bradford.

From two directions he was a clearly wonderful choice. The only problem I had was finding pictures of him to use. I guess I could have raided caps of Bring It On, but that isn't quite the look I'm going for when the cartoon character's basic wardrobe included a sweatervest.

I could go back to the cartoon at some point, but I'm happy enough for now.

[withoutverona]

Seriously, people like to cap R+J and I strongly suspect I have a couple of folders of caps bookmarked that would have Jesse in them. He'd be a little younger, but it could work. Balthasar's a servant so he gets pretty normal clothes.

Holler if you want me to check.

[lilpunkinbelly.livejournal.com]

As said above, I've been very lucky so far in that all my charas have had actors playing them (though, in retrospect, I might have done some PB searching for a younger Sam Carter, so she actually looked 18 and it wasn't quite so creepy/confusing).

Now, however, I am having a *heck* of a time. Both of my favorite two potential apps for the fall are from books. I think I've finally almost definitely settled on Joss (http://www.greatestjournal.com/users/iconsbymaxi/2583.html#cutid1) Stone (http://www.greatestjournal.com/users/eidetics/3205.html#cutid1) if I ever app Jilly Coppercorn (http://eidetics.insanejournal.com/12811.html#cutid1), since she's got that kind of punk attitude and mass of hair, which is kind of Jilly's defining physical characteristic.

As far as my other choice is concerned, I am now taking suggestions for possible PBs for a young Nick Andros from The Stand, because I'm at a loss. I don't want to use Rob Lowe (from the miniseries) due to the colossal age difference, and a young Rob Lowe has a mullet in a lot of movies.

So! Anyone got any ideas?