ishdaj but noisier

Matthew Moss - is consistently described as attractive so I just found this photo of Sebastian Stan, added the chinstrap beard everyone keeps dragging, and called it a day.

Edith and Alpeana - they don't have specific actor references since they're both distinct enough design-wise that I worry less about falling into same-face syndrome. My singular Edith art is based on a bunch of marble statues though, since her Girl in Candlelight form had that vibe of being regal and ethereal. With Alpy I just love making her look like a super creepy teenager, multiple skinny arms bent at weird angles and black gunk hair and all <3

John Stiles - initially was based on Rutger Hauer specifically from Blade Runner 1982, because he has a really good haunted, weary look in his eyes. But recently I've also been referencing Wilson Bethel, especially from Netflix's Daredevil season 3. Dude is also great at having a wounded look in his eyes which is like the John defining feature. There's several scenes of him from Daredevil where he looks a lot like John's canon portrait. Like, look at this:

Wilson Bethel also has a massive fandom so it's a treat having so many easily collectible images of the guy's face from multiple angles.

Honestly it's not hard to draw John, which is one reason I draw him a lot. I just draw a square-chinned dude with a short haircut, dark shadows under his eyes, small irises, and gaunt cheekbones. I do tend to iterate on his design a fair bit, since I try to strike a balance between his canon portrait, the references I use, his in-text description, and my mental image of him (which is that he is hot 🫶)

Alexander Belanger - Wildbow uses Damian Lewis as a reference so I did the same. I tend to draw him with bluish/cooler toned outfits since it's a nice contrast with his ginger hair. I generally just tried to make him hot (which is easy with Damian Lewis as a reference lol, that man's fine) and smug, and punchable. He really fits a lot of tumblr sexyman archetypes which was why he was annoyingly fun to draw.

Snowdrop - doesn't have a specific reference, I just try to channel gremlin chaos child energy and occasionally look at pictures of opossums for inspo. I do make her hair a bit more off-white / platinum blonde than yellow-blonde, so it's closer to opossum fur and try to make it shaggy and unkempt. I also draw her with an upturned nose partly to match Avery. I give her little fangs in this one to mimic possum teeth and might carry that detail to other snowdrop art.

Toadswallow - just referenced his interview notes 2 EM portrait, with the goal of making him look really gross but exaggeratedly genteel. I struggled to figure out how the waistcoat fits him and think I made his legs too long in my art of him here, actually. Something I'm keeping in mind for future Toadswallow art.

Musette - She barely gets any description beyond having goth makeup and a leather jacket, so I took inspiration from Death (The Sandman) for her eye look and her hair. I hope she shows up again later in the story, but I'll be a bit bummed out if we get a better description of her then and it's far from what I imagined. One of the risks of making fanart without having finished Pale ;-;

Flashback Charles Abrams - He's described as being melancholy and sad-looking in the 7.x flashback, so I looked for an actor with that vibe and who had a similar face shape as his interview notes portrait. Settled on Domhnall Gleeson. I will probably not be using Domhnall Gleeson for future Charles portraits though, and will look for someone who looks sufficiently forsworn.

As for the trio, I sat down one day and put together a whole whiteboard of references for them! I'm likely going to be drawing them a lot so I know I needed something like this:

Top row are sketches and notes for how I want to stylize them and key differences between them. For example, I emphasize Verona's lower eyelids and stylize her nose to be a triangle and look cat-like, Lucy's drawn with a lot of sharp angles, Avery has the greatest distance between her eyes, which are upturned, both which make her deer-like, etc.

Middle rows are photo references with actors that I think look like them, and the bottom section are descriptions and references for their outfits/gear and Sight eye descriptions. I also included saturated, muted, and pastel variations of their key colors + colors I use for their masks.