#making edits

Hello hello!! afhskdjhkdjgh I’m becoming an advice blog amn’t I? (I’m seriously uncertain why you folks think my advice is any good, but I’m honoured! XD)

Okay! So! First off, I’m not actually the best at this myself, but I suppose I can share some strategies that I often use to make my own moodboards!

Choosing Images for Aesthetic Edits

First off, make sure you have a good foundation for your character (or world/location/etc.). Making moodboards can be a great way to get to know your character better and to develop them, but if you don’t know some of your character’s interests or personality already, it can be near impossible to decide on images!

Things to Look For

Here’s a small list of possible things to keep in mind when looking for images to include in your aesthetics! These might help with prompting ideas and such~

For characters:

Hobbies/passions

Favourite colour/colours that represent them

Home environment or where they grew up

Pets

Family/friend/partner relationships

Favourite foods/drinks

Important objects they own

Work/job/rank aspects

Distinguishing physical traits (hair, eye colour, scars, tattoos, etc.)

Quotes that represent them

Wardrobe/clothing style

Super powers/magic type/supernatural attributes

Symbols for their personality

Character archetype they fit or the role they play in the story

And yeah, this one helps sometimes: D&D class

For locations (this is mostly for larger regions, but can be narrowed down):

General natural scenery (flora/fauna, climate, landscape)

Cultures that it mimics/fits

Architecture type

Type of people found there

Activities usually done there

Food

Resources

Industries it’s known for (Mining, fishing, farming, textiles, pottery?)

Tourism attractions (natural or artificial)

Military

Political system (including the leader, how they rule, etc.)

Education and linguistics

There’s tons more to consider, of course, but I hope that gets your brainstorm building!

Other Tips

Still not having much luck?

Try typing in a general term into the search of whatever site you’re using. Look through the results and you might find something that fits! Unsplash.com is a great one for this, I find: my character likes gold, so... gold. Wow, that’s a lot of gold stuff, but also a lot of images that could possibly inspire you!

If you don’t know your character’s hobbies or interests yet, try looking up a list of them and see what ones you think would fit them! Ask games can also be marvelous for sparking ideas~

Did you find a really fitting image, but the colours clash with the rest or don’t fit your character? Try editing the colour of it using photoshop or other editing software! (You can find tons of tutorials for this with a simple search. ^^) There are also plenty of psd colour resources offered on tumblr for free!

If you’re not sure of a colour theme to follow, try browsing sites like Coolors.co for ones to inspire you!

Adding an overlaying texture or a gif overlay can also be a great way of tying the aesthetic together~

Sites to Use

I’m still guilty of using pinterest for quotes and such, but I try to avoid sites like it for images. Here’s some sites that I personally use for finding higher quality, free for use images!

Unsplash.com: Will always be my favourite. Always. This is my go-to and I really only stray from it when I can’t find a specific something I want.

Pixabay.com: I need to start using this one more, in all honesty. It’s really nice.

Pexels.com: I don’t use this much but again I find there’s good quality stuff here~

These are only the ones I’ve personally checked out, but here are a couple other posts that list a bunch of cool sites: 1, 2.