I don't choose the fixation

so i wanted to throw in some suggestions that, whenever I’m trying to find a character reference or otherwise draw very interesting-looking yet regular-looking people, which i usually have to do for bit characters in @ikroah​ or something, I tend to look for references in the following places. these are far from the only reliable way to get inspiration, this is just a non-exhaustive list of places i’ve looked before for visual inspiration when needing to create a character, whether starring characters or background ones:

pre-2000s television (The Sopranos and Twin Peaks especially having incredible character design)

extras in comedy sketch shows

esports players

real photos (not staged stock photos) of line cooks

70s baseball players

athletes from more obscure olympic sports like the javelin toss or greco-roman wrestling, especially if you’re looking for a specific body type

ska, jazz, and blues musicians

firefighters

improv troupes

for teenagers, searching “high school english class project” on youtube and sorting by Upload Date

state senators, small-town mayors, and generally obscure local government positions like comptroller or treasurer (yes i know politicians can be bad sometimes but smaller elections especially don’t really depend on looks)

people who walk by your window (if you live in a city like I do)

there’s sixteen Colorado counties that their most searched was “wolf furry”, plus thirty-odd counties (not counting either Arapahoe or any of the ones marked here as “Insufficient Data”) which may well have had plenty of searches for “wolf furry”, just fewer than for whatever they’re labeled here

and “skunk furry” searches in Arapahoe County outnumbered “wolf furry” searches in the entire state of Colorado

"Heyyyyyy dad you're home early, it- uh- it's not what it looks like?" "It looks like someone's getting mauled" "Well I like to think the mauling's mutual-aaand he's covering his eyes, uh, stellar choice there, really 10/10 the judges are going wild-" "I'm going to Melissa's. Breakfast in the morning, both of you." "see I told you he wouldn't mind, now calm down and put those headlights away already"

1.5 years of sterek brainrot and I've somehow never drawn derek with red eyes nor the classic trope of the sheriff walking in on them? for shame, mel.

Any story featuring feral derek or him getting a little lost in his instincts are so important to me - this man who never gets to keep anything good in his life digging his claws into stiles and saying no, this one is mine, you can't have him - you see the vision 💭💭

a closeup as well as the lines under the cut, bc i quite like them on their own too: