Patrick Makes a Redheaded Sorceress
After seeing people all over the forums making their Dragon Age characters, my wife insisted that we download the character creator, despite the fact that as EA employees we could probably, you know, get our hands on the actual game. (Through the miracle of this blog, this will appear to be my wife's pushy demand, to which I grudgingly agreed, and not any geekery on my part. Whee!)

My first attempt is a auburn-haired elven woman with a future in magery:


I don't usually put makeup on my female characters, but in this case I was trying to get as close as I could to an existing character:



(Actress Amanda Righetti in her role as Grace Van Pelt on The Mentalist.)

Given that I didn't have a picture of Van Pelt at the time and was working from memory (and also given that I'm a terrible artist and not even very good at describing how people look in my writing), I'm not unhappy with how it turned out. I shouldn't have selected the smiling face for the character's portrait, but really, even if Van Pelt mostly looks pensive, I'm not going to stare at a non-smiling portrait for the next 80 hours.

People with an interest in CRPGs should definitely check out the Dragon Age character editor. I've been in the dark about Dragon Age while running hard on Mass Effect, and I'm really impressed by how much customization they have for the face. (The character stuff is not as customizable, but most of that is just to give you a picture of what the real game will be like, as I understand it.)

See you all online!