HeroForge

This is not a sponsor to the website, HeroForge, though I wish it was! I wanted to talk about it because I'm stumbled on it accidentally and I think it's pretty cool. HeroForge is a custom miniature website where it lets you design a character or creature before capturing pictures or buying it. These figures are often used in Dungeons and Dragons. But there's more you can do with it than buy your creations, (Although that is super cool too!) HeroForge lets you download them or take photos of them.

The amount of customization it gives you over the figure is astounding! And if there's something you don't like about it, you can always tinker with the advanced settings it gives you. It first starts you off with a default blank human. Like true Dungeons and Dragons flavor, most of what's on the list is fantasy-oriented. You got your elves and dwarves and you can also pick monsters like goblins, merfolk, demons, bird-folk, turtle-folk, and all other different choices. It's not all just fantasy. You could also pick a robot or alien to start with or even give a human some robotic limbs and make a cyborg. Don't want a cyborg? Create a half-ogre, half-bird cowboy. That's right! You can mix and match whatever you want with whatever you want.

After you're done picking the face, body, and any extra you want on your piece, you get to pick out the clothing and equipment. You can choose a full outfit if you wish, but you could also choose each piece separately. Any of the equipment can be held in the hands or holstered on the sides or back. Pouches, weapons, potions, spells, and even a handful of common items to choose from.

After that, you can position your character in a battle-ready or calm pose and color them. Again, you can pick the pose you like most and change it in the advanced settings if you wish. You can turn the shoulder, change what the hands are doing, and can change the position of anything sitting on the base. That last one is great because animal companions tend to be behind the characters by default. When it comes to painting, it's recommended to pick a theme for the character/creature, and then a theme for the clothes and surroundings. There are different colors for different materials, which helps with texture. It's pretty fun to paint it individually and pick strange materials for things! Make their boots shine like diamonds instead of leather, or place a bright magic effect on the weapons!

If you have an account, you can save your creations to return to later. I haven't bought one, so I can't take a stand on quality, but it looks like there are several options. I found it interesting that you can buy it in a digital form that can either be 3D printed or read and used in some games that can use Unity files. Interestingly, games that'll use your figures will also reflect properly on the materials you use. Something to keep in mind if you went a little crazy like me!

Personally, I used HeroForge because I wanted a cool fantasy avatar for myself. I made myself as a winged satyr. Sadly, you can't use the photo booth where you set them in cool surroundings without a subscription, but you can still take some pictures of them as is. I even tried to make some of my favorite creatures in folklore too, like here I made a pretty convincing kappa and kitsune! The kitsune was a bit annoying because I had to position her tails one by one... I'll share some of my creations in another gallery below. Take a scroll through it and you might find some recognizable characters from my book! (There were no options for freckles though. Sorry, Blair!)

If you get a chance at it, send me pictures of what you look like in a fantasy, western, apocalyptic, etc. I think this is a very fun site to play with if you want to buy a custom piece or just take pictures!