Just so I can see them all together

[bjornwilde]

Sethra Lavode: Juliet Landau (spotted someone else's casting here. I'd always pictured Anjelica Huston, but I like Juilet better, tbh.


Morrolan e'Drien: I've had Richard Armitage in my head forever, but then I remembered Antonia Banderas in Interview with the Vampire and it's too perfect.


Aliera e'Kieron: Natalie Dormer, always and forever.


Which leaves Vlad himself. So far Mikhail Boyarsky is the best face.


I do have a few other ideas for faces
In picture order, Eugene Hutz, Jason Schwartsman, Joseph Mawle, and Kim Coates:
   

Eugene has the advantage of being Eastern European, Ukrainian to be exact, but the flaw is that he tends to make goofy faces. But his dramatic ones, like the above, are pretty spot on.

Or I'll just skip a face altogether and just to props or fanart. I don't know. I do still need a Cawti and Kragar, just to round out the main players in case I ever do NPCs.

Comments

[bjornwilde]

And I've found something like 19 images of Eugene for icons. I think he's the winner. He's really good as he has young looking, like early 20s or late teen and late 20 or early 30s to work with, so I can get all of Vlad's canon in one face!

In fact, here's a link to those icons.

[hamsterwoman]

Ooh!

I like Juliet Landau for Sethra a lot (Anjelica Huston also works, and I like her in general, but I like that Juliet's face is softer while still being fairly odd/preternatural looking)

I forget whether Armitage for Morrolan was something I'd arrived at on my own or saw in a fancast and accepted, but that's been my mental PB as well... But I have no complaints whatsoever about young Antonia Banderas! (except with his more normal tan, because the vampire pallor thing never looked right to me in general and I think is in particular wrong for Morrolan). Brust has said that his "PB" for Morrolan is Val Kilmer c. Tombstone, but I personally don't get it.

I'm afraid Natalie Dormer just has one of those faces I dislike (she's a fine actress! but I don't like looking at her) so no comment on your Aliera pick, sorry!

Eugene Hutz is a little goofy-looking for my mental Vlad (and the mustache a bit too luxurious), but on the other hand, that's a very nice range of expressions and poses, which would be a lot harder to find with young Boyarsky. (And, hee, nice choice of Loiosh icons, too, and paraphernalia. You definitely need a cooking/food icon to go with the witchcraft and fighting, though! :D)

I do still need a Cawti and Kragar,

Oh man, Kragar's should be something other than a face, though. Some kind of optical illusion? Or maybe, like, the anonymous userhead with just some little subtle difference. Or the weird "paper bag" user-not-found userhead?

[bjornwilde]

Re: Morrolan...yeah. I think if I did use Antonia from Interview i would photoshop his skin tone to be darker and more natural. I think I just have always pictured Morrolan to have long straight hair.

No worries about Natalie. =) And for the record, it's more her role in Elementary than Game of Thrones that sells her for me.

Oh man, Kragar as an anonymous icon would be a hoot! It'd also be tempting to find some image of someone wearing a lightly toned fantasy costume with a similarly toned background and play with the color balances until you could just barely see there was someone in front of the wall. And crop it so it was just the chest and shoulders or something.

[hamsterwoman]

I think I just have always pictured Morrolan to have long straight hair.

That seems to be the common view, yep. Brust actually has a page (Vlad and Morrolan's first meeting in Taltos) with a somewhat famous goof, where Morrolan's hair is described two different ways in the space of a page: "his hair was very dark, straight, and long enough to cover his ears." vs "His hair was black and shoulder-length and curly and just a bit neglected." I tend to imagine it somewhere between these two -- straight when cut short but curling on the ends? -- which would work with Banderas.

some image of someone wearing a lightly toned fantasy costume with a similarly toned background and play with the color balances until you could just barely see there was someone in front of the wall. And crop it so it was just the chest and shoulders or something.

Haa, this is also a great idea! The Kragar possibilities are vast and hilarious, basically!

[bjornwilde]

Just to check my math, I do see Vlad as being from late teens to late 20s or early 30s in the series so far. In Hawk, Kragar mentions knowing Vlad for 15 years which is what I'm basing this on.

Boyarsky is still a good face, and I could work with him. I've noticed with phones and being able to reply to comments via email, I tend to not use a wide range of icons.

ETA: Oh, and the witchcraft and fighting icons I cut out of a Vlad mood/aesthetic mood board someone had made on Tumblr. (Is shameless with icon sources, but gives credit when/if I use.)

[hamsterwoman]

Allow me to introduce you to the most amazing Dragaera resource: Alexx Kay's Dragaera timeline. (There's spoilers in there, obviously, but if you stick to the post-Interregnum bits, I don't think anything will spoil you for the Paarfi books any more than the Vlad stories already do.)

According to this person's painstaking work, Vlad was born in 219 post interregnum, and is 20 in Taltos (main story) and ~33-34 in Hawk, so, yep, your math is consistent with that.

ETA: Oh, and the witchcraft and fighting icons I cut out of a Vlad mood/aesthetic mood board someone had made on Tumblr

Whaaat, there's a Vlad mood theme on Tumblr? Apparently I should occasionally log back in there to check. (I am/was tracking the Dragaera tag, but it was just too depressing not seeing anything new for months on end...)

[bjornwilde]

http://ariannon.tumblr.com/post/155229814848/dragaera-vladimir-taltos
(I don't like their PB for Vlad, but the rest of the board is good.)

I might spend too much time on Tumblr....it has been a while since there have been new hits on the tag though.

[hamsterwoman]

Mm, yeah, not a fan of the PB for Vlad (or the others, either), but I do like the choice of quotes and objects, and the Cycle "colorbar" thing).

[bjornwilde]

OK, that timeline is an amazing resource! Assuming I ever get to actually playing Vlad somewhere.

And I am laughing at Brust for the contradictory hair description. I wonder if it was accidental or on purpose.

[hamsterwoman]

Oh yeah, the timeline would be such an awesome resource for role-players (and fic-writers, which, LOL)

I do think that hair description was accidental, but then he lampshaded it in a later book (I forget which one), where he has Vlad comment that Morrolan is the kind of guy who changes the way his hair looks several times a day :P