Help w. Character art

[awp832]

I've run into this problem a couple times. I'm not sure what to do about it, so I'm asking for advice.

I like to have images of my characters, its not something required by my group, I just like to have something that I can look at. Problem: I can't draw. Seriously, I'm really bad.

I've perused various character image archives but it always seems they never have what I want.

I am however, fairly decent with computers. Are there any drawing programs out there that I could use to make character images? With tutorials would be great, macintosh compatible would be better.

Beyond that, any suggestions as to how to help with my quandary, other than you know, having an imagination? Don't even know where to start. Someone point me in the right direction?

-regards
awp

[ToxicDragon]

I doubt I'm being helpful but gimpshop is a free photoshop-esque program that I used quite a bit back in the day. I'm not sure it will replace your imagination entirely, but you can apply filters to any image you find and make it look drawn, or painted. It's not a huge resource hog either.

Best part is it's free. Worst part about it is it's free, so it might be frustrating to use.

[Ninjaxenomorph]

I'm lucky enough to have an artist friend who, even if she does not draw medieval fantasy much, I can keep in constant touch with. I would just commission someone online,there are lots of great artists on Deviantart that will do commissions.

[Diodric]

For my character art/minis, I use Inkscape and go Order of the Stick style. There are some really great tutorials online to get you going.

[Oladon]

Since nobody's suggested it yet, you might give Hero Machine a try. It's not anything like hand-drawn, but if you've got a lot of characters and not a lot of money for commissioning things, it can at least get you something.

Version 3, which is more versatile but harder to use, is here.