Face Time

Here’s what I’m up to these days: bringing the characters I’ve invented in my erotic romance stories to life!

Well, okay--not literally. But I’m using a software program called FaceGen to create portraits of all the lead characters in my stories. That’s a list of 47 people at the moment, so it will take awhile. But it’s a labor of love if ever there was one, particularly creating the portraits for the heroes.

I suppose since my business is dealing in words, I should be content with creating intensely attractive guys verbally. However, the prospect of being able to look all these fellows in their cornflower blue, hauntingly gray, wild green, or infinitely deep brown eyes is awfully exciting.

And using this 3D software adds another haunting element: After you create a face, you can rotate it in space this way and that, make it look right at you, make it form expressions for various preset emotions, and so on. This just makes the experience of bringing a character off the page and into real life that more intense.

My first portrait was of Anders, the vampire hero of my short story “Pints” from Soulful Sex Volume I. He’s a sweet, sensitive guy, but at the same time, he is a vampire. So I created this fair Swede with a boyish face capable of being very good-humored, but caught in a moment when his vampire side shows as well. I find his beauty to be eerie and otherworldly, and intensely sexy. To see that face which until now has been only a misty picture in my mind is amazing. And the heroine Eliza’s obsession with Anders makes even more sense now!

When it comes to sex, I like to think of men as visual and women as much more cerebral. Nevertheless, looking at Anders is arousing, there’s no doubt about it. It makes me wonder, how exactly does that work? Why does turning his head so he meets my eyes give me that shiver? Why did making his nose at precisely that angle appeal to me the most? Why is there such pleasure in the simple act of gazing upon those lips, those eyes, the sum of that face?

I know the science of human behavior has theories to explain answer all these questions, but it’s more fun simply to bask in the mystery.

Anyway, this project is going to be one ton of fun. Authors play god for a living anyway, but I feel like I just got promoted a few clouds higher…