Hogwarts: A Photo Challenge....

[Rama Mowry]

Round 6 is CLOSED. On to...

Round 7

I want something that inspires you to make a new character.​

Real life example from Lovi: One day, while I was scrolling aimlessly through the internet, I saw a dainty and elegant teapot. As a long time HNZ member, of course, I felt inspiration overcome me. "I want to make a character that is as elegant and dainty as this teapot." Several seconds pass, and I had their physical features planned, their place in the family tree of a current character set, interests, and major events from their past to embody the elegance and refined taste of the teapot.

Then, I threw it all out the window because I had homework I needed to get done, and being on Facebook was not going to help me learn about accounts payable subsidiary ledgers. Your entry can be from an object, things, or even based on that child you witnessed drop their ice cream on your way home; or inspired by your dog somehow getting stuck in a cabinet.

This round ends: June 5th at 11:59pm PST

 

[Ainsley Lynch]

do screenshots count?

My next firstie is based on the idea of the 'before girl' from ~makeover movies~. Like? Okay? What was wrong with her before the makeover??? She was fine? Maybe she was too into. idk maths or comics or horses or whatever the generic 'weirdo interest' this random movie decided was acceptable to bully, but like, who cares? What's wrong with frizzy hair and glasses?

So ye, my next firstie is gonna be a 'before' girl who never becomes the 'after' girl

disclaimer that ive never seen princess diaries i just picked a random makeover movie

 

[Selene Le Fey]

how have you not seen the princess diaries. it is such a classic movie. I mean my HNZ name comes from that movie.

anyways
for most of my characters start with a PB and build from there so they often have traits from the PB. and that is also why I don't really change PB's often. (or if I do it was predetermined long before I did who the PB should be but just needed a younger face to play it, like Selene and Rhiannon [though her older pb is actually older than her younger Pb ]) obviously, there are other influences for a character. so here are two inspirations.

two books for two characters.
the first one is more a concept. I made Rhiannon when I was let's say disheartened with my progress through uni. While I was at high school I had wanted to be a doctor I didn't get into medicine and got into my second choice. which I was then struggling with. so Rhiannon was based around the magical version of me. who was smart and hard-working enough to get into med school.

the second book is song quest by Katherine Roberts is the first book of the echorium series. where young "singers" (people who can basically use song to weave magic) and their interaction with good and bad each book centres around a half species. the second one is around centaurs. and there is one girl called Shaiala who was raised by centaurs. for some reason years after I had read the series I was studying and she just walked into my mind a fully formed start to who would become Briar Rowan [and that is probably why I have never been truly happy with her PB ]

 

[Professor Adorah Zumwalt]

So many of my characters are based off already established ones (family) so Elara was the most recent one I made out of thin air.

So I have a family I haven't debuted yet, but this is my most recent inspo. Initially, I thought of the Seven Deadly Sins and was reminded of this visual from a really old season of ANTM. I thought this shoot was soooooo cool, and while my family has very much deviated from the initial inspiration, this was definitely one of the first things I thought of.

 

[Isabella Chaos]

Truthfully, I create a character based on pbs, I'll be watching something and decide I like a pb and immediately look them up to see if I can use them for a character, but executing that into a picture was kinda hard, but I tried anyway, so let me explain.

Spoiler

Any time I watch a show and see a potential pb I could use, I look up pictures I could use. BUT Halloween is my favorite holiday ever and I especially love Halloween on HNZ, so I specifically look up the potential pb in Halloween costumes to see if there are options for me to use on the site when Halloween rolls around. (I'll search name + halloween, name + costume, name + x outfit, and look through their characters to see if they were in any period pieces or something that could be turned into a costume). I kid you not, if there are not enough options for me to use, I won't use the pb, at least not for a new student. (If I really wanted to use the pb I'd make them an adult character or a student at a different school).
So basically this picture is an example of what that looks like for me. Me watching Insecure on one side, and then looking up "Issa Rae Halloween" on the other side. Plus the little Halloween box that sits on top of my laptop shows how important Halloween is to me. That little box holds all my wires/cords and I also use it to prop up my phone (as demonstrated by my phone case) to watch videos while I'm doing work hehe.

So yeah, Halloween costumes are what makes or breaks a character for me, and then the ideas start forming from there.

 

[Rama Mowry]

Round 7 is closed!

Let Round 8 COMMENCE!

I want something the reminds you of a character’s memory/history! It needs to be one of your characters’. This round closes June 8th at 11:59PM PST! Round 9 will be the last round of the competition!

 

[Ainsley Lynch]

Wahahaha I actually showed Kiersten this photo the other day

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Face is covered because I'm not comfortable putting photos of my face as a child on a public website, but that's me with our family goat when I was. 12 or 13? I spent most of my youth being homeschooled on a small farm in the middle of nowhere, and I pretty much ripped that entire setup word for word for Ainsley's backstory because I couldn't think of anything off the top of my head for a new character after taking so long away from hnz I wanted to explore a different path someone with similar experiences could have gone down, though Ainsley and I are very different people in the bigger picture. But the home full of fantasy novels, the little isolated farm with no other kids around, the homeschooling, all of that is from real life. Ainsley's a little more like my sister in that I had a couple of years of primary school before homeschooling but my sister has never been in any mainstream education of any kind, so I drew on her life a little as well when approaching how Ainsley would adjust to Hogwarts life.

steal from real life steal from real life steal from real life steal from real life

EDIT: I don't think the hide tags actually work :V

 

[Monty Pendleton]

Oops missed a round!! I wanted to walk somewhere to take a pic and forgot

Monty ran away from home when he was 14, and this suitcase strikes me as the kind he would've had (because he already collected old things at that point), so I always think about that when I see it!

I threw in the book as another memory - he haaated Potions in school, not because he disliked the subject, but because his anxiety was particularly bad in that class and his teacher and peers were unsympathetic and unkind. That's one of the reasons why he always tried / tries to be kinder than necessary as a teacher - he knows that sometimes the kid who's seemingly being difficult or insolent is really struggling.

Thank you Dan for the book

 

[Selene Le Fey]

so this was actually a little hard. I considered picking a landscape and saying this is where the Cullen kids grew up. but here we are back to Selene.
Selene has always had issues sleeping. she is better now since she has started seer training but she still has times when nightmares awaken her. on those nights she often curled up on the window seat in her room and read by candlelight with a cup of tea. often myths, but sometimes novels (and since starting at Hogwarts she has gone to the common room and studied). as I am at a work share house there wasn't much i had to work with and this is the book I am reading at the moment (and really enjoying so far). but i feel like it would absolutely be something that scene would read though the theme may be a bit more mature than her past self should be reading. but I guess as she is a seer in training she may well have remembered a future event.

 

[Rama Mowry]

Round 8 closes tonight!

 

[Professor Adorah Zumwalt]

This is a really old photo I took - likely on my pink razor or old digital camera in high school. Adorah used to spend a lot of time by her lonesome or with Juniper outside, away from the chaos of their house, and this image kind of feels like a view she might have seen.

 

[Isabella Chaos]

I did a little tarot reading for Kennedy Pratt of her past, present, and future with the worlds tiniest tarot cards

 

[Rama Mowry]

Round 8 is closed and it is time for THE LAST ROUND. ~lucky no.9~

The last round is the one everyone has been waiting for…..your character’s amortentia!

 

[Ainsley Lynch]

IGNORE THAT ITS NIGHT I WANTED TO GET THIS IN BEFORE I WENT TO BED

Blake's amortentia smells like freshly cut (unfortunately unavailable to me) grass, apples, paint, hay (also unavailable to me), and broom polish (both unavailable to me and fictional)

Fun Facts I knelt in cat poop by accident to get this and also discovered the neighbours were having a rather odiferous party

 

[Professor Adorah Zumwalt]

This probably is more explanation than needed, but it's not something I really figured out for Adorah quite yet. This photo kind of represents her more "traditional" childhood in that she spent a lot of time outside, didn't use technology, and in a way, her childhood feels like an old haze or dream. She's so far removed from that life that her amortentia is more nostalgic smells in a way - old crayons, oak trees from when she lived in Germany, that dusty book smell, and more recently, the scent of the tea Nadia (her birth mother) was drinking the first time they met.

 

[Rama Mowry]

Last round closes on June 12 11:59pm PST!

 

[Selene Le Fey]

moving away from selene here is willows Amorentia
Salt water/the sea, chives, eucliptus (representing the bush), bonfires with toasted marshmallows, and hot chips.

 

[Isabella Chaos]

I was trying to use a different character for each prompt (when applicable) but Marisol’s amortentia is the only one I have locked in so here it is:

Spoiler

Her amortentia smells like: the beach, chocolate, and a sterile hospital smell (so just pretend that is a medical syringe )

 

[Rama Mowry]

Competition is closed. I’ll be back with the tallies soon

 

[Rama Mowry]

Hello! The prize for our photo-tastic winners has been decided!
Let’s give Mia, Rowan, and Abby the BIGGEST high fives for their creativity AND participating in every round!

Their prize is a camera icon next to their name AND in our classic -~Beauxbatons for a week!!

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