Where You Work

I'm currently trying to create just the right place to write or illustrate. Nothing beats eyeballing the work spaces of others for inspiration. Here are few of my current favorite sources:

The Guardian, a newspaper in the U.K., posts writer's rooms and creative work spaces here.

SCBWI locally has also encouraged members to share photos of studios, offices and the like here.

Another place for ideas is Flickr. Several groups on that site focus solely on posting pictures of work spaces. Try Craft Rooms , Art Studio, Art Studio Makeover, Work Spaces, Creative Spaces, and Creative Places/Creative Spaces.

If you are a fan of "inspiration boards" for your art or writing, check out this group on flickr.

Character Inspiration, Part 6 Fruits, Plates and Dishes

For those creating manga, Japanese fashion rebel characters, or even just creatively dressed children for picture books, the book Fruits is sure to give you a visual feast. It's full of Harajuku street fashion, and even spawned a sequel: Fresh Fruits. Both are bound versions of what you can find from FRUiTS magazine, which now has a website you can browse for free inspiration: http://www.fruits-mg.com/xnew/j/index.html.

The website also includes photos from the same publisher's Street magazine, another street fashion photo mag, and it has a wider diversity of people and styles from all around. This is not to be confused with the book Street: The Nylon Book of Global Style from the editors of Nylon magazine. If you are looking for hipsters, rebels and fashion forward people from around the world's major cities, you can find them in Nylon's book-Parisian ingenues, edgy New Yorkers and other creatively garbed folks from around the world grace these pages, and most of them fit squarely into YA range.

For a totally different view of humanity, try Plates and Dishes. It's a photo book of dishes and the waitstaff of 70 roadside diners throughout North America. I look at the people in this book and think some of them would make great haggard mothers, or kindly remote second cousins a protagonist is sent to live with.

No matter what your angle, photobooks can provide lots of character inspiration. Check 'em out!

Character Inspiration, Part 5

Of course, a list of sources of photos of people for character inspiration would not be complete without National Geographic. For a much tidier and far easier to search source than the "keeping of piles of old issues" method, use the on-line galleries on the National Geographic website: http://photography.nationalgeographic.com/photography/photogalleries/people-culture/

And hey, if you are using setting as character, there are bound to be good photos of it here, too!