A custom figure is not a scan of your photo. It is a stylised rebuild — a standing figure is only about 12 cm tall, made from a small number of broad shapes — so the likeness has to survive being simplified. That is why the photo matters more than anything else you send us.
What we are reading in your photo
Before you judge a photo on whether it is flattering, judge it on whether it answers questions. A designer opening your reference is looking for five things:
- Hair shape and hairline. Not the strands — the outline. Where it parts, how high the forehead sits, whether it falls in front of or behind the ears.
- Face proportions. Round or long, wide jaw or narrow, where the eyes sit on the head.
- Colour. Hair, skin tone and clothes all become solid blocks of colour, so a wrong reading is very visible.
- The identifiers. Glasses shape, beard style, a fringe, a favourite jacket, a piece of jewellery someone never takes off.
- Silhouette. What the outfit does to the body: a long coat, a hoodie, a dress, a uniform.
A plain photo that answers all five beats a beautiful one that answers two of them.
Angle: front-facing, or a gentle three-quarter
Straight on, or turned slightly, shows the hairline, both sides of the face and the shoulders at once. Sharp profiles hide half the face and make hair volume impossible to judge, and the phone-held-high selfie shrinks the jaw and hides the hairline.
Light beats camera
Even, soft light on the face is worth more than megapixels. A five-year-old phone next to a window will out-perform a new one shooting into a sunset. Three situations to avoid:
- Backlight. A window or the sun behind the person turns the face into a dark shape, and there is nothing in there to recover.
- Hard side light. Half the face lit, half in shadow. The shadowed half becomes guesswork, which is exactly what we are trying to remove.
- Strong colour casts. Sunset, neon, a green-lit room. Whatever colour the light is, skin and clothes pick it up — and colour is one of the things we build. A cream jumper under warm restaurant light photographs orange. If the photo lies about a colour, tell us the real one.
Resolution: judge it by the face, not the file
What matters is not the file's megapixels but how many of them landed on the face: a 12 MP group photo shot from across a garden can hold less usable detail than a 2 MP close-up. Quick test — zoom to 100% and look at the face. Can you see the edge of the hairline? Is the eyebrow a shape rather than a smudge? Then we can work with it.
What quietly destroys detail: photos forwarded through chat apps several times, since each hop recompresses them; screenshots of screenshots; and heavy digital zoom. If the original is still in your camera roll, send that rather than the copy someone sent you.
Filters, sunglasses, and everything else in the way
Smoothing filters do precisely the wrong thing here. They remove skin texture, soften the jaw, narrow the nose and lift the eyes — the specific features the likeness was going to come from. Send the unedited version if you have it.
Sunglasses, masks, a hand across the chin, a cap brim throwing a hard shadow over the eyes — each removes something we need. Hats are only a problem if you do not want the hat; if the cap is the person, keep it and say so.
The outfit is worth choosing deliberately too, since it stays on the shelf for years. If the clearest photo of the face has them in a work shirt but you want the band T-shirt, send both and label them: face from this one, outfit from that one.
Group photos
Group shots cause the most delay, because a photo where everyone looks good is rarely one where every face is sharp. The most useful package for a duo, a couple or a family is:
- One clear photo per person, alone if possible.
- One group photo showing how they stand together — who is taller, who holds whom.
- A one-line note naming who is who, left to right.
If the group photo is all you have, check each face at 100% first. Children and pets move, so they are usually the blurred ones; send a separate photo of anyone who is soft.
Pets
Pet photos most often need a second attempt, almost always for the same few reasons.
- Get down to their eye level. A photo from standing height foreshortens the muzzle and hides the chest and legs. Crouch.
- Show the markings, and say which side. The patch over one eye, the white bib, the sock on one front paw, the ring around the tail.
- Ears and coat. Folded, pricked, floppy or cropped ears change the whole silhouette, and so does coat length — the same breed reads completely differently long-haired and clipped. Send a photo from the current haircut.
- Dark pets need bright, soft light. Outdoors in shade, or beside a window on a bright day. Under ordinary indoor light a black dog or cat photographs as one flat shape with no face in it.
Two or three photos beat one: a front view, a side view, and a close-up of the marking you want kept.
The photos we send back
We look at the reference before design work starts, because we would rather ask on day one than send a proof you were always going to reject. The photos that get a "could you send another?" are usually:
- Faces smaller than a thumbnail in the frame, or silhouetted against a window or sky.
- Group shots where the person you want is turned away, blurred, or half behind someone else.
- Dark pets photographed in dim rooms.
- Screenshots with interface elements, timestamps or watermarks across the face.
Nothing is lost when it happens — no production has started and there is no charge. It costs a day or two, which is the only reason it is worth getting right first time.
A 30-second checklist
- Face clearly visible, front or gentle three-quarter.
- Even light, no strong backlight and no colour cast.
- At 100%, the hairline and eyebrows are shapes, not smudges.
- The outfit is the one you want on the shelf, and nothing is covering the face that you do not want built.
- Groups: one photo per person, plus a group shot for the arrangement.
- Pets: eye level, good light, markings visible.
- Brick car: a three-quarter front view in daylight, and the plate sent as text.
- One short note about the detail that has to survive.
That last line is worth more than it looks. Tell us the one thing that must be right — the exact shade of red hair, the gap in his front teeth, the left ear that folds over — and the design gets built around it.
None of this is a one-shot decision, either. You see a digital proof within 2–3 days of ordering, revisions at that stage are free and unlimited, and nothing goes into production until you approve it. A good photo does not remove the safety net — it just means you spend your revisions on refinements instead of starting over. When you are ready, browse the figures or read how it works first.