Help:Character Images

= Character Images = A Character Image is any image that exemplifies a particular character's appearance. We use them to help you identify a character by that appearance, wherever you can spot them. So, ideally, they will be clear representations, ideally iconic images that show as much of the character as possible so that they are easily recognizable.

Interiors vs. Exteriors
Before we get started, we need to make a distinction between interior character images, which is what this page describes, and Textless Cover Images. This page will tell you how to properly fill out the image template for an image from the interior of a comic book, whether it be a single panel, a full page spread, or a short series of panels (and also, character images from video games, movies, and TV). What we call Textless Cover Images are the art used for the cover of a comic book, before it's covered in logos and bar codes and the like. There is a separate tutorial for filling out the image template for textless cover images here.

While we tend to favour Textless Covers for use as primary character images on our character pages, there are thousands of characters who don't make it to the cover, TV doesn't have textless covers, vand our character galleries could always stand to have another great and iconic image or thirty that showcase the abilities of DC's interior artists.

Apart from a few key differences, we treat interior character images very much like we do textless covers, indicating all of the artists involved - including the letterers, all of the characters who appear, and the issues from which they come. While a Textless Cover can certainly be listed as a Character Image, a Textless Cover is never going to be an interior image, and will therefore not use any of the licenses listed further down this page.

Currently we have  in the Character Images category on the DC Database.

In order to contribute your own, you will have to use our Image Template. As described here, the template covers our butts legally and provides useful info about the creators of the image and where the image came from. Unfortunately, it's not as simple as just filling the thing out as you might dream it should be filled out. Because of the awesome and terrible power of Category Magic, you have to be aware of what should be filled out when and how in specific cases.

So, let's look at how to fill it out, field by field, for this specific case: Character images.

The Fields
These are the only fields you ought to use when filling out the template for a Character Image:

I have filled out the license with the most common one for interior character images - and that's "Comic Single Panel."

Naming Conventions and File Type
Before we get into the template itself, it's worth going over how you ought to be naming your images, because that's pretty important, for consistency's sake.

Interior character images use the naming standards laid out in our naming conventions guidelines. In the example case on this page, the character shown is Batman. We use the format of "Primary Image Subject ####" where the number indicates the next available incremental number since the most recent uploaded image of that character. That number must also be 4 digits long, to ensure that we don't run out of numbers for our images. So, in this case your image would, ostensibly, be named Batman 0347, given that it is the 347th image of this particular Batman following that naming convention. It's important, though, in cases of characters who exist in multiple continuities to be aware of earth designation. As such, an image of Black Canary from the Prime Earth universe is named like this:.

As for file type, things get complicated for us when any image isn't a JPEG, which uses the *.jpg file extension. PNG files are great for logo images because of their transparent backgrounds, but because JPEG is the most commonly used file type on the internet, it is also the most conveniently manageable for character images (and pretty much everything but logos).

In some cases, we have to replace images that have been uploaded for quality, size, or other reasons and if the file type of the original differs from the replacement, things get... enraging.

So! In the end, for the example, the file name should be Batman 0347.jpg.

License & ImageType
As explained here the License field is how we cover our butts. Thanks to Category Magic, filling out the license field adds it to an associated category for images of that license. For example, entering "Comic Single Panel" adds the image to Fair Use (Comic Single Panels).

The example image on this page is an interior image, and given that it takes up the entire page, it still qualifies as a single panel, so we would use the "comic single panel" license for it. There are, however, other licenses that might apply in other cases:
 * Comic Single Panel - single panels from the interior of comic books.
 * Comic Scene - a scene or series of images from a comic book, rather than a single panel.
 * Videogame Screenshot - an image of a character taken from a videogame screenshot.
 * Movie Screenshot - an image of a character taken from a movie screenshot.
 * TV Screenshot - an image of a character taken from a television screenshot.
 * Promotional Materials - material released by a publisher or production company that is associated with the product, but not part of it (posters, promotional images, concept art, etc.)

In addition to listing the image license as one of the above (under Fair Use, blah blah blah), we have to specify what type of image it is with the ImageType field.

As this is a character image, we use the word "Character" to distinguish it from things like Location images or Item images.

The default "empty syntax" for the template includes "ImageType2" as a field, and in the case of interior Character images, this should typically go unused. However, it should be noted that this field primarily exists so that if the image is a Textless Cover Image, it can also be categorized as a Character image. This is further explained on the Textless Cover Image Help Page.

Description
Again, as explained here, the Description field is used for one thing here, and that is using FairJust to explain the purpose for the image in the context of our wiki, which is meant to be demonstrative and educational.

Let's take a look at the text that pops up with FairJust:


 * "Used for purposes of illustration in an educational article about the entity represented by the image. The image is used as a means of visual identification of this article topic. As the subject is protected by trademark or copyright, a free use alternative does not exist."

So, what is the "entity represented by the image" in a character image? As a character image the the entity represented by that image is the character in question. So, we wrap the FairJust template around the simplest name for a character (which turns out to be either a disambig or a redirect, in most cases), and that will cover all our uses for it.

And, for convenience, F redirects to FairJust. And because the example image here is an image of Batman, we can just do this:

Which looks like this:



Remember, though, FairJust will redlink if your article doesn't exist. (Which isn't necessarily a bad thing.).

One additional note on this. If you add a pipe (one of these "|") to the FairJust template, you can add two additional subjects. This is helpful in the case of duos like Batman and Robin. In that case, you would fill it out like this: Which looks like this:

Issue, Game, Movie, or Episode
In every case, the Source field should not be filled out on an interior character image, except in cases where you feel the need to link back to the web source for the image. This leaves the Issue field to link back to the issue the character image comes from. If the image is a screenshot from TV or a videogame, etc, then there are optional associated fields to replace the issue field. These are:
 * Game (for videogames)
 * Movie (for movies)
 * Episode (for TV episodes)

To do fill these fields out, you enter the pagename of the comic, game, movie, or tv show that the character image comes from. Fortunately, the Issue field is fitted with the Comic Naming Standardization Template - C - which means that if you don't type in the article name exactly it may be able to fix it for you. The other fields are... not quite as accommodating.

So, the appropriate sourcing field in the case of the example image would look like this:

| Issue                = Batman Vol 1 618

Category Magic Alert! The Issue field automatically adds your image to the associated volume and issue image categories. The Source field does not, and that is why we use the Issue field (or appropriate) for character images. In the example case, the image would go into Category:Batman Vol 1 618/Images and Category:Batman Vol 1/Images.

Under no circumstance should you fill out both the Source and Issue fields. For a while that was the standard, and now it isn't. If you see it, fix it.

Universe / Subject
For a Character Image and almost every other image, we fill out these fields with the universe and subject for the image, as explained here.

Credits
For an interior character image (and indeed, textless covers too), we list all of the people who worked on the cover - that's penciler(s), inker(s), colourist(s), and letterer(s) for interiors - under their appropriate job title. As such, the process for filling out a character image's credits mirrors those laid out here.

Sometimes (mostly for colourists and letterers) that information was not printed in the interior credits of older comic books. If you happen to have a source that can indicate who did what on which books (and images), and we don't have that information on our comic pages, please include that source in an editor's comment wherever you use it.

You can add more fields as needed by adding them on a new line. You will not likely need more than five, and rarely more than three.

For the example image on this page, the penciler is Jim Lee, the Inker is Scott Williams, the colourist is Alex Sinclair, and the letterer is Richard Starkings So, you would input this:


 * Penciler1      = Jim Lee
 * Inker1         = Scott Williams
 * Colourist1     = Alex Sinclair
 * Letterer1      = Richard Starkings

If there are no word balloons or captions in the panel or on the page in question, there is no need to fill out the letterer credit. If the book is in black and white, simply type "None" in the Colourist field.

The Category Magic that this field uses automatically adds the image to Category:Jim Lee/Penciler Images, and also adds the other artists to their own respective categories.

Notes / Trivia
See this page for an explanation of these fields.

The Completed Template
The completed template for the example on this page (with all unused fields removed, for convenience) would then look like this:

Aside from the potential for additional subjects and credits, these are the only fields that you require when filling out the Image Template on a Character Image.

Related

 * Back to the Image Template Hub
 * Help with Textless Cover Images