One of the features at Portrait Adoption is the Submitted Description service. Someone seeking a portrait of their character - for a story, or a game, or even a fantasized portrait of themselves - inputs a character description which is shared with the Portrait Adoption artists. Any artist who wishes to may take a stab at creating a portrait for it. Sometimes, none of them are quite right. Sometimes, more than one is just perfect! The gamer or writer may select as many or as few as they wish to adopt. This monthly feature of EMG-Zine highlights one of the descriptions and shows off some of the artwork created for it, with permission of the customer and the artists.

For our phoenix-themed issue, it seemed natural to explore a fire character. Crackle is a slight, sweet-natured fire mephling, role-played in a modern/fantasy platform.

Crackle by Eden Celeste
Character Name: Crackle

Setting: Fantasy/Modern

Gender: Female

Age: Middle to late teens

Race: Fire Mephling

Hair: Reddish-black, fairytale curls.

Eyes: Amber, almond-shaped, a bit large

Skin: Reddish-bronze

Face shape: Heart-shaped, sharp features, high cheekbones

Build: Slim, slight

Camilla writes: As dusk fast becoming night, her jet-black hair is tinged by a vivid red. Arranged in a low ponytail, then folded into a loose knot, diamond hairpins sparkle like the slowly appearing stars. When her mane is so restrained, naught hides her ears, which elongate into elfin points. Her forehead is adorned by a moonstone, the gemstone perched between her little horns and daintily arched brows at her ajna. Satiny flesh adopts a brazen red color, a copper-colored frame for a pair of luminous amber eyes draped with a heavy curtain of delicately curling, long black lashes. An aquiline nose and high cheekbones give her face a refined look, tender lips lending themselves to expressiveness, albeit they seem more naturally curled in a soft smile. These delicious tiers do little, however, to soothe the sharpness of her chin.

Her clothing is beautiful and exotic, but not more than the art inked on the canvas of her warm skin. An ornate, short-sleeved choli hued as a pastel dawn decorated by crystals and gold and green beads supports her small bust, leaving nothing of its form to the imagination, although cleavage is just hinted at, unrevealed by the scoop neck. Above her heart, at the very top of her left breast, a lover's knot is darkly painted. On her arms, the blouse is tight, an asymmetrical hem ending above the meager musculature of her biceps. Her sinewy forearms finish in fragile wrists, in their turn flattening into slender hands. She wears a multitude of bangles and bracelets of various metals and stones. Long fingernails are manicured and round, but lacquered only with clear polish. Bared, her belly is toned, the dip of her navel pierced by a simple gold hoop. Her crinkly, flaring ghaghra skirt loosely clasps her narrow hips and the swell of her buttocks, similar to her top in its working. Not a lot of her tiny feet are visible, though the jingling of bells accompanies her movement.