Most of my friends and especially my cousins really care little about creating their own character and find that the Default Shepard is fine.

My question to you is, what makes you want to make your own Shepard, what guides the choices you make, male or female Shep?

I personally am a full paragon Male Shepard.

First Playthrough: Male Paragon that looks like me

Second Playthrough: Female Renegade that looks like her

EDIT: Oh, you asked why. First playthrough is my "true" or canonical playthrough where I try to be the traditional hero. I make him look like me so that I feel a more significant connection to the character. Second playthrough is to experience everything else so opposite gender and opposite choices.

ShepLOO

ALL DAY. EVERY DAMN DAY. THAT FACE IS THE FACE OF A GOD.

Multiple playthroughs. I didn't want to see the same face for 2 different runs through. I made a dude, a chick, and used the default dude for my 3 playthroughs, because I wanted to see the different outcomes of different choices. And I also wanted to try out some different classes.

I tried to make my own but they all look awful. I just played with the default male.

I tried making my Shepard after myself, but he ended up looking kinda different. Nonetheless I got attached to the look after the first game. The choices I make are all based on how I feel about the situation, I don't try to roll pure paragon or renegade. I could be paragon all the way to a point, and decide 'fuck this guy' and renegade interrupt a dude out a window.
 
Decisions are much more satisfying that way, regardless of outcome. Most of the time at least (sometimes the dialogue wheel keyword fucks me over).

I like making my own character.

I find that no matter what you did with the character editor, especially for FemShep, it was really hard to deviate from the stock template.

Mine essentially looks like @StarvingGamer's. Renegade, coloring and all.

For my male character, I just used the default, because I was too lazy.

@TheHT said:

I tried making my Shepard after myself, but he ended up looking kinda different. Nonetheless I got attached to the look after the first game. The choices I make are all based on how I feel about the situation, I don't try to roll pure paragon or renegade. I could be paragon all the way to a point, and decide 'fuck this guy' and renegade interrupt a dude out a window. Decisions are much more satisfying that way, regardless of outcome. Most of the time at least (sometimes the dialogue wheel keyword fucks me over).

Interesting, how did the crew mate arguments work out for you in 2? e.g Legion and Tali

I always make my own Shep .... also 5 of the 6 classes are female :P only my renegade adept is male (and is not even my main Shep) ... I dunno I like having my hand on making things , being an artist and all so perhaps that is why I love characters creators , altho unfortunately Mass Effect one isnt as good as some but I still manage to make Shepards that I like , altho making the male Shepard was the easiest of the set. My main Shepard is female paragade , I always go with what I feel the cituation demands , usually I end up killing the bad guys if I can , but I always give a helping hand when needed. As for the rest well , my Adept Shepard is all the way renegade , the engineer Shep is a paragon , and the rest are again mid ground.

I've used the same created femshep for all the games and I switch between playthroughs for my maleshep between default and created. This website is also really cool

For everyone who plays as FemShep, why?

@TheHT said:

I tried making my Shepard after myself, but he ended up looking kinda different. Nonetheless I got attached to the look after the first game. The choices I make are all based on how I feel about the situation, I don't try to roll pure paragon or renegade. I could be paragon all the way to a point, and decide 'fuck this guy' and renegade interrupt a dude out a window. Decisions are much more satisfying that way, regardless of outcome. Most of the time at least (sometimes the dialogue wheel keyword fucks me over).

Interesting, how did the crew mate arguments work out for you in 2? e.g Legion and Tali

@mcderby4: All the adverts I see are male shepard. Even the boxart is male shepard. So for me male shepard will always look like the default. so i play femshep as I can make her my shepard. Also I prefer the voice acting.

I created a female paragon, female renegade and male inbetween

@mcderby4: I honestly never thought about it until you asked. I never used the default male Shepard and in every game I can create my own character I never use a default. Now that i have to think about I just like creating myself and I also like to see a black dude as the hero of the story for a change and you usually don't get that in video games. Only beef I have with the Mass Effect character creator is the hair. I don't know what it is it's just something about it seems real fucked up. Like my characters hair wouldn't look like that at all and he is wearing a plastic hair helmet. I usually have braids most of the time and I understand Shepard is in the military so only a few hairstyles would be accepted but damn even skin fade looks fucked up.

@mcderby4 said:

For everyone who plays as FemShep, why?

I like girls ... I like watching girls kick ass (lots of storng women in my family) and I wish I had a girlfriend .... girls are beautifull and I hate men , yeah not the most eloquent answer but that is it.

@mcderby4: I play FemShep because Jennifer Hale is a much, much better voiceactor than Meer. Also, not many games feature female protagonists, especially military ones, so that makes it more interesting to me.

Also, that ass.

I strongly believe that if you aren't using default Shep your doing something really wrong

@TheHT said:

@Dylabaloo said:

@TheHT said:

I tried making my Shepard after myself, but he ended up looking kinda different. Nonetheless I got attached to the look after the first game. The choices I make are all based on how I feel about the situation, I don't try to roll pure paragon or renegade. I could be paragon all the way to a point, and decide 'fuck this guy' and renegade interrupt a dude out a window. Decisions are much more satisfying that way, regardless of outcome. Most of the time at least (sometimes the dialogue wheel keyword fucks me over).

Interesting, how did the crew mate arguments work out for you in 2? e.g Legion and Tali

I tried to maintain diplomacy on the Normandy between all crewmates. Tali and Legion are probably the two most interesting characters though, so I definitely tried to defuse that situation. I don't recall any argument being so crazy that I sided with one over another, but there probably was one or two. Miranda being annoying sticks out in my mind. But then you'd just go visit them alone and get them back to being all chummy chummy. And as far as arguments with the Illusive man went (notably toward the end of the game), I was more concerned with destroying everything Reaper-related rather than maintaining his interests, if you know what I mean.

I was interested in doing a playthrough like yours but I figured that I wouldn't have enough paragon/renegade points to keep the characters I liked alive. Guess I should have mixed it up more.

@Tomkang: @DeShawn2ks: @Aetheldod: @Dezztroy: Never thought of it that way. I got the impression that some guys were just horny and wanted to see extremely curvy women, but I was proven wrong and by multiple people.

I personally like the voice acting for Male Shepard, but the only problem I've had with character creation for males is the lack of different face structures and the hair. I was a little more impressed with what I saw in the demo but the skin tone seemed...lighter than usual?

@mcderby4: I also like the voice acting for the male Shepard. As for the skin tone I noticed something was a little off with the skin tone also. I tried making my previous Shepard but when I got to the skin tone it was either to light or to dark. Makes me wonder what my Shepard is going to look like when I pull him over when I get the game. This is is a little off topic but did anyone see the new pic they took from The Walking Dead season 2 poster? Guess there will be a new CG minute trailer during the show. I think it looks pretty cool but I also feel real bad for the one Reaper who job it was to destroy farm houses in rural areas. Oh well I got my new desktop wallpaper

@DeShawn2ks said:

@mcderby4: I also like the voice acting for the male Shepard. As for the skin tone I noticed something was a little off with the skin tone also. I tried making my previous Shepard but when I got to the skin tone it was either to light or to dark. Makes me wonder what my Shepard is going to look like when I pull him over when I get the game. This is is a little off topic but did anyone see the new pic they took from The Walking Dead season 2 poster? Guess there will be a new CG minute trailer during the show. I think it looks pretty cool but I also feel real bad for the one Reaper who job it was to destroy farm houses in rural areas. Oh well I got my new desktop wallpaper

That looks wicked! Makes for an excellent Wallpaper! Yeah I had that same issue, but I really liked one of the new hairstyles for the MaleShep so I might edit my Shepard to have that new hair and maybe thin his neck out :P

I've never liked the custom created faces, they all look like custom created faces where as the default male shep looks like it's on another level as far as facial detailing and character goes. So for the first game and my first playthrough of the second game I played as that male shep. After a second playthrough with a female shepard in ME2 though I became attached a lot more to that and going back to a male shep felt weird, the voice didn't seem to fit the face or the situation anymore and he seems way too snarky and distant from the conversations he's in. Female shep has similar issues for me but not as drastic.

I dig the focus on female shep default face in ME3(I actually like all those concept arts for the new femshep and wish they kept them all, I could have sworn they said they would be presets in me3 but they ain't in the demo from what I can tell) and like the further character given to it, my only gripe is that when looking at the custom faces for the female they revert back to the old weird looking faces. I'd rather have the chance to work from the new female face and change it slightly instead of have to build from the weird presets. I assume users will grab the exact face code for the new default female shep and then I can plug that in and use it as a custom face with 'maybe' some tweaks, or maybe some light hacking will achieve the same results.

I realize that maybe it should feel weird to me to have begun my Mass Effect experience as a man, and now will be going into ME3 with as a Female but honestly I rarely think of ME1 at all these days and what I do think about from ME2 is mostly just general feelings of some moments since I played so much with both genders, the few moments I do remember of a gender in ME2 were that of the fem shep though, I think in some of the DLC.

@TheHT said:

@Dylabaloo said:

@TheHT said:

I tried making my Shepard after myself, but he ended up looking kinda different. Nonetheless I got attached to the look after the first game. The choices I make are all based on how I feel about the situation, I don't try to roll pure paragon or renegade. I could be paragon all the way to a point, and decide 'fuck this guy' and renegade interrupt a dude out a window. Decisions are much more satisfying that way, regardless of outcome. Most of the time at least (sometimes the dialogue wheel keyword fucks me over).

Interesting, how did the crew mate arguments work out for you in 2? e.g Legion and Tali

I tried to maintain diplomacy on the Normandy between all crewmates. Tali and Legion are probably the two most interesting characters though, so I definitely tried to defuse that situation. I don't recall any argument being so crazy that I sided with one over another, but there probably was one or two. Miranda being annoying sticks out in my mind. But then you'd just go visit them alone and get them back to being all chummy chummy. And as far as arguments with the Illusive man went (notably toward the end of the game), I was more concerned with destroying everything Reaper-related rather than maintaining his interests, if you know what I mean.

I was interested in doing a playthrough like yours but I figured that I wouldn't have enough paragon/renegade points to keep the characters I liked alive. Guess I should have mixed it up more.

@DJJoeJoe: Honestly from my perspective, the in-game FemShep looks nothing like the concept art.

Male Shep - Default

Female Shep - Custom code from masseffect2faces.com

Why? Because none of the male faces look nearly as good as default but people have made some far better looking femSheps.

@wsowen02 said:

Male Shep - Default

Female Shep - Custom code from masseffect2faces.com

Why? Because none of the male faces look nearly as good as default but people have made some far better looking femSheps.

Hmm, I see, I personally find the custom faces for the male fine. I find that the character creation screen makes the face look strange, but it looks much better in-game to me. It also helps me connect better to the character since I know I created him. I find it weird hearing Default Shep repeat the same things lol.

On my first time through Mass Effect 2, I made a custom male Shepard, using the same set of criteria I do every time I make a custom character: AS UGLY AS POSSIBLE. In that respect, I feel I succeeded with flying colors. I don't have any images to share, but I feel confident in my assessment of my initial Shepard as looking a lot like Edward James Olmos with some serious radiation burns. I felt it fit in with the story, seeing as he was basically resurrected and rebuilt, so I thought he should look like he might have spent a lot of time being fed with tubes. Also, seeing my hook-nosed, sunken-eyed, stubble-chinned Shepard make with the sexy time never failed to make me laugh. Cringe a little, too, but mostly laugh.

My second playthrough was full Paragon, vanilla Shepard. I think I ended up liking that the best. It was on my second time through that I got the 'everyone's alive, let's party like the end of a CHiPs episode' ending as well, so that's the Shepard I'll be taking into part 3. Honestly, I think I spend more time thinking up a good first name to give my Shepard than I do about what he looks like. Default Shepard looks a hell of a lot better (or, at least, more believably human) than anything I can do with umpteen slide bars. But a good first name... Those are hard to come by. I probably idled at the screen for a good five minutes before coming up with anything good. But come March, I'll be happy finishing the fight with Commander Dick Shepard.

Catherine Shepard is Irish, green eyed, has red hair cut into a butch lesbian mop, thin lips, strong chin, and very slight cheekbones. 
 
Samantha Shepard has dark mocha skin, with large sympathetic eyebrows, wide jaw, and large brown eyes... and formerly a scar over her lip.
 
German Shepard is a biracial dude with big lips, asian eyefolds, strong lantern jaw and stubble.
 
Def Shepard is Barack Obama.
 
 
And I don't just go "this character is full Paragon" or "this character switches from choice to choice".  Catherine Shepard is the unrepentant Butcher of Torfan, accepts absolutely no interference in accomplishing her mission, runs the Normandy military, and is generally a complete hardcase.  However, she will defend the innocent, help those in need, and punish the wicked.  She respects the krogan for their bluntness, and it feels like she's the reason her friend Garrus and lover Liara all amped up the ruthlessness in her absence.  Joker thinks she's a drag, but she still respects him as a pilot.  I feel like you need to come up with some rules about their personality, and not just hit up or down.

@Aetheldod said:

@mcderby4 said:

For everyone who plays as FemShep, why?

I like girls

thats why for me, F*** i am going to spend time on a character creator to look at a man.

doesn't make sense to me.

@stinky said:

@Aetheldod said:

@mcderby4 said:

For everyone who plays as FemShep, why?

I like girls

thats why for me, F*** i am going to spend time on a character creator to look at a man.

doesn't make sense to me.

Personally, I choose a man because I am a man, and it helps solidify the notion that I could experience this.

Not a fan of playing a woman character in any game, nothing against it though.

@Aus_azn: For Femshep, sure. Male Shepards couldn't get anywhere near the template unless they chose the default appearance.

I tried to make a guy that looks like me. It's alright.

@H2Oyea: Pretty cool, I can see you spent some time adjusting facial features. Props mate.

@Aetheldod said:

@mcderby4 said:

For everyone who plays as FemShep, why?

I like girls ... I like watching girls kick ass (lots of storng women in my family) and I wish I had a girlfriend .... girls are beautifull and I hate men , yeah not the most eloquent answer but that is it.

All of these are perfectly valid reasons and have no relation to the gamer go-to of "hurr durr I want to stare at a female ass for 30 hours." Bravo.

I like character creation. I have my own personal tastes of what defines a "heroic" protagonist, and that usually involves a square jaw with a Clint Eastwood stare. Character Creation allows me to create the ideal "hero" version of myself. I would say blame comic books, but eh, I like it. It feels like I'm using my imagination to create an avatar that I can bond with and inhabit, personalizing the story. Because I veered from the default look, I don't have an identity dissonance with Shepard. Garrus is my friend, Wrex is my bruiser. Ashley dumped me on Horizon. The major thing I've noticed between people who go default and those who create is that the Sheploo users often view it as the Adventures of Commander Shepard, and not their own adventures.

It also helps the default name of Shepard is John. Which is mine. So that's awesome, too.

Edit: decided to post an example of my ideal "hero" type. It is jarring as hell to see other versions of Shepard.

@Oldirtybearon said:

@Aetheldod said:

@mcderby4 said:

For everyone who plays as FemShep, why?

I like girls ... I like watching girls kick ass (lots of storng women in my family) and I wish I had a girlfriend .... girls are beautifull and I hate men , yeah not the most eloquent answer but that is it.

All of these are perfectly valid reasons and have no relation to the gamer go-to of "hurr durr I want to stare at a female ass for 30 hours." Bravo.

I like character creation. I have my own personal tastes of what defines a "heroic" protagonist, and that usually involves a square jaw with a Clint Eastwood stare. Character Creation allows me to create the ideal "hero" version of myself. I would say blame comic books, but eh, I like it. It feels like I'm using my imagination to create an avatar that I can bond with and inhabit, personalizing the story. Because I veered from the default look, I don't have an identity dissonance with Shepard. Garrus is my friend, Wrex is my bruiser. Ashley dumped me on Horizon. The major thing I've noticed between people who go default and those who create is that the Sheploo users often view it as the Adventures of Commander Shepard, and not their own adventures.

It also helps the default name of Shepard is John. Which is mine. So that's awesome, too.

Edit: decided to post an example of my ideal "hero" type. It is jarring as hell to see other versions of Shepard.

Excellently put bro! You stole the words out of my mouth. Creating that iconic hero version of yourself and playing out the most epic adventure. You just can't do that as a female character, at least I can't experience that. Best answer I've seen so far.

@TheHT said:

I tried making my Shepard after myself, but he ended up looking kinda different. Nonetheless I got attached to the look after the first game. The choices I make are all based on how I feel about the situation, I don't try to roll pure paragon or renegade. I could be paragon all the way to a point, and decide 'fuck this guy' and renegade interrupt a dude out a window. Decisions are much more satisfying that way, regardless of outcome. Most of the time at least (sometimes the dialogue wheel keyword fucks me over).

That's pretty much how I play I tried to not contradict myself (Shepard) , when Mordin explained to me why the genohpage was good for the Krogans and the universe , I did not question him when doing his loayalty mission even when they make it really hard and give you like 2 more options just to say to him how the genophage or "genocide" is wrong, somehow that's is consider a renegade choice, I also don't get involved in other peoples business that kid on Omega wants to be a merc? whatever I'm on a mission too bad he died, if the situations alows me to help someone then I'll do it that's why my morality meter is half renegade/paragon but always with a bit more on the renegade, I feel that makes the experience so much better when you can't make the "right" but the one the situation calls for, the decisions carry so much weight playing that way. I leave the full paragon/regenade playtroughs for other characters (lady Shepard and default Shepard).