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I am not remotely normal about these two

Jack belongs to @zeirt

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Reblog if you’re OK with people sending you asks about your OCs, ‘sonas or even about yourself

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Some Leons from this post - I figured I'd post them standalone as they're all the way at the bottom of the post and I really like how they came out!

Left is Leon in their early 20s, and right is ... A lot older than you might think, that's for sure.

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Alright, lets talk about Leon's design

As mentioned in a previous post, I find the progress of my OC Leon’s design very interesting, as they have been a character I’ve been consistently using for the past 7 years. Because of that, I thought it might be interesting to share these insights with everyone else. So that's what this post is about!

It should be noted that although Leon is a character I’ve had since 2014, I’m going to be focusing on 2017 and onwards, as their concept before this could practically be considered a separate entity. 

Initial concept

Leon was originally made for a 1920s horror roleplay group, and his concept was to create an antagonistic character who would eventually be killed off. When I made the previous post discussing Leon’s design, I said the following:

I don't entirely know what my inspiration for them was at the time (I think I just wanted them to look sophisticated, British, and ocean-themed??)

Although it is true I don’t fully know what my inspiration was, I think those words also give the impression that I didn’t know what I was going for at all, and that isn’t the case either. Rather, a better description of what I was trying to achieve with the design is simple, and the amount of initial thinking I did doesn’t compare to the work I put into his character later on. 

His design could easily be boiled down to 3 words; Gentleman serial killer. He was supposed to look composed and charming but with something darker brewing under the surface. I gave him a tailored 3-piece suit to make him seem put-together, and gloves to make him seem clinical, as if to create a barrier between him and other people. I made him tall for the intimidation factor, and although his body type was described as lanky, I struggled to show that within the limitations of my work at the time.

Leon wasn't meant to last long in this setting at all - I had planned for him to be a pretty one-note villain who was meant to be killed off pretty quickly. But plans changed, and Leon ended up pivoting to becoming my main PC for a time. 

2018-2021

Adapting Leon to being my primary PC meant I also had to change things, as there were several things about Leon’s design that didn’t work with my art style at the time - Primarily, his hair.

(some examples of Leon’s hair from 2018)

It was meant to be messy, wavy and slicked back, which did achieve the vibe I was hoping for, but I didn’t know how to draw it properly.

(2018 vs 2024)

This still bothered me at the time though, so I started experimenting with different hairstyles. Eventually, I settled on a voluminous, wavy haircut with a tousled fringe and tapered sides.

This was also to give Leon a more youthful appearance, as Leon despite their greys was supposed to be in their late 20s. (Their age is more ambiguous now due to character lore, but they retain the grays.) 

2021-2023

Leon’s design stayed mostly consistent after this point, even as I used them for various other projects, but I did start to make little tweaks to their design, as I got a better handle on the fundamentals. I started defining Leon’s hair better and drawing it more consistently, and by 2021 I have what I’d consider the basis for Leon’s current design.

By this point, Leon had pivoted entirely from the concept of ‘gentleman serial killer’, as it didn’t fit with most places I wanted to use them, especially if I wanted to play them as a good guy - And so their backstory was entirely reworked from the ground up to be a little more fitting the direction I was taking them in.

But changing their foundation also meant changing their design. 

Because of this, I tried to give them a more approachable appearance and demeanor, and I opted to dress them in lighter colors to also reflect this change. It’s also around this time I depicting them a camera - Leon was always written to be naturally curious, but I wanted to add more facets to the character that made them seem interested in the world around them. This is also reflected in other works from the time where they're depicted, which often emphasize travel.

Then, in 2022, I started experiencing increasing dissatisfaction with their design. I think this could be attributed to a variety of factors, but most of all themes of queerness surfacing for the character. 

Since mid-2019, I had been playing around with the idea that Leon wasn’t cisgender. I wasn’t entirely sure how I wanted that to be expressed for the character (I played around with labels such as androgynous, demi-guy, etc.) but eventually settled on genderfluid, as that felt most fitting to how the character themselves felt about their gender expression. I experimented with various looks and styles, for the most part settling on a shoulder-length haircut, and retro 1970s suits to match.

(It's... Different, that's for sure!)

I admittedly liked the style and the change in fashion, but I consistently returned to the hairstyle they originally had because the hairstyle was difficult for me to draw and often did not fit their remaining wardrobe the same way their old hair had. I continued to experiment with their looks into 2023, but I still struggled to settle on a look. It wasn’t until the end of 2023 that I decided to scrap most of these concepts and decided to return to their 2021 design.

2024

Reverting to Leon’s old design still left much to be desired, however. I was sad because I had a lot of concepts for the character that I wanted to explore, but no proper way to encompass them into a full character.

It turned out that this wasn’t true at all. I just needed to lay the foundation for the character a bit differently. As an off-hand idea, a few friends suggested that I try adapting Leon to the World of Darkness universe, as I had began to have a budding interest in the universe. Applying the concepts I had for Leon into one linear story rather than concepts out of sequence, allowed me to put them into place in a way that allowed the concepts to all be present throughout a journey instead of being present from the get-go. 

This leads me to Leon’s current design.

Leon can be depicted in a myriad of different ways, as their design is meant to encompass a journey - One of self-discovery, transition, and self-acceptance in a time where they barely have words for what or who they are. It’s difficult to entirely nail down a design for how they dress, but I think it’s fun that I can use the excuse to dress them up.

There is a common thread in most of their depictions though. They retain the voluminous, wavy haircut and their round glasses, and I make a point not to change their build regardless of what they’re wearing. I think it's much more interesting how the right cuts and clothes can change a character, and at this stage, I’m incredibly happy with their design and the versatility it gives me.

Conclusion

Do I have a way to really conclude this? Not particularly. I just think it's cool to see how far the character has come given their origin. From a character meant to be killed off to one of my dearest OCs is a massive progression, and I think it's interesting how much they have changed, and how much has stuck around despite these changes. It makes me ecxited for what they might look like in another 5 years!

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I've been slowly chipping away at writing a little post about Leon's design and how their looks have evolved in the past few years (2024 is especially interesting for me ngl), and as part of that I decided to draw their old design from 2017 (With color tweaks that fits their current design.)

Ngl they're kinda... 😳😳😳

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Thinking of all my pretty sketches of Leon - I should draw them with their tentacles out more.

A compilation of drawings featuring my OC Leon (They/He/She). Most of these were drawn somewhere between Mid-2023 - Mid-2024!

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Ok back to regularly scheduled kindred and mage kissing

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Discussing Leon's 2017 design in this post also reminded me of this meme edit I made last year.

I'm so proud of how much I've improved and I love my sweet baby very very much but... Oh boy...

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I have finally found a face claim for Leon.

Ecxept, not really.

But if I had seen this in 2017, it probably would have been!

For context for my tiny audience: I sometimes refer to the fact that a lot of the OCs I make are very old characters of mine (a majority of the ones I currently use were originally created between 2014-2019) - Leon, who is one of them, used to look... Well...

... They sure looked like something. I don't entirely know what my inspiration for them were at the time (I think I just wanted them to look sophisticated, british, and ocean themed??), and it took me almost a year and a half after designing them to nail down their design proper.

However, today browsing pinterest I came across this picture of Tom Hiddleston in the 2007 production of Cymbeline, and honestly:

I think if I had seen these photos back then, it would have been loads easier to explain what I was going for with the character design back then. Which is nice, it gives me a sense of insight into how I wanted to portray my character at the time, even if that isn't reflective of how Leon is portrayed now.

As a small addendum, looking at the way I draw Leon now versus when they debuted with their old design is honestly crazy. I am very proud of the ways my art has improved, but Leon's character development has been especially fun for me to follow.

Maybe I'll write a seperate post about that at some point if anyone's interested.

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I recently got a new laptop (My last one was on its last legs), and it came with a touch screen and a stylus. Getting used to the new setup has been a learning curve, but oh boy I sure am enjoying the flexibility it gives me to work on art in other places.

Currently I'm very obsessed with drawing @zeirt's OC Jack and my character Solveig so ive been testing it using them for the most part

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A massive assortment of drawings I've sketched for a roleplay group I'm in, all drawn within the last year. Some of them you may have seen before as I've posted them individually here prior, but I genuinely can't be bothered to remove those from the sketchdumps, so you get them again! We're in the middle of the big finale and I'm very ecxited how the end pans out.

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I am simply not normal about these two (Viktor and Jack belong to @zeirt )

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I wish I had a caption for this, but I just am like... Weak for my stupidly pretty sabbat girl

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I realize I also don't really talk a lot about the process behind my illustrations from a technical standpoint either, so I figured I'd do that this time!

Part of the reason I wanted to make this illustration was to attempt an old technique I tried out for a piece I drew in 2022, where I used gradient maps and layer masks to color it. (This one to be exact.)

To start I looked for inspiration. Leon and Viktor have this very old-timey classic vibe about them which I purposefully lean into, so I ended up looking at these Leydendecker pieces for inspiration:

As you can see, here's the process for that:

I think overall it worked really well for the piece, and I found that this technique allowed me to color faster and focus more on the lights in the pieces. That said, I don't know how well it would work for pieces where the color palette is a lot more varied, and I would have to test that.

I realized I haven't made a rendered piece since July, and decided that was a real shame! so I decided to make one featuring Leon and Viktor ( Viktor belongs to @zeirt )

Viktor is by all accounts a very scary man. To Leon though... well, fear is most definitely the last thing on their mind when he holds them.

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I realized I haven't made a rendered piece since July, and decided that was a real shame! so I decided to make one featuring Leon and Viktor ( Viktor belongs to @zeirt )

Viktor is by all accounts a very scary man. To Leon though... well, fear is most definitely the last thing on their mind when he holds them.

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Working on my first full color render illustration since July/august - I forgot how much I missed working on fully shading a piece

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More Nightshade. The outfit on the left is based on a mannequin I saw at the mall - I think she sometimes wishes she could dress that way in her day to day, but her work doesn't allow her to do that unless she wants said fit covered in blood and dirt 😔