#Also a light redesign to this outfit

[laventory]

Black and white sketch of RAC I did to help portray how I deal with contrast value for pure black and white.

[Ko-Fi] - [Art] Coloured alt below.

The first sketch in black and white is the original version of this drawing, I wanted to try and figure out what it'd be like if I tried giving it a coloured edition in a similar vein to what the Scott Pilgrim books did. I didn't do shading since this is also meant to work as a slight reference aswell.

[ophii]

EPIC CHARACTER DESIGNS? ANYONE?

im gonna tag this as greek mythology/the odyssey BECAUSE THESE DESIGNS WERE MADE FOR BOTH EPIC AND THE ODYSSEY/GENERAL MYTHOLOGY !!! DONT YELL AT ME GUYS, I TOO GET ANNOYED WHEN PEOPLE MISTAG EPIC!! obvi the odyssey versions wouldnt have sirenelope or the small outfit change for ody

[dethberrie]

❝ we bury ourselves in each other,      scream, shudder,               shatter. ❞                       — R.N.

twitter | carrd

[zeldas-hair-pins]

Femme Link outfit that’s actually helpful in a desert environment

[eiilese]

what if the strawhats had different roles on the ship⁉️ i swapped everyone’s roles except for luffy because i can’t imagine him being anything but the captain

these are loose redesigns since their canon designs don’t really read as their roles all that much to begin with. some extra doodles and ideas for this in the cut !!

nami, vice captain: i took a lot of inspiration from her beta design!! canon nami already bosses everyone around so she fits right into the role. she wields an extendable staff (usopp still makes it for her); she lost her arm over the time-skip like how zoro lost his eye. i LOVE drawing cargo pants and boots, so she ended up with a sorta bottom-heavy design. frankly it’s probably not her style but i like how she looks

zoro, the cook: my foolproof logic is zoro uses swords = good with knives. he does not use katanas to cut produce however, just normal knives. i was trying to go for “sweaty ramen guy” with the towel around his neck. the majority of the shit he cooks would probably be drowned in alcohol. he also wears his bandana the majority of the time now!! it completes the ramen guy look

sanji, the sniper: i also took inspiration from his beta design for this!!! he has guns!! and perfect aim of course. i was going for more of a mafioso look so germa 66 would be like, a mafia organization on top of all the other villain shit they already do. he has two guns but i didn’t draw a holster bc that’s annoying🤞 he lights his cigarettes with his guns. how would that even work? don’t ask me

usopp, the navigator: his artistic talent lends itself to creating perfect maps! he also still tinkers, making nami’s staff as well as having a specialty for compasses. he uses a slingshot still (no perfect aim we gotta nerf him) and shoots weather-related projectiles. his goggles serve as binoculars, they can zoom to several different distances. i drew him in his zou outfit purely bc it’s my favorite one

chopper, the helmsman: he would predominately use heavy point while maneuvering the wheel. i changed his hat up to look more like a sailor’s cap, with an anchor symbol instead of an X. to be honest i don’t have much else bc helmsman doesn’t bring much to my mind :(

franky, the musician: ROCK N ROLL BABY YEEAHHH come on his stage presence is unmatched. he’s still a cyborg, he has instruments all over his body like apoo does but they were installed manually. his personality changes depending on what genre he’s playing but rock n roll is his default B) (ex. classical calls for a refined gentleman)

robin, the shipwright: her devil fruit gives her as many helpful hands as she needs! she developed nami’s arm (definitely installed some random shit she did Not ask for). she has a robot mecha that she’s able to pilot all by herself using clones. i changed her orange sunglasses to goggle eyewear

brook, the doctor: the irony of being nursed back to health by a literal skeleton 💀the irony of being the doctor of the rumbar pirates yet being the only survivor, saving no one from the poison 💀 i went for a plague doctor look! IM VERY HAPPY WITH HOW HE TURNED OUT i was really tempted to give him the plague mask too, but i feel that would’ve changed his appearance too much compared to the others

jinbei, the archaeologist: the shape of this man demands a little pair of round glasses on his face. he’s an intellectual i tell you!!! plus still a fishman karate master. the history of joyboy and fishman island being so intertwined is how he developed an interest in history

[crystalliumdaisy]

redesigning star dresses part 1!

part 2 and part 3

notes and individual pieces below <3

keep this in mind i love the og stardresses! i just wanted to challenge myself and i’m an inspiring fashion designer!!! my goal was to create dresses that reflect the spirits and u could easily match them up.

these were my initial sketches, i wanted every dress/outfit to have a different colour and silhouette to make them more recognisable.

aries ~

- pink was the obvious choice for a colour. I didn’t want to use any major black like in the og design because aries design is so light and bright!

- i really think the og stardress hair is lacking. A fun fluffy 80s hair adds to the whole sheep aesthetic and creates a different silhouette to other designs.

- the 80s hair also inspired a more 80s look with fluffy legwarmers and big hoop earrings.

- i also wanted to bring in those pink pompoms on the side of aries dress so i made them star shaped and put them in lucy’s hair

taurus ~

- why put her in a bikini if she’s a cowboy??? this haunts me everyday.

- I couldn’t put her in mainly black and white cos that’s virgo i comprised and landed on a brown.

- for inspiration it was pretty obvious to go with a cowboys and the wild west! i always disliked the one leg pants her og design has so i modified it to a cut out.

- her og design was a mix of the aquarius and scorpio one and it always didn’t stand out to me, so i think by exaggerating the cowboy aesthetic it stands out much more.

gemini ~

- her og design is actually one my favs. so i really only made minor changes

- the colours stood out against other dresses and were easily identified as gemini. the dual colour symmetrical dress is a great way to reflect the double spirit.

- Gemini is a pretty symbol spirit so to reflect them i used circular shapes and organic lines. i changed the head piece mainly because i struggled drawing it but i realised it made the design too top heavy anyways.

- i extended the dress width and length mainly for silhouette reasons (she wears so many skin tight dresses) as well as to give a nod to the dresses the alternate geminis wear.

cancer ~

- my issue with cancer star dress isn’t the dress itself. I actually love the dress in the manga. it’s the colour. WHY IS GREEN?!?

- if it weren’t for the symbol i wouldn’t be able to match this dress with cancers design, so it had to change.

- other than that there’s no major differences, the ribbon tie is meant to resemble scissors, i love the claw shape hair ties in the og design so i brought them back and i brought the stripes in cancers top to her bow.

leo ~

- i was inspired by beauty and the beast, in the movie the beast kinda looks like lion.

- i swapped the yellow and black in the og design since it has a pretty similar colour story to virgos dress. The og kinda gets lost next to leo since the black doesn’t have variation and leo is in a deep black too.

- i wanted to make her hair bigger like a lions mane and curled around her face.

[dommnics]

Here's an addition to the previous Mal redesign I posted, just with an extra outfit. This is my take on her coronation dress at the end of the story, fully embracing the red palette that was previously creeping in, now that she's standing in her individuality, away from and opposing her mother.

I wanted her coronation look to have a mix of princess and lightness in there, but not take away the witchiness and villain aesthetic from her. I also gave her a small cape to reflect her hero moment at that point in the story.

These are some images I was looking at for her two looks, going back to some early concepts from Sleeping Beauty (1959):

--

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[checkertrains]

Luci and Adam redesign/my version! 🍎🎸

Here’s the brief explanation n a bit of lore for why i designed them like this! (Warning, it’s basically just me rambling LMAOO)

Lucifer 🍎:

I let him kept the whole angelic aesthetic cause even if he’s a fallen Angel his features didn’t seem to get distorted or turn “demonic” (from what I’ve read anyways), so by that logic he can still be God most beautiful Angel, and it fit too cause Demons are usually more attractive or good looking to lure in people, deceiving people with their good look. He’s also kinda stuck in the past so usually he’ll appear in his heavenly robe or any old school outfits that he deems old enough

Lucifer in my version is more similar to his pilot personality, he’s more king like in this sense! And of course he’s pretty prideful, and is in denial about having Fallen, he still present himself as if he’s a pure Angel and hates having to interact with Sinners, he’s more lenient with hellborns as they are his rightful subjects after all. But yeah, anyone that isn’t him is often meet with nonchalant or cold attitude, he also doesn’t really care about Charlie whole Hotel, he doesn’t support it nor does he hate it. Cause it have nothing to do with him, he does think it’s a little silly and speak to Charlie like she’s still a child essentially. (He still like ducks in my ver heheheh)

Adam 🎸:

I wanted him to have something nature related in his outfit so I gave him some leaf lol, and his fit is changed so that it resembles a priest outfit more than a simple dress, the halo on his neck and hands restricts his powers, like a power dampener (I based them off of Sun Wu Kong headband!), the seraphim uses it to control how he acts, they can also communicate with him through them, commanding him without using too much energy, Words of god kinda thing. These halo can weaken him A LOT like at some point it can even stop him from using powers entirely, it doesn’t hurt him physically. The halo on his head make it so that anyone who look at him will only see a blur, or blurry version of his face

His helmet has three faces, when he’s wearing it he can see from either sides or all of them, it help him counter attacks, his exorcist uniform is just like his normal outfit, just with more gold, the horns on his head emit holy light, stopping any demons n Sinners from looking at him unless they want to lose their sight, he can also use it to gather up energy to shoot out a massive beam that can erase anything in it path. His wings are based on duck wings but more durable, water and blood can’t stick to it which is fantastic for clean up!

[smelt-starverse]

On the Amphibia Timeskip Designs

Hi! I know I normally don't do analysis posts like these, but I got into an interesting conversation (read: infodumped hard to a couple of unsuspecting friends) about the subject on Discord earlier and I felt like it might be enjoyed by you all. Anyways, to begin...

I think the best place to start is Marcy. The thing that jumps out to me about her new design the most to me is her color scheme.

Across the board, everything is brighter and more saturated. Her dark blue coat has been swapped for a bright blue jacket, her dull green skirt has been traded for some vibrant green pants, her shirt has gone from a light gray to an off-white, and her debatably brown boots have been replaced with light brown, almost orange shoes.

Through the entire series, her hair is neat, properly combed (when not messed up by water or helmet-hair, anyways), and it's got this layer of gloss to it. It's a pretty innocuous set of details...

...but I think the picture comes together better when we compare it to her hair in the finale. It's less neat, it's messy in places, but it's not greasy anymore. It's not constrained at all, it's healthy and doing its own thing. And I think, in a way, that applies to her outfit as a whole. Throughout the "present" of Amphibia, Marcy is nearly always wearing a uniform of some kind; her school uniform, the Newtopian Night Guard uniform, the Core's greaves, it's always a look forced on her. In the finale, though, she finally gets to make her own decision on what to wear. It's casual, but it's her, emphasized by the personal touches like the pins on her jacket and the figures on her bag that expand out from little expressions of freedom on her original design. She's even got ear piercings, something typically associated with rebellion and freedom. She's finally allowed to be her own person. Not anybody else's, just... herself.

My thoughts on Sasha and Anne are a bit less in-depth, but there's definitely interesting stuff to mention regardless.

It might not seem like Sasha's changed much visually during the timeskip. Her hair is cut pretty much the same way, she still has a pink accessory on her head, she's still wearing a skirt and a jacket (like she did over her school uniform), and... I think that's intentional. It's a subtle sign that most of Sasha's growth wasn't off-screen during a ten-year time jump...

...it was during Season 3. With every redesign she got from her Barrel's Warhammer redesign onwards, her design got softer. Less spikes, more rounded edges, less rigidity. She even undid her ponytail, not holding her hair back anymore. Her reds got less area on her design, until on the timeskip look they were pretty much replaced entirely with a simple purple skirt. All that aggressiveness is gone, replaced with a comparatively soft design...

...and with the addition of a blue shirt to her color palette. It comes off as a little random, but considering her new profession as a therapist, I think a light and soft color palette featuring hues that are easy on the eyes is an important part of that. It's subtle, but I think it helps a lot.

And finally... Anne.

I find Anne's timeskip design to be the most difficult to talk about in this context, because it's mostly just a regular uniform. The green polo, beige shorts, white undershirt, and lanyard are just what she has to wear to work, and I find it a little difficult to find meaning from it... but that doesn't mean there's nothing there.

Let's get the obvious one out of the way. The leaf scrunchy is a cute way to call back to Anne's hair leaves, a pretty defining aspect of her original design dating all the way back to the first episode of the show that followed her all through her journey in Amphibia. It's a fun little way to reminisce on her past... but it's not the only part of her outfit dedicated to reminiscing.

That little blue flower band on her wrist is also easy to miss, but pretty obvious what it's referencing once you notice it.

It's most obviously a callback to the blue flower crown from earlier in the same episode, but Anne's almost always been associated with blue and flowers, with even her energy aura in her Calamity form taking the shape of blue flower petals.

But those are just simple callbacks. I think the two things that tell us the most about Anne's growth and who she is now... are these.

For her entire exodus in Amphibia, Anne's had one ragged shoe to keep her company. She wasn't ready for an adventure in the swamp. Now, she has proper rain boots, something designed to actually withstand the kind of work she does now. She's fully become comfortable with where she is and who she wants to be. And, of course, there's that little bandage on her leg. Perhaps it's a sign that she's still going out there, undergoing little adventures, taking risks and getting into trouble. Maybe it's a sign that that spirit we come to know so well over the course of the show is still alive and well... or maybe it's where she takes her estrogen shots

[violetsquare111]

(me getting into a new fandom) oh yeah. you could make classpects out of this

phew i've had this in the works for a lil over a week!! ava/m characters as homestuck godtiers! had to get the drawings out there yanno.

i will put more thoughts and the titles for everyone under the cut, because i did some minor redesigning to the outfits + you probably won't care about the classpect thoughts if you're less insane than i am lmao

Orange: Heir of Hope (a case could be made for them being a muse as well, i just liked how heir looked a lot better and it fits neatly i think)

Green: Witch of Light

Yellow: Maid of Mind

Blue: Maid of Void (maid bros! this is the title i'm least sure about though, it was a 5 minute pick based on vibes + matching class with yellow is a cute idea)

Red: Rogue of Life

Purple: Bard of Breath (obviously wasn't gonna use the canon outfit, i'm pretty ok with this redesign i think. purple as passive destructive class <3 could see them being a prince too)

Chosen & Dark: matching Lords of Space and Time (tbh i think dark fits better as a lord of rage, but passing up the opportunity to give them aspect duality of the two most reality-based aspects that MATCH THEIR COLORS? you think i'm NOT gonna go for that???)

this is also my first time drawing, uh, most of these characters, so i had to nail down designs right here (...and by designs i mean hairstyles)

bonus: i also put down king as a prince of doom and victim as a thief of void, but i was drawing So Many Guys already so i opted out of drawing em. i think in an actual au scenario they wouldn't be players anyway so it fits it's okay i have an excuse here guys. and i think king wouldn't look great in a prince of doom outfit lol

if you read all this, i hope you enjoyed the brainrot!! this may flop but if one other person sees+enjoys this then that's a success to me :D

[klaunee]

Edit 2/12/2024: I wanted to add a disclaimer to my redesigns! I really appreciate all of the likes and comments that these have garnered, but I just want to add that these aren't intended to be "improvements" or "fixes" of the original designs in any way and were done as a character design exercise for my own entertainment. Looking back on them there's a lot I'd like to change about them and I'd never claim to be anything more than an amateur/hobbyist character designer messing around with these character concepts. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Redesign of most of the main cast of Hazbin Hotel + Lucifer for fun and all that. I enjoy seeing other people's interpretations of these characters and wanted to try my hand at it. Elaboration below the cut.

(warning for some potential spoilers for Season 1 below)

Charlie

As you can see, the gist of my redesigns is exaggerating the qualities of whatever the character is supposed to be. In this case, I thought Charlie lacked qualities that identified her as a demon, and so I gave her permanent horns and a more goat-like appearance. I also gave her angel wings for a unique look and to identify her as Lucifer's daughter. Realistically these could be bat wings instead, since Lucifer was historically depicted as having said wings, but I thought the angel wings combined with demonic features would give her a unique appearance. Her outfit is inspired by bellhops and magicians. I wanted her to be based on a type of performer in the same vein as her parents, with Lucifer's supposed ringmaster theme and Lilith being a diva. This is also why I gave her red nose paint, because to me, her red cheeks and white face make her look clown-like. I gave her round shapes to represent her sweet personality while her overall body type is lanky in a somewhat awkward way, trying to depict her as a bit dorky. I made her hair a bit more prominent for a princess-y look.

Vaggie

Vaggie's moth qualities have been exaggerated here. I'm aware of the theories that she's actually not a moth demon but rather a fallen angel, but I wanted to disregard that because I really like bugs. She has four arms, black eyes, antennae, and her hair is actually a pair of functional wings. Her hair-wings have four "eye spots" on them that are actually functional eyes similar to Sir Pentious. Shape-wise I wanted to show her as a more combative, assertive character, with blocky arms and a shorter and wider physique compared to Charlie. I gave her a modern outfit with a fluffy jacket reminiscent of a moth's neck fluff.

Alastor

I gave Alastor a complete overhaul. My biggest gripe with his design is that he's not intimidating in the slightest and yet we're meant to interpret him as fearsome. Although I enjoy the idea of a character who is not physically intimidating while still being a powerful force, I wanted to depict Alastor as outwardly frightening while retaining the idea that he's underestimatable because... his entire body is shadow! Rather than having that Dr. Facilier expy (/j) shadow companion he has, I decided to make it so Alastor is actually the shadow himself. This grants him a plethora of abilities like a greater range of movement, intangibility, etc. I imagine he was disoriented when he first spawned in hell as nothing but a shadow, but slowly found that this could be exploited and became extremely powerful. His staff is based on a vintage style of microphone with the center modified to look like an inverted pentagram. No Voodoo iconography here. The skull itself does not move, rather the red light in his eye flickers in time with his voice. Outfit-wise, he's wearing a basic vintage suit with a boater hat to identify him as being from the 1920's. Of course, the most significant part of his design is his antlers, which are greatly underwhelming in his canon design (disregarding his "true form" which is still weak in my opinion). In addition to giving him a dramatic silhouette, these antlers can be manipulated by him as a pair of appendages similar to hands.

Angel Dust

I didn't change much about Angel Dust. I think he has a nice design. I just tried to make him a bit more spider-like, with pedipalps, extra eyes, and an abdomen. I tried to make the abdomen small so it's essentially like a cottontail. I modified his legs a bit like I did Vaggie's so they're bent in a way similar to bug legs. His suit has a bit more dimension to it as well. I initially wanted to make the stripes vertical for a true pinstripe suit, but the horizontal ones ultimately won out. The most notable part of his physique is his legs like it is in his canon version, but I tried to make all of his limbs longer as well.

Lucifer

This one was very self-indulgent. I wanted to make Lucifer more father-like in appearance to try and diversify the shapes of male characters in this show, similar to how I gave Alastor a stocky build. With a stouter appearance he is simultaneously less and more imposing depending on how he's depicted. I think it'd be nice if his wings were a permanent element of his design. I gave him a broken halo, which he obscures with his top hat. I modified his outfit while still retaining the ringmaster appearance, giving him a long, flowing cape for a dramatic look. He has a cane in the shape of a golden snake which can actually move freely if he wills it. I based his hair a bit on famous carnie P.T. Barnum, and I think he'd have a similar characterization as Barnum too, being an outwardly magnanimous and lovable leader while in reality wanting nothing more than to encourage hedonism, chaos and sin in his subjects. His pointy beard and moustache come from depictions of Mephistopheles. Like Charlie, I gave him red nose paint because like I said, they've got clown vibes. Charlie inherits her goat features from Lilith, who I did not draw (yet).

Thank you for reading!

I'm not 100% on these redesigns but I enjoyed the exercise. I may redo them eventually.

I'd also like to do more of these, especially Adam.

[twipsai]

doodle dump!!!!! theres a lot of stuff in here, ranging back abouuuut a month and a half! putting explanations for all of these under the cut <3

1 - sort of a color study of a Forces screenshot cuz i thought the lighting was cool, but also its for a friends rewrite of the game!

2 - idk, i just wanted to draw hipster sonic from Boom except with modern sonic :P

3 - a silly concept for Prime! i have a headcanon that, after Sonic left the shatterverse, it sorta "reset" and repaired itself, and because of that it gained back the people it lost when it was originally shattered, aka Sonic and Shadow were brought into those timelines! the guy i drew here is named Breeze and hes from New Yoke -- Nine calls him Breezy :)

4 - a sorta-redraw of a screenshot from Boom. i just wanted to draw the bros hugging <3

5, 6, 7 - redraws of panels im particularly fond of from Scrapnik Island!

8 - ive been watching Sonic X and i absolutely fell in love with that little guy Bokkun so! i made a redesign of him if he was canon <3

9 - Surge in Android 18's outfit!

10 - triple s hand ideas <3 might make more of em with other characters

11, 12 - concepts of what i think Silver and Blaze looked like when they were kids!

13 - unfinished idea of what Silver's room would look like

14 - a Sonic OVA screenshot redraw

15 - ideas for modern Mighty and Ray! theyve got matching bows hehe <3

16 - Chris Thorndyke redesign, specifically with idw in mind! i have some more concepts of him with a special wispon for crimson wisps. oh, and his wisps name is Ava!

17 - ive seen people draw Terios and Feels together, but Feels transitioned to Mika!!!! anyways, i just think those two could be a cute duo, sorta with a quiet older brother and peppy younger sister vibe hehe

if anyone has any questions about any of these, feel free to shoot me an ask!!

[zluty-spendlik]

WAKFU REDESIGN AND REWRITE SERIES PART 2

Yugo

Okay I really should've started with Yugo but I just had so many ideas for Eva I had to let it out. (link to part 1 here)

And with Yugo, I have the exact opposite feelings, because... he's fine. He's the main character, he's a kid, he acts like a kid, he's very thoughtful and kind... I don't have any issues with his character.

But! Theres still ideas i have!

For example, I never quite liked the idea of Yugo being the Eliatrope king and yeah, I know hes a child but he never really... gave me leader vibes, yk? Tbh compared to Adamaï he severely lacks the assertive personality. After finding out that hes the last airbender Eliatrope, he doesnt even care for the culture much. Or like- at all? Hes mostly excited about his superpowers- AND THATS FINE, hes a literal child, but still... a supposed king.

So either make him more invested in his people (you could make a whole arc outta that! He gets hyperfixated on figuring his heritage out he forgets about the here and now - tho that really does sound more like Adamaï) OR make him state outloud that he already has a life and doesnt want to start another one! He likes his friends and adventures and doesnt need anything else... until he does. Make him grow and find parts of himself he didnt even know were missing. New values, a culture he can be a part of!

(Also AU where Yugo actually cant use his powers properly so they only inconvenience him (like accidentally teleporting his stuff) and he tries to stay away from his heritage as long as possible until Grougal is just forced to drag him out the house is so entertaining 2 me istg)

So im fine with the story Qilby has spun, where he and Shinonome are the leaders cause HOW COOL WOULD THAT BE?? And anyway, the Adventure duo finding out about Qilbys betrayal through random goofy shenanigans seems pretty in character lmao

Design

I like Yugos design (except for the shoes, they absolutely haunt me) so I mostly just put my own spin on it rather than changing it radically. I briefly debated on giving him a tail or more dragon-like features but then I realized he lived a normal life before all this lol the village would PROLLY NOTICE

Tho it finally hit me that Eliatropes cleatly have deer features- like the little fur thingy at the end of the Eliatrope cap resembling a deer tail??? How did I not notice that??? But I think his s4 outfit resembles a bat way more so idk?

I gave him white freckles like the bambi spots and light blue "wakfu" spots on the back instead of the runes on his chest he has in the Qilby final boss fight. Also I couldnt decide which outfit I like more for s1-2 so which one do u guys like more?

I havent watched season 3-4 but I did a potential s3 Yugo look as well, I had fun :))

Yugo art dump

[p0rk-guts]

"Pork you literally posted Charlie a few days ago why are you so Hazbin obsessed rn-" ssshhhhshhsshhs.h........ anyway

VAGGIE REDESIGN! And I changed her name also bc I'm jus like everyone else fr. Meet Verbena :)

BREAKDOWN BELOW!👇🏾+ Exorcist uniform redesign :3

Starting with her name this time. Back when she was still a sinner apparently she was Salvadorian and since she's (apparently?) not a former human at all I decided to take a small creative liberty with her decent and made her Venezualan instead. SOUTH AMERICUH❗❗✊🏾 I'm pretty sure Verbena flowers are native to South America so that's where the name comes from.

Onto the design! I don't have much to say abt her design honestly. It's not egregious, but it doesn't really speak to me either. It looks like simple formal wear or uniform with some strange meaningless accessories attached. And those weird itty bitty shoes that look like they're part of her thigh highs... I'm starting to think all the characters's shoes were a last minute afterthought. All and all it tells us nothing about her character. The hair wings are cool tho so I did steal those

Also the whole deal with her eye is strange to me. Why Is the floating X there??? It's a real physical part of the world, other people can see it. Do pink X's always float over angel wounds? If her arm got chopped off would an X float over it? Was it like. A fucking curse visual placed by Lute as a constant reminder of her disloyalty? Why did Carmilla point out it was an obvious marker for her being an angel???? My brain can't fathom why it's canonically attached to her wound. If she was a sinner I'd kinda understand but. Yeah idk. Weird

Also her missing eye does not look like an empty socket it looks like a purple circle was sticker pasted on to her face. It's very flat. How did we go from this

to this

(IT'S EVEN OVERLAPPING ONTO HER NOSE IN THIS SCREENSHOT WHAT IS THAT THING.)

Anyway. I made her hair resemble Polyphemus moth wings because 1. They have eye looking spots and angels are all eyes and 2. Well. Polyphemus has 1 eye. So . 💀

Her overall coloring however is inspired by a Promethea moth. I could say it's because Prometheus defied the gods and Verbena did a similar thing but the real reason is I made a spelling error while initially looking for a Polyphemus moth reference 💀 but hey they both have eye spots! And Iike their coloring for her way better

I also redesigned the exorcist uniform for her redesign bc I wanted her outfit to have reminiscent elements from it.

I gave way less time to the uniform designs, but I still had some main details I wanted to adress. I don't like how they have no armor save for their helmets. Their arm and leg pieces are made of some flexible material that tears easily. It's not giving soldier it's giving soldier costume from party city. The devil like horns are also confusing to see on an angel and the paradoxical design is never addressed. They can be evil and look imposing, but the horns just seem kinda nonsensically on the nose to show how evil they are. At least to me.

In my designs I gave them actual metal armor on their bodies so you can easily tell they're soldiers and it makes sense for them to battle in armor anyway. I also gave them more light "angelic" colors with gold details bc I wanna use gold as a symbol of angelic nature in my rewrite. I wanted their masks to show completely static expressions with wide grins to show how unnerving they are and to allude to the idea that everyone is happy in heaven, and they're all happy to do what they do.

Verbena's belt and shoulder pads draw visual similarities to the pauldrons and mid section pieces in my new exorcist uniforms to draw a connection between her and her past. The Blazer draping behind her back is also supposed to mimic the visual of folded wings. I also tried to do this with all the gold details in her design. The big hoops and belt we're 80's inspired because I decided to follow how in one of her old designs she died in the 60's (even had the big hoops and everything). In my rewrite exorcists are all former humans but I'll get into that later. Also she's got an eye patch now! Just. A normal one.

Charlie is still taller than Verbena just like in the original and idk how tall Vaggie Is exactly but Verbena is like 5'5 while Charlie is 5'11. Verbena's also got more muscle on her bc unless their muscle mass is hidden magically or they don't gain muscle for stupid dumb idiot lore reasons all the exorcists look way too slim to be military grade soldiers but what do I know

I combined a lot of pointy shapes with boxy shapes bc— more similarly to her pilot self— she can be volatile and fierce but also grounded and impassive. I added the slits to her skirt so she can be a sexy formal lady who can still comfortably throw a few kicks, and the heels— well. Idk I feel like she could slay in heels! She definitely doesn't wear em all the time but yeah. Chunky heels. I like them they're cute. Also she's got her little name tag on bc she takes Charlie's job for her SERIOUSLY! she's uh. Idk what is she. A bellhop? General security/protection? Either way she's locked in.

I imagine she had white irises like Adam and Lute along with brighter more saturated and heavenly colors in her hair (color picked from the Polyphemus moth) that turned darker and more harsh after the fall (color picked from the Promethea moth). Really visualizing her emo phase /j

Also I think the little eyes in her hair can emote with her. In the final design the line kinda makes an eyelid and it'd match her eyelid's movements. Sillay

Alright that's a wrap on my Vaggie redesign! No bonus sketches this time bc they're within the texts! Who knows what I'll do next. Who I will deface. I sure don't. I think I might rename Charlie so there's that. Anywhozies hope you like her <3

[tritoch]

the witch of the cave: matoya, y'shtola, and the night's blessed

long rambly and extremely unedited post about y'shtola and matoya, two characters i really feel like we don't talk about or take seriously enough. i think the popular (and in many ways intended) perception of FFXIV as a game about dramatic high-tension moments and attendant emotional catharsis makes it easy to overlook the fact that there's plenty of subtext to mine from, especially for characters like these two who can come off as somewhat reserved and also have very little screen time together. i find the night's blessed very helpful for thinking about them both. spoilers through endwalker below. tl;dr version of the post can be found by reading the bolded text below.

on my first playthrough the whole rak'tika thing felt very underdeveloped, and i still think a lot of the story beats are weak. here's y'shtola she's your last member to rejoin she has a new village now(?) and OH she's dead again WAIT she's back and then we're off into "zodiark and hydaelyn are primals" land and there's no time to think anymore about the night's blessed. but on reflection i think this works out okay imo because the night's blessed are only just barely there for plot reasons. they serve instead, like the outfit redesign, to establish the game's new baseline concept for who y'shtola is going to be as a character going forward. the night's blessed let the writing shorthand a lot of y'shtola's off-screen development and set her up as a powerful and extremely self-actualized person, using matoya as her foil.

in brief: matoya is implied to have lived her life prior to the sharlayan exodus constantly at odds with the (imo obviously sexist and hide-bound) forum. as a result, she was pretty isolated from and in conflict with much of sharlayan society, to the point that while y'shtola leaves with everyone else in the exodus to presumably matriculate at the studium and earn her archon's marks, matoya stays behind, with no company but her familiars.

and this is agonizingly sad, i think. 15 years alone in a cave. dravania's isolation means she has no one to talk to but frogs she has magic'ed and trained into familiars. little to occupy her but her work and her memories, and her memories of y'shtola are so painful to her she locks them away. even when y'shtola returns to eorzea after ten years away she can't find the time to see her until the scion's issues demand it (to be fair to y'shtola, getting to matoya overland means traveling through ishgard and dravania, and prior to the calamity they're totally occupied with that and afterwards there's the whole dragon thing).

(hey also this whole thing is even SADDER when read in light of the encyclopedia eorzea text that "the day [Matoya] begins to remember her students fondly will be the day that her work ends." she won't let herself take these memories back until she retires!)

they barely talk at their reunion, and while there's some brief honest fondness from matoya early on they soon turn to their characteristic deflecting and sardonic back-and-forth for what little time they get to talk, before matoya delivers a poorly-translated and confusing warning on aethersight and exits the 3.0 story. even by the time of shadowbringers, y'shtola can't bring herself to admit that when alone in a foreign land, she took on her master's name, and neither will straightforwardly admit to missing the other. in a game full of effusive and warm relationships between master and pupil or guardian and ward, matoya and y'shtola's relationship is warm, but specifically characterized by distance and deflection, consistent with how matoya has rejected (and/or isolated herself from) others her whole life.

that's not to say there's not love there, obviously, and not all expressions of love look or the same. but this is not how y'shtola behaves elsewhere. when she visits you at the annex in endwalker, she's quite sincere and direct there, coming to you with her concerns and stating plainly that doesn't want to see you harmed, making it clear she was actively worried about how you were doing. she even pre-emptively apologizes when she fears she's inappropriately joked about your misfortunes. she's also obviously much more direct and deflects less with the night's blessed themselves, or runar, or urianger after rak'tika, or zero. she can be funny or glib or arch, but she makes no effort to conceal how much these relationships mean to her, or how she feels at any given point.

y'shtola can be sharp, she can be sarcastic, she can go for the throat or be dismissive and imperious, but she's generally not those things with people she cares about in private conversation. for a woman who makes it quite clear that she cares a lot about the image she projects to others, she is never ashamed of her own feelings or afraid to voice them, but neither is she harsh or cruel. the one time she does the matoya-style thing of being so honest and brusque it tips over to backbreakingly blunt, it's to thancred in rak'tika, over her concerns that as the sole guardian of an isolated young ward, he isn't doing enough to affirm her as her own person or to be emotionally honest and supportive of her. i have some thoughts as to why that might be; you may be able to guess what they are!

so shadowbringers sets up a parallel for the player: remember matoya in the cave, having spurned sharlayan politics, left to pursue her research and guard the antitower, a solitary hermit for fifteen years? well here's y'shtola as matoya, in a cave, having spurned the lies and half-truths of two specific sharlayan men. she initially comes off alternately distant and brusque, unable to recognize you and perhaps changed herself. the fact that y'shtola's not just the local cave witch to the night's blessed ends up being a sort of narrative reveal, and her characterization as a beloved and respected leader who feels a deep attachment to the community in turn shows how much she's grown and surpassed her mentor. (and note in turn urianger, over there in fairyland pretty much actually doing the matoya thing except, in accordance with his whole deal, in a way that is both slightly healthier and much weirder).

and there's narrative payoff for this: y'shtola, having been fairly closed-off and mission-focused up until now, flings herself into a fucking pit and casts "hope this doesn't kill me lmao" the very second she learns the night's blessed have been harmed and she has a chance to save them (and that's not a romance thing; she has no idea runar's been harmed. she only knows the villagers of slitherbough have been poisoned, and an antidote exists). and from her (annoyingly obviously fake) death you learn that she isn't just valued and respected by the community, but has formed close enough relationships for people to feel real and deep attachment to her.

y'shtola notes at several points that she and master matoya dedicated their lives to the pursuit of truth above all else. but in the end y'shtola was also a student of louisoix, a man who far valued compassion for the plight of others above all else (and, not for nothing, he's not exactly #1 parent/guardian/mentor of the astral era either). in rak'tika, all the finest qualities of y'shtola reach a kind of culmination. the relentless pursuit of what is true and what is right, but as part of a healthy, caring community, without the isolating and painful pride of her mentor. and she sacrifices nothing of herself to attain this. she is exactly who she was before rak'tika, if anything a little more brusque. she's even still a little withholding about herself, noting that she cultivated an "image of restraint" among the night's blessed. but none of this interferes with her ability to be a powerful and respected and admired leader of a close-knit community.

and again none of this is really a critique of matoya, who i have enormous affection for as effectively the game's only representation (until endwalker) of an older woman in STEM. but she is a product of what her circumstances allowed: where matoya, as a sincere believer in truth, had only rivals in a deeply conservative and isolationist society, y'shtola, carrying forward the same principles, has friends and comrades in an increasingly open and free world. she turns her mentor's unflinching honesty from an alienating political weakness into a pillar of both slitherbough and the scions. matoya's self-imposed exile from sharlayan is, by her own acknowledgement, petty and in some ways goes against her own values. and listen you've gotten far enough in this rambling, we can all be real for a second: matoya is definitely kind of an asshole and went into self-imposed exile and sealed up her research because of a disagreement with the Forum over weapons development. y'shtola's leveraging the integrity and searing honesty she learned from matoya to far more altruistic ends!

i think a lot of players have a vision of y'shtola somewhere on a continuum from badass avatar of destruction to powerful and solitary archmage. and i agree that's cool as hell but i also think ffxiv is a game that believes, at its core, that community is one of the most important things in the world, both in terms of what it can do for a flourishing society and as a critical element for people to find value and fulfillment in their own lives. y'shtola developing her own close attachment to a community in shadowbringers is meant to serve as shorthand for how she has come into her own as a person and found a fulfilling and meaningful life in line with her ideals, living up to matoya's ideal of all knowledge existing to advance mankind. it is no coincidence that this happens at the same time as she goes from "a pretty good mage" to being consistently portrayed as one of the more powerful mages in the setting and the scions' magical powerhouse. the genre trappings and the character arc work in harmony.

i think what this means becomes a little clearer set against characters like thancred (who spends 5.0 getting to "can have a mostly emotionally honest conversation with his surrogate daughter and make her feel loved and valued") and estinien (who, after twenty years living in and dying for one walled city, had one of the worst months anyone has ever had and ever since can't be in the same place for more than two seconds). their permanent states as vagabonds reflect their lack of close ties (what with all the tragic death) and still-healing emotional wounds. by contrast, y'shtola has achieved the wisdom and grace to live life as part of a connected whole, and has found a way to bring her values to bear in all parts of her life and in her leadership of this community, in so doing improving the lives of herself and everyone around her. y'shtola doesn't settle down with the night's blessed as a natural progression of her life or as a precondition to her maturation, but instead is capable of forming this kind of attachment to the night's blessed precisely because she has developed the integrity and emotional honesty to live in accordance with her values. and she can cast LB3 meteor in cutscenes now.

and also, conveniently, this is done in a way that lets them shorthand/off-screen a lot of this arc and do the rest of it with very minimal screentime for y'shtola and it has an associated romance subplot and also conveniently she's immediately severed from this important community so she can stay footlose and fancy-free in the protagonist group and Isn't It Funny How Scion Women Settle Down Or Die While We Keep Accumulating Permanent Bachelors, I Just Think It's Funny. obviously none of this is above critique. but i think the narrative takes pretty seriously the idea that y'shtola is actually the team's most emotionally developed and mature member in a lot of ways and slitherbough is where a lot of that starts, and you can't understand all that without matoya.

[bastart13]

May we allow you to self-indulgently point out some character design details/your processes with each of the L&L redesigns~?

Oooh, sure!

I had a lot of fun designing Iseul's family. First, I'm far too happy with the colour palette. I wanted to go for a variety of leaf colours so they range from dark brown to pale yellow. Also, I wanted them all to look related without looking identical. Iseul and Imohn share a similar face shape, but Iseul and Iraia share more facial features to show off their more similar personalities. Imohn essentially looks what Iseul considers to be a more responsible version of himself, with more in common with their queenly mother.

As a twin myself, I also wanted to put effort into making Sophie and Solaire look identical, but not exactly. Similar to my sister and I, Sophie is a bit more angular. As some further contrast (I haven't drawn it yet) Sophie's eyes are black opals where Solaire's eyes are white.

Saerys runs hot, so most of his outfits expose his arms or chest in some way, even in his armour. One downside of giving him markings is that I then had to cover them up with mesh in his modern outfit to be in anyway subtle.

Another fun detail is that Alain's hair has greyed/dulled since he was a child. Also the light has literally left his eyes.

(Excuse the underwear)

But finally, everyone gets scars! I enjoy adding small scars to battle-worn characters and I had a lot of fun with these guys. People have noted it, but the MC gets Lichtenberg scars from being struck by lightning at the start of the story. The Witch Queen has similar scars from her magic. Helena also has a black, magic-scarred arm. I love the way the story explores how Helena's magic both helps and hurts her, so I thought it'd be another fun way to show that pain and her duality: one arm scarred for magic, the other armoured for her swords. (On a silly note, Altea has a burn scar on her arm, not from the war, but a cooking accident. Totally not based on a real life story)