#The thing on Flower's head is a headband and I still can't draw those RIP

[rustyyart]

I did a thing! Drew some actual OCs for the first time in a while. This post is about to get long so I’ll put the rest in the break. These were my first ever OCs so I have a LOT to say. Not that anyone’s reading so I’ll just use this as a time marker for future me.

Tbh I’m pretty sure the redesigns had long sleeves besides the tube top. Whoops.

Drawn: December 4, 2020

You asked for it.

Heart

          My first ever OC as far as I can remember? I might’ve created Amber before her, but all of my OCs were named “Girl” or “Boy” for an embarrassingly long time. Hell, these are still named after their symbols. First drawn in 4th grade when I was nine, Heart was originally on the Titanic and was created when I was bored in class and remembered I had seen part of the movie Titanic the night before. She played the part of Rose and I mostly drew the part where it sank LMAO. She gets home to her sister (Flower) and is like “It sank” and Flower is like “Aw.” and then they go off and played video games. IDK I was a master of comics.

          Heart is in a really weird place. She was this really tough tomboy who protected her more feminine sister and got into trouble a lot. She’s always been a self insert, but from 2009 - 2011 she was more of a power fantasy. She talked back to teachers and spent tons of money on whatever 9yo me wanted at the time. I remember Flower scolding her that they could only play on the computer for half an hour once a year. 

          When I hit middle school, and thus a new school and new people, she became a shy, almost reclusive character to fit me. I discovered anime when I was 11, so she got tsundere style mood swings. Sun and Cloud were created around that time, I think. Embarrassing real world counterparts later and she, like me, can/could barely function in their presence. A complete 180 to original her. Wow, a look into Heart’s character progression and I see myself devolving into the hermit I am today.

          Obviously Heart (as a concept) is a major part of my person. RustyyHeart with my older usernames being Heart*something*. I probably just exposed more middle school cringe to the internet than I’m preparing for, but whatever. RustyyHeart was a rebrand to get away from the feminine nature of the word “heart” or straight up announcing I was a girl. I’ve since accepted the name Rusty instead, despite 14yo me fretting it sounded like a guy’s name. RustyyHeart was the work of a random name generator and I’ve loved it ever since.

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Flower

          Heart’s twin sister Flower has been about the same the whole time she’s been around. Besides the Titanic sinking, she’s been by Heart’s side almost all the time. I made them have drama here and there, but they’ve always made up somehow. She isn’t particularly based on anyone, but would occasionally mold into whoever was my best friend at the time. I made her because I always felt lonely whenever I couldn’t hang out with my best friends from school. Go a step further, make a twin sister.

          I’m drawing a blank on her character development, to be honest. Flower has just kind of been... there. Generally upbeat and happy and always slightly better at everything than Heart. Pre middle school, she was basically Heart v2 except she did the Dreamworks face way less often. Post middle school, she was the accidental pretty girl and Heart was jealous. She gained a bust sometime after my discovery of anime and I even occasionally made sure to draw that she wore frilly underwear. Can you tell I watched the wrong kind of anime way too young? Flower unintentionally ended up stealing the interests of  Sun and Cloud.

          I’m not proud of her design at the moment, but I like that I kept the pigtails on the sides of her head instead of moving them. It makes her stand out in comparison to Heart. I don’t really know if I’ll leave either’s outfit like this, granted Heart hasn’t changed much since 2012, but I want to fix them into real characters instead of whatever young me threw together. 

          I also noticed that somewhere in a redesign phase, Flower got significantly lighter than Heart. I made this whole post and idea about this specifically. Teenage me actually committed colorism against my own OCs. Heart was redesigned in middle school to be “ugly” to mimic all my crushes turning me down, while Flower was “pretty.” I realized that while drawing the two for the first time yesterday. Heart is overweight, darker skin tone, and painfully shy. Flower is hourglass figure, lighter skin tone, and outgoing. Something’s wrong here. In all my comics and drawings they were identical in tone or it  wasn’t colored at all. I changed the skin tones within the past couple years. Holy internal bias.  

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=D

          You wanna talk forgotten, dumpstered OCs? =D has got you covered. Yes her name is “Equals D” and I hate it too. She’s probably my first exploration into bisexuality TBH and was based on Kari from the Incredibles. She first met Heart and Flower when they went to a spa and she was their... idk servant I guess. She washed their hair because that’s what 9yo me thought happened at spas. I made her a punching bag character, Heart and Flower making fart noises to get on her nerves. Again, comedy genius over here. Imagine the twins’ shock when I made her their permanent live in babysitter, once again taking from her source. So they Home Alone her until she’s like “I find farts funny too!” and the twins were like “:o She’s cool!” Bam! Conflict solved!

          I’m impressed at the fact younger me drew her differently than the other two. She had braces and a ponytail. Ok, I didn’t say it was an original design, it’s more of a fan art situation, but I tried something different. Every girl in my comics had the swirl pigtails besides her. She eventually lost the braces because I got tired of drawing them and they started escaping the boundaries of her mouth every time. I remember in the original comic I drew her smiling for the first time in a good amount of pages and put braces on with a caption “Remember these?” I was the only one reading my own comic YES I remember my own stolen design.

          I think I changed her to older sister in the redesign in middle school. How weird would a permanent, live in ex-spa employee be? She’s the no-nonsense type who frequently injures herself attempting to be a mother figure. Think Nani from Lilo and Stitch being her main source from that point on. Her only appearance in the comic before I stopped writing it was her burning her hand and hitting her head making breakfast. She drives them to school and they never come home~~~ AKA I got started on my self insert fanfiction phase where my OCs got locked away for 2 years. She never got any attention since then and has only changed designs away from Meroko from Full Moon. Showing your stomach was strictly forbidden in my hyper holy Christian household growing up, so having her have her stomach out was a mark of being an older person. Winking Equals D, later renamed Jix, is/was near constantly shirtless as he is a male version of her and I had no guys IRL to base him off of.

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WOW that was a lot. Thank you for getting through it! I’m sorry I rambled so much. It’s 7:13 am and I finished =D at 6:08. I wanted to get all my feelings down so if I ever redo them, I can look at this and see what I thought.  Feel free to leave a suggestion. I want the twins to keep their pigtails and =D to keep a ponytail though, just to keep their origins together. I’ve tried renaming them Scarlett, Flora, and Nina, but the names just don’t stick.