#and for someone who only wants to talk about Evoland 2 to people who have already played the game

[quibbs126]

So I’ve been wanting to draw out Ceres’ beta designs for a bit now, and today I finally did that

Admittedly I probably should have drawn more than just top half sketches, but whatever

They come from this page I have saved from the art book

She has a couple others, but the picture I had on my iPad was just these five, so that’s what I did. I do like the other ones though

And now because I want to, I’m just going to talk about my thoughts on each design. It’s also why I numbered them, since they’re all Ceres, so I can’t really refer to them by other names

So let's start with 1. On the drawing side, I admit I think she ended up having a case of "being the first one drawn". You know, she's got that weirdness to her look. But anyways, back to her design in general. I really like her hair, I think it's cool looking and it's got a unique color pallet. But her outfit is literally just one of beta Velvet's outfits, so if that had been her final outfit, it would not have been that subtle who she's connected to. Even if Velvet had her final outfit, it still looks incredibly similar to hers

I do find it interesting that she's the only one to have the yellow Demon eyes, while all the rest have her normal pink. I imagine they changed it to pink to be more creative, but it is the only one different. Generally, I assume that with these concepts, they had bases of the characters already made that they put the outfits and hair on. Cherry/Plum and then Reno also have the same unchanging skin and eye colors and unchanging horns (Velvet is also the same but her eyes get to change colors). I get why they did that, but it does personally leave me wanting to see Ceres concepts where she had different horn shapes or skin tones, or even eye colors. But we don't see it, and I was trying to stay faithful to the original concepts, so oh well

Moving on to 2, I don't think her outfit's half bad, but it's still pretty Velvet-like. And her hair straight up just looks like Velvet's but with different bangs, and orange highlights instead of her pink. And personally, I just think that's kind of boring in all honesty

Now on to 3 (I don't have a tangent to go on this time). I quite like her design honestly, and when I was looking at the art before drawing, she gave me this vibe I really liked, but I don't know if I really translated into my drawing. I don't really know how to describe it other than her feeling slightly younger? But anyways yeah, I think her design's pretty neat. It's still somewhat Velvet, but it's getting unique to the point that wouldn't really be your first guess. I also originally was wondering why her hair had pink/red, since Menos doesn't have any but his other kid does, but then I realized her hair colors are Menos' blue but in Velvet's purple's shade, and then her pink comes from Velvet's pink, but with the Demon vibrancy and brightness, and I just think that's neat

Moving on to 4, something that strikes me as interesting is her hair color. It's wildly different from the others I've seen, being dark red/brown and then with gold streaks. Though honestly, I couldn't tell you where she gets it from, since her parents have pretty much only cool colors, outside of Velvet's pink, which isn't that much of a warm color. Though we do see that beta Velvets had brown, or at least warmer hair color pallets, so maybe that's where she gets it from? I don't know but I find it interesting. I also do think her design's pretty cool, and is quite unique looking. My main gripe with it is how the top bit is shortened so much. For whatever reason, in basically every other Ceres outfit design other than her final, she has to be showing off her midriff, and I really don't see why. Is it just because Velvet does it? But regardless, I feel like this is the design where it's at its most unnecessary. Like just have it extend to her waist, it'd make more sense that way. But yeah, she's interesting

And then we come to 5. I think her outfit's pretty neat, I like her pant sash thing she's got going on, and I think her shirt fits with it (though I again don't know if it needs to be a crop top). I think it's one of my favorites, and it's probably the least Velvet-esque. I also find it interesting how her hair seems the most human here, not having much spikiness at all, as well as being generally less saturated. I feel like by proxy, it has her looking the most like a mix between Demon and Human. Though admittedly, with it just being out and flat, it may not be the best to animate, especially since almost all of Ceres' scenes are in 3D. Maybe if it were in a braid or something? And also I'm a little irked that the colors are just her normal ones but more desaturated, but oh well. By that point they were likely still figuring out her color scheme, so I'm looking at it from the wrong way

Also this is random, but I want to point this out, 4 and 5 aren't wearing boots, but rather shoes. I only point this out because every main character wears boots in this game, with the exception of Menos, but you can barely tell given his pants are the exact same color

Also as I'm typing all this out I realize, Ceres was very clearly designed to be Velvet's kid, but her dad basically doesn't factor in at all in these designs outside of the hair colors and spikiness. Menos is basically just the Demon genes donor. Poor guy

Anyways yeah, that's my thoughts on these beta designs. Honestly, I want to try and take parts from each (or make up parts) to try and make an alternate Ceres design I like

But also then I realize, what would be the point of that? She already has an official, final design, and it's not like this is going to change that or how I draw canon her. Why am I even judging the beta designs in the first place? They're just concept art, and things that for whatever reason, didn't end up being incorporated into her final design. And the game came out 9 years ago, what's the point of rating old designs from an obscure game made likely over a decade ago?

I don't really know, but I also feel like furthering this line of thinking would lead me to questioning why I'm so invested in concept art and designs in the first place, since similar questions still apply

I mean sure, people can use concept art to make something new out of things, like how the CRK fandom basically made Rich Cheese into a character despite her officially just being a scrapped concept, or how people have basically made a new Wish story out of the stuff from the concepts, but here I feel like there's literally no point

I don't know, but I should probably stop now

Take these drawings I suppose, while I try not to think about questioning my life's priorities