#my sona or smthn yknow

[shepscapades]

new pfp soon me thinks!!! sweats

[excadrill]

I know you can't share the specific piece but, gymsona? 👀

ohhh yeah i havent talked abt him in a couple years/since he's actually become a Character. he's the bug-type 8th/1st gym leader in the fan region i share with my friends (the enjay region, which has a north and south version. depending on the game you start the region at opposite ends ! so he's faced either last or first)

his ace is a bug-type eeveelution called papilleon, who was one of the first fakemon i ever designed (and his twin, the fighting-type gym leader, has one called wallopeon ^__^). im no longer fully settled on his 8th gym team bc we've designed more bug-types for this region since i first made him but his first gym team is just papilleon and the first stage of a velvet ant pokemon ! he's a fashion designer and lives in a big city very close to unova so he spends a lot of his free time there. he is a bitch and i love him so much

[konjkitkatty]

Your ocs are all so interesting! What was the thought process behind them?

Ah you’re so sweet!!! I rlly do try to make my characters interesting and likeable, i’m v glad u enjoy them!! As for my process behind them, SURE! None of this is going to be coherent but i’ll try to walk u thru it! It’s a long read so it’ll all b under the cut!

I’d been meaning to make COTL ocs for a while ever since i saw just the VAST amount of variety in follower forms, but I wanted to make them meaningful, yknow? Not just a random follower but smthn w story, intrigue! Inspo didn’t strike until I’d reached the post game and found out abt the bishops’ quests. And i was very disappointed with it. OKAY. I GET why they’re unguarded, they’re hidden away in the deepest crevasses of their respective realms, and I GET IT. I do, i swear, I SWEAR i get it. I do. but cmon, its so underwhelming and I hate it so much. That’s when I thought up of the guardians as like an entire concept, and thus the time to create COTL ocs was upon me!

Kitty was first- they were easy as the design was just my sona in the COTL style give or take a few minor details. OBV I updated them and made them more unique (the spikes, the tail, the eyes, and the massive personality shift to that of an envious follower desperately searching for approval from SOMEONE) but using my sona as a template helped out tremendously in the process. I don’t recommend doing so…

Bat, Dove and Bear- unlike Kitty- were all created with their enemy forms in mind, The Archer, The Summoner and The Guardian. Kitty just kinda fell into the awkward scamp/swordsman role naturally, and it was fitting. First guardian meant they wouldn’t b too strong normally.

Next was Bat because I was REALLY excited to draw the summoner enemy. They were kind of made to be Kitty’s opposite, youngest/oldest, become bug/reject bug sorta thing. Bat’s first draft was a moody bug with big red eyes and a few screws loose upstairs, if u catch my drift. I thought they were too much like Chemach in their expressions, the way they spoke and regarded the lamb, even the way they hung and thrashed about in their webs. so I kept playing around until I remembered BATS exist, and then had the phenomenal idea of making the spider’s guardian a bug eating wrathful BAT instead. I still got to have the cool head limbs in his final form, but NOW instead of just making them bug arms which is eh, i could make them SKELETAL WINGS. With their many eyes and wings he gives the vibe of an angel to me, which I think is pretty cool all things considered.

Next I did was my prideful Bear, and I always knew she was gonna be exactly like Kallamar in the sense that she would have the LEAST changes design wise from boss to guardian to follower. She was the only actual GUARDIAN enemy to be a guardian, and given how actually agonizingly tough those fkers are to fight i figured she deserved it. Originally she was a brawler who utilized hand to hand combat to directly contrast with Kallamar’s many weapons, but once the sailor theme got thrown in I figured giving her a weapon would b better. I decided on a pirate’s sword made out of the crystal growths in Anchordeep- a pretty and sparkly object a pirate would love, but a weapon that’s honestly probably not great against another aword, but she’d never say that out loud. Her sword is better because she’s the more skilled fighter. She also got to use the mask as a shield because I wasn’t sure what to do with her hands OR the mask. Dove was the only other one with one of them and uhhh… well….. yknow…..

Dove was the last and honestly the biggest migraine i’ve ever had designing an oc for a game in a WHILE. She’s very simple, she’s just a chubby Morning Dove- that’s so easy to work with actually. I’ve drawn birds, but not COTL birds. so she. was. a. NIGHTMARE. Bird followers are honestly just so awkward looking in this game, I really couldn’t figure her follower form out until I used OTHER birds for reference (Clauneck, Kudaai, Chemach, Klunko, and especially Haro.) I’m still not entirely happy with her, but given the circumstances I think she turned out the best she would ever be. I just wish smthn more was going on w her… everything, yknow? Feels like smthn’s missing w her. I still find her boss form incredibly cool though- I love how all the gold and stuff she’s overindulged in gets stuck in her throat/chest and makes all these gross lumps, it’s my favorite visual thing about her. I try to do lots of visual storytelling, and that sucks bc its no fun to just tell people what to look for and what it means, so you kinda have to hope these details get noticed and are interpreted right. Anyways yap session over.

That’s all my thoughts!!!