#not necessarily make her skinny but at least to the point where her legs aren’t so noticeably large comparitively

[quibbs126]

Okay but what was the design choice to give Tiger Lily such thick legs?

I mean yeah, Hollyberry’s her grandma and she has a wider body type, but Tiger Lily was designed WAY before Hollyberry was a thing

I mean if the rest of her body was wider it wouldn’t be as odd, but it isn’t, the top half of her body is built like the average Cookie, it’s just her legs

[sloppy-butcher]

i,,i would like to request a rarepair ship i came up with. Caleb/Kazan. Something *exceptionally* soft maybe..? if you do requests like this, ofc. ty!!

sweetie... baby... you aren’t the only one! sooooo many people ship Caleb and Kazan! Welcome to the club!!!! we have jackets. i pushed this request forward because i really like this ship and i don't see enough of it

thank you for requesting it!!! i hope it's good enough! i actually really enjoy writing these types of things so please if anyone has any more hmu!!!

very bad nsfw below the cut

HeadCanons for The Deathslinger (Caleb Quinn) with The Oni (Kazan Yamaoka)

Caleb has been with many lovers both male and female. It was the Wild West, after all, people lived fast and died young and were always itching to get down and dirty with absolutely anyone. Caleb was no exception but even with his multiple partners, he had never seen anyone the size of Kazan. Cowboys were small by nature, having to live off the back of a horse in a hostile desert meant that men were always thin and lanky. Kazan was a complete 180 on everything Caleb has ever known. The robust, behemoth of a man rivaled Caleb’s own height and was about three times his width. He often caught himself wondering about the samurai, daydreaming if one could be so bold - thinking about how anyone could be so big and have hands so large. How does one even maintain or feed a weapon like that? “He’s built like a demon,” Caleb commented to an otherwise oblivious Evan. “He’s called the Oni for a reason. It means ‘ogre’ or ‘demon’ or something in Japanese.” Evan snorted before leaving the dusty cowboy alone with his thoughts.

Kazan would also be very intrigued by the cowboy's appearance. All the samurai has known is war therefore he judges all people by their presumed performance in battle. At first glance, Kazan files Caleb under the category of ‘dying in the first fight’. The man was skinny with little to no visible muscle on his frame and had an awful limp limiting his movement and ability to attack or defend. But as Kazan inspected the cowboy more he realized that he had more to him than just his appearance. Caleb was smart, the smartest man Kazan had ever met. Kazan believed Caleb could build anything in the world; give the man the right materials and tools and he could build a weapon to kill God. He felt great respect for the cowboy, for his brains and his mastership of all things mechanical and gunpowder.

Caleb let Kazan hold his gun once, which is a feat in of itself as he was very protective of his weapon. He showed Kazan how to position the gun on his shoulder, how to look through the aiming rig, and shot down its sights. Kazan was eager to feel the boom of the gun but his finger couldn’t touch the trigger. His hands were too big.  “Would ya look at that?” Caleb said taking the gun from the samurai and inspecting the trigger. He chuckled then looked at the other, “You’re too big. Here,” Caleb raised his hand for Kazan to see, “Lemme get a good look at ‘em.” Kazan obliged and placed his own to the cowboys. Caleb had to hold back a gasp, they were huge! Massive digits with long claws at the fingertips. After a moment of gawking Caleb dropped his hand and let out a laugh. “Damn.” He tipped his hat and walked away, Kazan following behind wondering why he was laughing. He thought Caleb's hands were cute.

They would be the old grandpa squad of the Fog. Expect them to be seen walking around together, gossiping about all sorts of things. They would comment on new outfits and weapons that other killers would receive from the Entity; "Have you seen that Legion gangs' new rabbit-looking skin?" Caleb leaned over to Kazan who shook his head no, eager for the cowboy to continue. "Bunch of pansies is what I call 'em. Running 'round in bright-colored masks. Ain't looking scary or nothing." Kazan sighed disappointed, "No honor." Julie overhears them and rolls her eyes, "It's not meant for YOU old-timers!"

Forgive me if I am wrong, but in Japanese culture, people refer to others by their last name. Thus when Caleb meets the Spirit he is told that it is polite to call her Yamaoka. He does so gladly. But when he for the Oni’s name, the samurai insists that he calls him Kazan. When asked about this from Rin, Kazan shrugs. “I don’t think he would understand.” He replied. Of course, that wasn’t necessarily true. Maybe it was because Kazan secretly liked being called by his first name. Maybe he liked the idea of having a personal link with the cowboy?

Side note; Kazan immediately regrets telling Caleb to use his first name because, after being called ‘Darlin’, Kazan only ever wanted to be called that. The word was so smooth sounding coming from the cowboy’s mouth and the way it was directed at him made him feel fluttery inside.

They would take alternating turns as to where they would spend each night. Some nights, Kazan would show Caleb around the sanctum and its many smaller shrines and temples. Caleb would ask many questions about his culture, intrigued by its deep heritage and his passion in history. Although Kazan struggles to speak English for the cowboy, he becomes elated whenever he gets to speak about his people, his chest would puff out with pride and he would start lecturing Caleb. Once he became so involved in his storytelling that Kazan unconsciously switched to Japanese. Caleb hadn’t the heart to tell Kazan that he couldn’t understand him and just allowed him to continue, nodding his head and wowing every time Kazan looked to him for reassurance. Afterwords Kazan would realize his mistake. “I was... speaking Japanese the whole time. Wasn’t I?” Caleb would laugh at the sight of Kazan’s personal disappointment. “No worries my friend.” Caleb patted the larger man's shoulder, “It’s all in good fun.”

“Why do you like my stories so much?” Kazan asked Caleb as they stood before his broken and decaying statue. Caleb, with a curious hand under his chin, tilted his head at the artwork marveling in its details. “I don’t have ya kind of history. My culture is just horses, whiskey, and gun powder. I respect ya, I suppose.” Kazan was surprised by Caleb's answer; it was the first time that the cowboy had outwardly expressed his affection for the other man. “Besides,” Caleb continued turning to give Kazan a cheeky wink, “Ya look like ya really enjoy telling the stories.”

NSFW!! The nights that they spend at Caleb's place were ones that almost always ended in sex. It was the alcohol, at least that’s what Caleb blames it on. He always makes a point to get plastered when Kazan watches; Caleb brings out bottles of faded yellow liquid, “I can down 2 gallons of this here whiskey in 10 minutes flat.” He then produces another smaller bottle, one christened with the label of a skull and cross-bones, “And this baby,” He shakes it threateningly, “Is the cherry on top.”  9 minutes later Caleb is swaying and hiccuping, his words slurred and face flushed. Kazan has only partaken in the excessive drinking once; he lasted 6 minutes before blacking out. When Caleb drinks he gets frisky. The alcohol helps him forget about the persistent pain in his leg making him feel young and adventurous and horny.

Caleb leaned into Kazan, slowly tracing a finger over the faces of the samurai’s armor. “Ya come here often, darlin’~?” Kazan lowered his comically small glass of whiskey to take Caleb in his arms. He knew where this was going. To the bedroom.

The first time they had done it, Kazan was pissed out of his mind. Combine Caleb's drunken confidence with Kazan’s inability to restrain himself and you have the recipe of one dangerous night. When Kazan thinks back he is amazed by how Caleb actually managed to handle himself in bed. From that night onwards, Kazan made it a point to never drink beyond his limit for fear of hurting the frail man in an uncontrollable frenzy. Caleb would scoff and punch Kazan in the shoulder. “Oh don’t be such a long skirt wench. Live a little.”

Kazan loved waking up in bed with Caleb. The man’s alcohol-filled morning breath was something the Oni had to get used to and Caleb had top learn to share the bad but after a while it becomes custom. Kazan would rake his long-nailed hands through Caleb's tangled hair trying his best to brush it. “You have to look after yourself, Caleb.” Kazan would reprimand only receiving a groan from the Deathslinger as he rolled over and tried to go back to sleep.

[dr-astormylasthurrah]

spam’s character design tips!

(various designs I’ve done! adopt characters belong to their owners, I only include them here as examples and claim no current ownership.) *disclaimer: it was 9 pages before i added pictures so i’m not inaccurate

If you would rather read this as a Google Document, please click here! (The document has more examples as well!)

Hey! My name’s Spam and I write Danganronpa: A Stormy Last Hurrah! You may also have seen my art for various stories and users around the Internet, including RATS: 252 Chances at Redemption and the Alca Ronpa series! You may ALSO also have seen my character designs, including those for ASLH as well as certain characters in Alca Ronpa and Kill the Joker: AnotheR Game! I sell adopts fairly frequently as well and have miscellaneous designs floating around the web, so I figured I may as well write something about my process. This is mostly oriented towards human OCs! So hopefully this helps someone!!

Before starting this guide, I’d like to give credit to gaiacseas/gokuhara’s “How I Design OCs: Do’s and Don’ts”! When I was designing the ASLH cast, I found myself coming back to this guide again and again. A lot of my points are the same as theirs, but I talk a bit about my own process, especially when it comes to characters that I revamp and redesign.

All uncredited art was done by me, including character designs. Characters belong to their respective owners. All other art is credited.

So let’s get started!

CONCEPTS

The first thing I’m going to say is that my character designs, especially those for myself, take absolutely FOREVER. I usually go through many, many pages of concepts and color tests before I find something I’m satisfied with. It’s a long and very constructive process, and if I’m designing a character for someone else, it can take weeks before we can find something we’re both satisfied with.

Alexei Ilyich Bazhanov, ASLH’s SHSL Birdwatcher, was a design-first character, meaning that I came up with his design first and built his personality around it. Although to be fair someone who constantly wears a feathery halfmask in public is inevitably bound to be kind of dramatic, so there’s only so many ways his personality couldn’t be influenced by his design. However, his design took a bit of a downgrade from his initial design to his current iteration, largely because of his initial design’s similarity to Tatsumaru Harai, ASLH’s SHSL Kabuki Actor.

In Tatsumaru’s concept sketch, you can also see the inspirations I cited for their design! I don’t consume much media, so the characters I cite as reference are often OCs in my friends’ stories. Here, I cited Minami Tachibana (Danganronpa: Dead on Arrival), Alix Murasaki (Ultimate Danganronpa: Supernova at Sea), and… Rhanahad Electricrone (Alca Ronpa 2), for some reason. I… actually don’t remember how or why any of those influences connect to Tatsumaru at all? Actually, for almost all of the ASLH characters, I scribbled down some notes on design influences and proceeded to ignore them. So maybe don’t listen to me actually. But design influences are good! Just don’t straight up copy them.

ANYWAY, as you can see, Alexei and Tatsumaru both had longish coats with balloon pants. However, I had better reason to keep these traits for Tatsumaru than Alexei, because kabuki acting actually uses these elements in its costumes. Thus, it made more sense to change Alexei’s design, although I do think that he would still actually wear that original outfit. It’s very himcore.

The point is that this ended up in many, many more drafts of concept sketches until I found something I was satisfied with. Like, six pages. It was kind of insane. It’s worth it in the end to make a polished product, though!

BODIES

(Admittedly, I’ll be the first to admit that I’m not the best when it comes to drawing distinct body types. It’s a weakness of mine that I’m getting better at, but I’m still not great at it.)

The #1 tip I can give here is to use shape language! This is what people use in pretty much all Western cartoons - ever think about how hard it would be to take Bill Cipher seriously if he was a circle? gaiacseas goes over shape language and silhouettes in far more depth in their tutorial, so I really advise looking at it! The basics are:

CIrcles/ovals convey softness and gentleness

Rectangles convey solidity and strength

Triangles convey sharpness and distrust

Combine shapes to modify the image your character conveys!

Also, just a tip: if you’re designing a cast of characters, please don’t just make them all the same body type! In real life, if you got any random sample of people, they’re not all going to be the same body type. Diversifying your body types helps a lot to distinguish characters from each other, too. Imagine if all of these characters had the same proportions as each other - even though they all have distinct outfits, you would have a much harder time perceiving them as different people.

If you’re going to draw characters of a body type you’re unfamiliar with, good for you! But first, take the time to look up guides on how to draw those body types. Studying real people also helps a lot to understand the vast varieties of body types. Just look at this picture of Olympic and Paralympic athletes from the 2016 Rio games - there’s already a ton of variations in “muscular” depending on what their sport is, and each athlete is optimized to their sport! It’s like that for literally everyone on Earth with literally every body type. There’s millions of ways to be skinny (bony? lean? malnourished?) or fat (most fat around their stomach, arms, legs?) or muscular (tall like a basketball player, dense like a weightlifter?) so make them count!

Also consider making characters with disabilities! My commentary on this as an abled person is fairly limited, but I will say to please note that what you think you know about disabilities is not necessarily true. This is in regards to their experiences having a disability, but can even apply to things you don’t think about - the wheelchairs most wheelchair-bound people use are not usually medical wheelchairs, for example. Research!!

On a related note, please don’t make racial caricatures or draw all your characters with the same facial features. People of specific ethnicities tend to (but not always) have certain features that are common to people across a regional area, but that’s no excuse to veer into drawing in the same way old racist cartoons are illustrated in. Again, there’s plenty of guides to help with learning about these! Or just look at the people around you and draw real people as practice. You’ll find the world is much more diverse than you think.

And speaking of references!! I’ve seen a lot of really good guides these days for drawing different body types and features! Go check them out go check em go!!

sdkay’s guide on drawing different facial structures (original post was deleted)

kenzandfriends’ guide on drawing fat people (original post was deleted)

nsfwbutts’ guide on drawing fat people (guide isn’t nsfw but their blog is so this is a reblog)

mel-lion’s guide on drawing black features

chuwenjie’s guide on drawing East Asian faces

“world of averages” - composite images of thousands of portraits of people from different places (re: certain facial features being common to certain ethnicities!)

calvin-arium’s guide on drawing characters in wheelchairs

Honestly if you’re looking for help just literally google “how to draw [character trait] and I GUARANTEE you there is a guide out there for you. While people not belonging to the demographic you’re drawing will probably not notice if you don’t portray groups accurately, those who are part of that demographic will be absolutely delighted.

MOTIFS

Motifs are a really neat way to make your character stand out in a crowd, especially if those motifs have meaning behind them! I mostly do this for adopts, but one of my favorite designs was Ophelia Zhang, a character I designed and proceeded to do absolutely nothing with.

She’s Medusa-inspired, as is obvious because of the snake motif on her jacket and the green hair/yellow eyes combination! Maybe you didn’t notice it until I pointed out, but now that I did, it raises intrigue about her character and her connection to the myth, doesn’t it?

Aside from Ophelia, most of my (own) characters aren’t very motif-heavy, but I like having common themes and patterns that run throughout their outfits at least. It just makes the outfit blend better. Some examples of this include Claude Bates, ASLH’s SHSL Violinist, and Chiyo Kumoshita, ASLH’s SHSL Cellphone Novelist.

Nonstandards are a great way of making a character Become Their Motif! Claude is based on snakes, specifically grass snakes - he’s got beady eyes, fangs, a grass snake pattern on his pants, and the combination of weird vesty jacket thing and striped shirt creates a belly scales effect. HOWEVER, he’s also got violin motifs! Most obvious are the f-hole patterns on his coat, but a more subtle thing is that his shirt has 5 stripes - a music staff (which sheet music is written on) is made of 5 lines!

(“so spam shouldn’t he have only 4 stripes on his shirt, for the 4 spaces on a music staff” shut up i realized i messed up his design too late. my orchestra director is going to kill me)

Chiyo, on the other hand, has a distinct cloud motif! This primarily is to match her surname (雲下 are the kanji for “clouds” and “under” respectively), but the other reason Chiyo has a cloud motif is because of ASLH itself - ASLH is loosely themed around the Shakespeare play The Tempest, and Chiyo, being ASLH’s protagonist, gets a “clear skies” motif. Neat!

OUTFITS

(“Incinerate” is the base for Puppet from Kill The Joker: AnotheR Game!)

There is SO MUCH that can be said about outfits and how I design them. The #1 tip I have is to look at what other people wear, and then decide what it is about that outfit you like so much! If you go somewhere where people are dressed differently from what you’re used to (a distant city or a foreign country), take notes! For me, some elements I come back to a lot include collared shirts, sweaters, oversized overdecorated overcoats, and cloud/sky patterning.

So here’s a little about what makes outfits distinct from each other!

Colors:

Bro this is SO IMPORTANT. There’s a lot that can be said about color theory, and gaiacseas says more than I do on the topic, but basically color conveys a lot about the character. Muted colors convey a muted personality, and brighter colors convey a brighter one! As gaiacseas says in their guide, however, this sets up a great way to subvert expectations about your character.

Protip! If you’re having trouble with a color scheme, just color pick from an existing picture! I don’t have any examples of this on hand, but I do know that sunset pictures are very yummy and I have a lot of pink/orange colored designs. Coincidence? I think NOT.

The number of colors you select is of course up to you, but personally, I don’t use too many individual colors for ease of creating reference images. Of course, realistically, no one’s going to wear clothes the exact same color as each other. Unfortunately for that realism, I am lazy and don’t want to color pick 10 colors, so this is how I live.

Layering:

This is the absolute #1 best way to build texture and silhouette in your characters! Step one, find a funky garment. Step two, find another funky garment. Step three, put them on top of each other. Step four, PROFIT.

The easiest garments to do this with is of course jackets, but they certainly aren’t the only garment that can be layered! Layering is just a matter of looking at clothes you would not usually wear together and going “I wonder what would happen if you wore this together?” In real life this is usually a disaster. But in the world of art and hypotheticals everything is fair game and NOTHING makes sense!

Patterns:

For when layers just don’t cut it! As far as patterns go, they could tie into motifs or just be a nice pattern. For example, Mal Jenkins is a painter, so the patterns on his sleeves, pants, and bag are based on Monet’s “Water Lilies”.

On the other hand, patterns could just be a pattern or recurring motif! The world is your oyster!

Materials/textures:

When combined with layering, clothes of different textures and weights can add a lot to a design! I mentioned before that I like designs with jackets, let’s look at a couple different hoodies! Featured here is Tristan McRae, ASLH’s SHSL Video Game Designer, and Hayato Kikuchi, Ultimate Parkourist (submitted to rebootmon’s Danganronpa: Zetsubou Panic!!).

You can see that Tristan’s jacket is made of much thicker material than Hayato’s, which is very baggy and loose. This already makes their designs a lot more distinct from each other! (They’re also wearing totally different colors so that helps too.)

Other textures I like to do include adding holes (like Spring from KTJ:ARG has holes in her coat), adding things onto fabrics (like Tsukino Chisaki, ASLH’s SHSL Flight Student, has studs on her coat and boots), and adding visible stitching (like Brendan Valdez, ASLH’s SHSL Flight Student, has patches on his coat).

Clothes:

Having a general idea of what clothes actually exist is a very good start! Such as:

Tops: t-shirts, collared shirts, long sleeve/short sleeve shirts, tank/tube tops, cold shoulder shirts, blouses, sheer mesh shirts…

Bottoms: Skirts, gym shorts, denim shorts, jeans (with and without holes), leggings, culottes, kilts...

Dresses: Prom dresses, casual dresses, ball gowns, formal full-length gowns…

Undergarments: tights, fishnets, garters, long socks, short socks, gloves, bras/bralettes...

Coverings: Hoodies, cardigans, overcoats, denim jackets, capes, ponchos, vests, suit jackets…

Shoes: Slippers, flip-flops, sandals, high heels, sneakers, athletic shoes, slip-ons, boots...

Accessories: Hats, barrettes, hair ties, jewelry, bags, headbands, belts, chains, suspenders, buttons, glasses...

So from there it’s just mix and match! Keep in mind the different styles of clothing as well - you can swap out things like collars and edges to create variety! There’s different types of boots, different types of skirts, different kinds of bags. The sky’s the limit!

No, I Meant Like Clothes Inspiration:

Oh. Again, keep an eye out for specific art inspirations! If you see a cool character design or outfit on social media, bookmark it! Just remember not to copy clothes exactly, because that’s called art theft! I have a storage Discord server where I keep screenshots and links of art and outfits I come across while scrolling social media.

I find that the best original outfits are a combination of different outfits. Take certain elements that you find cool in each outfit , then add a few elements of your own and stick them all together! It might take a few passes to work as cohesively as you’d like, but keep trying! The best outfits that take inspiration should look so seamlessly blended and original that they should only look like the references if you compare them to each other.

I also have a few characters inspired by songs, so sometimes I’ll incorporate the motifs of MVs for those songs into their outfits. I don’t really recommend this unless you’re 100% prepared to be called out on where the outfit came from, and I ESPECIALLY do not recommend lifting the outfit exactly. Again, that’s art theft.

Isaku Umitsu, my SHSL Kyudoka, is based on the Hitotsume-sama, Bun-chan, and Kulukulu characters from utaite Eve’s music videos Literary Nonsense and Outsider. Looking at them side by side, the inspiration is obvious, but when taken out of context, it shouldn’t be the first thing that comes to mind unless you’ve watched Eve’s videos 100 times (like I have) (take my computer from me please).

References:

As for references! Here’s just a couple that I found digging through my Tumblr!

My main blog’s fashion tag!

moatdd’s layering how-to! This changed my life when I saw it.

OSF Costume Rentals - period accurate clothing!

leaf-submas’s hat and skirt style guide, feat. Napstablook!

Jfashionmagazines - Japanese street fashion!

If your mutuals have fashion tags or pages, that’s a good place to dig through as well! They almost certainly have different styles than you do, so you’ll get exposed to a lot of different styles!

Outfits are a lot of fun and my favorite part of designing characters! Hopefully it will be for you too! :D

REDESIGNING CHARACTERS/NEW OUTFITS

Ever got a character design you love, but then decided you weren’t feeling anymore? Or got a character from someone you ended up hating? Or you found character art from 5 years ago and decided you hated it? YEAH ME TOO TO EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THOSE!!

ASLH has four characters who were adopts: Ririka Kashizaki (SHSL Nail Artist), Sentarou Sekisada (SHSL Seat Filler), Hirono Ekyou (SHSL Oendan), and Ryouji Atsui (SHSL Caterer)! For a “complete from scratch redesign” I’ll be talking about Ryouji, who was converted from an attempt at design to a fantroll to an original design!

As you can see, I had a lot of trouble with Ryouji’s design. (It probably didn’t help that I didn’t finalize his personality until basically the prologue though lbr.) I didn’t really know what I was doing, and though I had the concept for the vibes I was shooting for, nothing seemed right. Around the same time, I bought an OC design from my friend Marti, and I was having so much trouble I was like “y’know what let’s just fuse the two”.

My process for redesigning OCs, especially when doing something like humanizing a nonhuman character, is to pick the certain traits I’d like to keep and change the rest. For Ryouji, the elements of his concept art I wanted to keep were parts of the outfit (the apron and vest) and the elements of the fantroll I wanted to keep were his eyebrow scar and the squares pattern on the jacket. Thus, when redesigning him, I made him have all of these elements! This was probably one of my favorite designs to make ever, and I’m really glad other people seem to like it too.

Weirdly enough, as soon as I finalized his design for his first reference, his personality almost immediately materialized. Which really just goes to show how much design can influence character personalities.

(Fun fact, drawing Ryouji’s reference was the first time I drew his final outfit, so I’m extremely grateful it turned out as well as it did.)

Other characters, like Hirono, only need a quick outfit touchup. I loved Hirono’s design already, and it fit with what I had in mind with her personality. All I did to change her was the same process I use to make any other outfit, see above. She’s an oendan, so she gets a hapi coat and school uniform… though, honestly, that original outfit is still super cute. I should draw it again sometime.

Most of the characters that I redesign as heavily as I did Ryouji are fangems and fantrolls that I buy from my friends, because I know that they understand my mighty need to redesign things. I try not to redesign adopts I get from other sources because I don’t know how the people I bought them from would feel about my editing their design too heavily; Sentarou and Ririka fall into these categories, so when I got them I mostly changed their outfits.

For me, it feels weird to redesign already-existing human OCs, but it’s also not impossible - Tristan, for example, used to be white. No I’m not going to show you the sketches for that and all you need to know is that it sucked, mostly because I was having a lot of trouble making him look nerdy but also nonthreatening. I think how he looks now is a good balance. If you ever get stuck redesigning a character, a race or gender swap (if either is possible tastefully) can go a really long way, and can even subvert expectations about a character! Just keep in mind dynamics and messages as well - if you have a strong violent woman and go “hey she should be trans”, that’s really not the best stereotype you would probably want to display in your work. Be mindful!

2015 (og design) => later 2015? (RWBY AU) => 2017 (AR3) => 2018 (DE:OPH

CAST BALANCE: DESIGNS

I wasn’t going to talk about this but then I decided I was gonna talk about it! I mean this is kinda a guide for Danganronpa characters, but this applies to any cast that is presented in a group. The characters in ASLH fall into a few different categories:

Created for beta ASLH: Chiyo, Amal, Tsukino, Ririka, Kanemori, Tristan, Tiana, Claude, Iris, Aster

Created for current ASLH: Ryouji, Sentarou, Alexei, Tatsumaru

Preexisting characters: Hirono, Brendan

The largest problem I had putting all the cast members together was revising outfits so that, as seen with Alexei and Tatsumaru above, designs wouldn’t be too similar. For the most part, I had vague ideas of what I wanted for each appearance; even the characters whose designs materialized fully-formed (like Tiana and Brendan) were edited slightly for cast cohesion.

I wish I could say I was responsible in developing all 16 characters’ designs at once so I could keep an eye on their design consistencies, but I would be lying. Instead, I finalized them and then posted them one by one. This was a double edged sword. One, I couldn’t go back and readjust colors or designs without making a whole new reference (which I actually did for Tatsumaru). However, because I was able to take a birds-eye view of my cast, I could see what design elements I needed more of - ESPECIALLY for color scheme! You’ll notice that a lot of the first row in my cast pic is very dark and grey-dominant, so I made a conscious push to include more colors in the second row of characters.

My one regret is not doing more talent-related designs. For a majority of the ASLH cast, you wouldn’t be able to tell their talent from appearance alone. In some cases this would have been impossible anyway (how do you convey to a Western audience a SHSL Cellphone Novelist through design?), but the only really distinct and obvious talent related designs are probably Tatsumaru (who probably doesn’t count because kabuki acting is maskless); Claude; Iris Sumitama, the SHSL Honors Student; and Kanemori Shionaga, the SHSL Football Player. Can you guess who they are?

Also, Alexei’s outfit should have been more extra. I still regret not making it so.

TOO LONG, DIDN’T READ

Go look at gaiacseas’ thing.

I do at least a page or two of concept art before settling on a single design.

Pay attention to body types!

Motifs can make a character look really cohesive and thematic.

Pay attention to what you like in outfits, too!!

Color schemes give an at-a-glance idea of your character’s personality.

Layering creates distinct silhouettes and can be done with more than just jackets!

Varying materials and textures makes the same garments look distinct from each other.

Making interesting outfits is as easy as mixing and matching garments.

Find outfit inspiration, but don’t plagarize!

To redesign characters, take the elements you like and shift everything else until it looks the way you want it to!

Balancing cast designs is a tricky process; going one-by-one is possible but has its ups and downs.

A LAST NOTE

In general, when you make a character whose life is different from yours - especially those belonging to marginalized communities - for the love of GOD please do some research about the experiences those communities have. It is a very bad idea to make them into a mouthpiece for your views of the groups. (SHSL Activists that are portrayed as unreasonable SJW strawmen irritate me to no end.) If you don’t feel you can portray a character respectfully, through either drawing or writing them, either a) research and listen to people of these groups so that you can or b) don’t do it, and maybe reevaluate yourself and figure out what about making this character makes you so uncomfortable.

Which isn’t to say that you have to be 100% perfect at everything, of course. In general, so long as the misinterpretations are unintentional, people belonging to the groups you try to represent tend to be pretty happy that you’re trying at all. You have no idea how happy I am to see agender representation in fanganronpa casts, especially because the Danganronpa OC scene likes to stick to hard gender binary balances. So it is worth it if you want to try it!

GOOD LUCK

And happy character creating!

If you enjoyed this document, please consider buying me a Ko-Fi or checking out my commissions! Or, of course, read Danganronpa: A Stormy Last Hurrah.

[bellatrixobsessed1]

Goretober (Day 7)

Prompt: Decapitation

Fandom: Legend Of Korra

Characters: Kuvira

Song Rec: Poppy - Meat

Summary: The avatar universe has been taken over by monsters that hunt humans and decapitate them. Warning for very explicit gore (more so than my other stuff) and suicidal ideation.

Marching boots and stomping feet. One day they will come for her. Line her up as one in massive rows and then the slaughter begins. It’s fine, she supposes. It has been a long time coming anyhow. Humans have been on their last legs for months now, hiding out in rag-tag clusters. The dream of a revolution or a take back lost long ago. 

They don’t sleep. 

They don’t eat.

They are made of both grotesquely muscular flesh and mechanical bits. They wear gas masks and are fueled by toxins. Kuvira can never tell where the human ends and the machine begins. She can never tell where each body begins either.

There aren’t many of them, perhaps that is why their uprising had been so unforeseen. Kuvira remembers with self-loathing that she had been one of many to laugh when handed her mission, a simple, “take the abomination down.” She’d laughed harder when they handed her a special ops army to lead, a few tanks, and a plethora of high-grade weaponry. It had only been one. 

One solitary figure wandering across the Earth Kingdom plains. Though walking was a bit of an exaggeration, it was more like a shamble or a stumble. 

It could have almost been human. But she knew of no other creature that could take on a barrage of missiles, grenades, and gunfire and piece itself back together from the mush that it had become. They had blasted it with everything they had and still it shuffled forward. From a closer proximity, Kuvira had seen the green fluid leaking from its mouth. The same green fluid that it spat out in impossible quantities, melting down the armor of their tanks. One particularly unlucky bastard took a faceful of the stuff. His screams were accompanied by putrid smelling smoke as his skin peeled back and melted in thick globs down his neck.

At which point she had instructed her men and women to fall back. The smart ones had listened and became part of one of many gaggles of remaining humans. The rest. They became a part of something else. 

Kuvira had watched the creature behead the mass of people in front of it. A thick and meaty thing that could pass as an arm if one didn’t look very hard burst out of the creature’s back. It let out a roar both mechanical and gurgly. With another sick sucking noise, a massive robotic blade bursted from the inhuman arm.

One by one heads rolled. The creature paid them no mind for the most part. It was more interested in the detached bodies. It crawled up to the first and laid upon it. Kuvira’s brows had knit at the display. She hadn’t noticed what had happened until the creature stood up with the body fused to itself. A pulsing green vain made the seam. New arms and legs swinging limply, it had fallen upon the next body and the one after, each and every one coming together to create an even more hideous display. It grew in size, until it was a morbid mass of undulating flesh, so tangled that it was impossible to tell where one body ended and the next started. And more impossible to tell which limb went with which body. 

At that point Kuvira had issued a full-on retreat as the thing let out a horrific gurgling howl. She had looked back one final time to see it pick out its favorite heads. 

In the back of her mind, Kuvira knew that it wasn’t the only one of its kind. 

She had come back to find Zaofu littered with chunks of meat, vomit, bone fragments, spinal disks, and green discharge. 

She had curled herself into a shaking ball at the corner of her old room after having added her last meal to the grime on the street.

Presently, she finds herself sitting at the furthest corner of a makeshift bunker, running through the horrors she has seen.  She has always been a toned woman but the months of running and hiding and fighting has increased that twice over. She has always been rough and stoic, but there had been compassion. She has none left. There six others, she knows none of them. She doesn’t want to know any of them. The last three teams she was on had been massacred and consumed before her eyes. 

She knows that this lot will suffer the same. 

She can throw all of the grenades and firepower that she wants but they seem unstoppable. She can blow them to bits but the green veins branch out like roots and piece them back together. 

The abomination will only spread. Kuvira thinks that perhaps she should blow her own brains out, she can’t outlast the creatures, but she can avoid a more gruesome death. It would be the logical move. She has just as little compassion for herself as she does for the rest of her sorry little band.  A loud shriek lets her know that she needs to make her decision quickly. 

Several arms (one is particularly fleshy and bulky and another is absurdly skinny) and a leg reach into the trapdoor and Kuvira is well aware that they have made a mistake in taking refuge within the cellar. There is nowhere to run. She laughs bitterly to herself, she had always known that she’d eventually make a mistake. A fatal wrong call, such is human nature. 

Her odds would have been better if she were out in the open. If she had a place to run. 

As things are, she is cornered . 

There is a fleshy tear and a thud that she knows so well. 

More shrieks. 

A wet spray on her face; she tastes copper. 

A body falls in front of her and she can see the jagged point of its spinal column. A pool of blood gushes from the neck, Kuvira can feel it soak into her pants and underwear as it flows passed and gathers at the back wall. 

There is no worse death. 

She makes her decision and puts the gun to her head. She closes her eyes and pulls the trigger. Her breath catches and she tries again. This time it is her own scream that she hears. Her tears are born of unfathomable rage and deep terror as she realizes that there is only one way out. And that, that one way out is the most vile one.

The monstrosity throws a bladed limb in her direction, impulsively she throws the gun up. The blade appendage slices through it and takes her hand as it retracts. Kuvira screams louder as an intense pain shoots up what is left of her arm. She can see the bone just as she had seen the jagged spine. It is an uncontrolled fountain of blood. The blade comes back around and she ducks. 

She supposes that she has only made her fate worse. It is resentful enough to retract its blade. The flabby arm holds her in place, a crushing grip that she has no power against. The most muscular of the arms takes a fistful of her hair and begins tugging. She wants to scream again, wants to sob uncontrollably but she is in too much pain to do even that. She feels the first splits in her neck and they only grow like tears in fabric.

And then she feels no more. 

Her body drops and then the creature’s body drops. 

Flesh grows into flesh. Green veins weave in and out, interlocking her limp body until it is wholly woven to the ball of flailing limbs. 

There is no worse death. 

.oOo.

The creature makes its way about the room. It rummages through the heads, holding one up to its gas-masked face to get a better look at it. It tosses the head aside with a fleshy and wet thud and picks a new one. It hasn’t slaughtered a good batch, this time. But then, most of the human population has been eradicated. It finds it strange that the survivors aren’t necessarily the fittest of the species, they are simply the luckiest or the quietest. 

But that means that at least one of them has had enough brains to get them to last this far. 

A smile spreads across the fleshy mass that is its original head. He has found it, the head of their leader. Its smile stretches further as he holds it up by the braid. It recognizes the face. It is the face the creature’s own kind have come to both hate and crave. She is the survivor who bested them thrice now. The power that it will reap from her is incredible. 

It holds her head above its shoulder, the last bits of blood are splattering on the floor. It lets the green veins work to connect them. They reach up as though the head is magnetic and weaves them into one being.

.oOo.

There is no worse death.

But Kuvira would rather be dead. 

The sheer impossibility of it hurts her mind. A cruel fate it is to be molded with this beast and maintain sentiance. To be molded to a mangle of foreign limbs and have no control over any of them. She wishes that, at the very least, she could be only a mindless head. A head that can’t think for itself. 

But she isn’t. She has her mind, her memories, her feelings, and her fears. Suddenly she is no longer the hardened version of herself. She is practically a kid. Weeping and scared and trapped.

The creature emerges dripping with blood and green fluid. Through their connection she knows that she had been the last. 

They monsters have won. They have achieved full extermination. 

[saranel]

Tagging @mags-duranb, who asked (thank you for the interest btw, it was super sweet. Also, I love your art <3333) :)  I was gonna make a post anyway, but I wanted it to be a timeline photoset hence why I’m not replying directly.

I thought it was about time I gave you guys a nice long update on the purrito, since we have now officially reached 2 months of age as of yesterday!

To answer the requester’s question, SHE is doing just fine xD  That’s right, when we visited the vet about a week ago for the second round of shots, we got visible proof (or rather lack thereof) that we have a little girl in our hands.  This was only a couple of days before I made an insta post announcing the official name, because of course it was. Way to embarass me, kiddo.

So I’d like to introduce you all to Buffy, because hello, so dang pretty, look at that last pic that was taken only yesterday, and she’s also pretty fearless and resourceful, though not necessarily highly intelligent xD  Not a vampire slayer, but an ankle slayer for sure.  I generally post updates on her every couple of days on instagram.

Oh, and, just as a final note on the whole name thing, yes, we still call her purrito from time to time, as well as a thousand other nicknames ;) 

So! On to the update (and an extra... suprise?¿¿??) below the cut:

Buffy’s issues with food have gotten a lot better.  She used to be vicious about meals, meowing and pleading hours before her feeding time.  At first we thought we were perhaps feeding her too little, so we followed the general advice everyone gives re: how much to feed kittens, which is to say we just let her eat her fill.  She did not stop until her belly was so distended I had to physically drag her bowl away.  So we decided to slowly increase her intake whenever we saw she started to get skinny.  Which, given her Longcat status, was so. damn. OFTEN.  Seriously, if she looks malnourished in some pics, I assure you she’s not.  She just grows and grows like a damn weed.

Lately, however, since her weight has reached a healthy plateau, she’s gotten much better about food.  No screaming, no scratching, and she doesn’t really complain before feeding time anymore.  She still follows us whenever we dare visit the kitchen, but hey, it could be worse xD

Something I’ve never mentioned here is that when we first found her, her whiskers were very short and stubby, which we originally attributed to her being very young.  But eventually, we noticed that not only were her brow whiskers much longer, there was a lone whisker next to the stubby ones that was regular-sized, and the shorter ones looked almost... manually cut, if that wakes sense.  A bit of research led us to find out that sometimes, littermates may do this to a runt (bite them off) when they’re competing for mom’s milk, which... not only makes my heart ache for our little buddy, it starts to put her whole attitude toward food into perspective.

Long story short, we were prepared for the possibility that she may forever have issues with food, but she’s been improving constantly.

Other than the food issue, Buffy has grown into a happy, healthy kitty :) She’s up to date on her shots, and we took her to the vet only last week where we got nothing but good news.  

She’s very attached to us, especially me since I work from home and basically see her all day, and though she doesn’t complain and yowl when she’s left alone, she is super cuddly when we return home.  

Given her age, she’s incredibly playful to the point that we get more exhausted playing with her than she does xD She likes climbing all over the place and exploring everything within reach, always looking for new ‘lairs’ and stuffing her butt into every nook and cranny, she loves to chew on cables (which has led us to do some highly creative concealing) and often engages in what we call ‘Crab Dancing’ when she gets excited/territorial during playtime:

( I *****MAY***** have edited this.  Slightly.  For my own amusement.  It’s kinda soporific if you stare at it for too long)

We were glad to see she takes to new (human) acquaintances very well, and she hasn’t (yet) started wreaking havoc in our apartment.  She, has, however,  gotten very bitey during playtime, and it’s ALWAYS playtime, so we’re trying to encourage her to bite on toys instead of our fingers: it’s a sloooooooooow process.  There’s also the possibility that she’s teething a bit early so she’s just constantly looking for relief.  We’ve bought her a few special chew toys that should arrive shortly, and hopefully they’ll help.  Even if it’s still early for her, hey, new toys, amirite? xD

Still, she never lashes out to us in anger/anxiety, not even when we gave her a bath where she was visibly distressed (yes, I know it’s not necessary for cats, but we’d never cleaned her with anything but pet wipes since we rescued her; she needed at least one) and yet she never tried to scratch or bite us.  TL;DR she’s mischievous, but not aggressive outside of playtime.

She’s super long for her age and will most likely be a pretty long kitty when she reaches maturity.  Seriously, y’all, Longcat 2.0:

( USB stick for size comparison, lol )

I’m still bummed my theory that she was part Van doesn’t seem to be true (in my defense, she has something very similar to the characteristic Van spot on her nape!), but hey, less shedding xD She also has a permanent bald spot on her spine now (as we knew she would), where the vet had given her that shot that saved her life back when she got sick.

She’s a sweet little doofus, who thinks she’s really a parrot and likes to perch on our shoulder, and meows the whole time I’m in the kitchen because how dare someone in this household eat when she’s not eating too, and when I ignore her grey-green supplicating eyes she just curls up over my foot while I wash the dishes, and she constantly gets tangled up in our legs and waits for us behind closed doors, and she’s a friggin’ Duracell battery who does.not.tire, and she  tosses half the litter out when she digs, and she loves to take naps with us cuddled right over our chests so our heartbeat can lull her to sleep, and we love her.

Here’s to the next two months :)

Size comparison below, using my hand in both pics.  Then and now :)

Addendum:

Edit: You can keep on reading, but the story has a sad ending, unfortunately :(  

The above was the post I had prepared and was going to post yesterday on Buffy’s 2 month ‘birthday,’ so I’ve left it intact.  However, I would be remiss if I didn’t add this latest development:

For a while now, we’ve been discussing how to deal with Buffy’s inexhaustible energy levels, because we do have other responsibilities, all of whom also require a good night’s sleep, which as you may imagine, has been a bit rare lately.  There’s this saying that the only one who can keep up with a kitten is another kitten, but we were very reluctant to adopt another one, since we’re currently dealing with an imminent move and we weren’t sure if we could even afford it.

Well...................

I found and rescued Buffy.  My partner found and rescued this little guy yesterday:

Five things here:

1) NO THIS WAS NOT PLANNED THIS IS SO BEYOND UNPLANNED I’M WFSJKLSDFJSKDHFSDKJ

2) MY PARTNER DIDN’T EVEN FIND HIM IN OUR NEIGHBORHOOD HE WAS VISITING HIS MOM ASJKFDHLSADGHFDDFAS

3) WE SERIOUSLY DON’T KNOW IF WE’RE KEEPING HIM.  SERIOUSLY.L

4) YEAH I KNOW YOU CAN’T REALLY SEE MUCH LMAO EVEN HIS WHISKERS ARE BLACK JFC BUT I DIDN’T WANNA SCARE HIM SO I DIDN’T USE FLASH

5) 31 FUCKIN YEARS WITH NO KITTENS AND NOW TWQO, TWO KITTENS WTFFFFFFFF ITS RAINING KITTENS PRAISE BE TO BASTET i guess?? wtffffffffff

*breathes into a paper bag*

I’m going to be even more reluctant to make any grand claims than I was when we found Buffy, because this little dude (this one is a dude, indeed) is in pretty bad shape.  Though she’d been abandoned, Buffy was very clean and hale when we found her, even if she was a bit small and underfed.  

This one though... poor little soot sprite is all skin and bones, he was flea-ridden until we took him to the vet, he’s filthy, he’s terrified and has a bum leg from some sort of accident.  We didn’t even have a plan yesterday when my partner found him, but we figured since we had a lot of leftover milk powder and kitten pate from Buffy, we might as well feed up this little orphan. 

It took some coaxing with a syringe, but he got a bit of milk down which got his appetite going and we were able to feed him some pate.  He actually ate a fair bit, which is encouraging.  We know for a fact he was abandoned by his mom, btw, she’s still roaming around the neighborhood but refusing to tend to him since he’s already older than 4 weeks (maybe 1,5 month old max).  Just two weeks younger than Buffy.  After he got some food down, we took him to our vet, who was reserved but cautiously optimistic even for the leg.  He made us no promises, of course, and he advised we prepare ourselves for the possibility that he might not make it.

We’ve now had him for just under a day and he’s been improving.  He was very scared at first, hissy when I went near him, and the first time I fed him at home, the new environment had stressed him out to the point that I had to use a syringe again to get him to eat.  And yeah, we’ve had to keep him isolated ofc to protect Buffy (and him, omg, she’s literally twice his size in weight, no exaggeration, and most likely a social dunce with other kittes, she would destroy him).  I’ll be able to give him a bath tomorrow afternoon after the 48hr clock on the flea medicine runs out, which is yet another reason we had to isolate him.  Today, he’s been getting less and less reserved around me and he hasn’t needed to be force fed once, he’s been downing pate like no-one’s business.  I weighed him earlier and found he’d gained about 40-50 grams, a number I offer cautiously as both weighings at the vet and today aren’t entirely accurate, because squirmy kitty.  Still, he’s gained weight, even if only a little.   

Buffy can tell something’s up, since we basically had to move her litterbox and feeding area and haven’t let her in that room since.  It’s been... an adjustment xD But she bounces back admirably fast, she didn’t even bat an eyelash at the change; she’s just curious to discover what we’re hiding from her, obviously.  She’s probably heard him meowing, too.

We honestly have no clue what we’ll do with him.  Taking it one day at a time.  He might not make it at all, and even if he does, he may never get along with Buffy, in which case we’ll have to give him away for both their sakes.  I’m not gonna lie, money is a concern.  Research tells me at their age and beyond the cost isn’t prohibiting, not even double that of a single cat.  So if he doesn’t require any costly meds, we can afford him, especially since Buffy can now eat dry food (and so will he in a couple of weeks).  This, again, is all hinging on a) him not having any serious, contagious illnesses, and b) him and Buffy getting along.  In the long run, we know it would be way better for Buffy to have a companion to play and cuddle with, but we have to be realistic and prepare for the worst for now.

Soot sprite is a little cutie, he has the softest, most plaintive meow and there’s even hope for his little leg down the road (though honestly, that’s the last thing that concerns us; even in his current state, he’s perfectly mobile).  His eyes, too, should get better with time if he grows healthier. 

SO WE’LL SEE.  RN I am beyond stressed and reserved, but also kinda hopeful. *sigh*