#this will be my first time publicly talking abt 2011 tsm which might be cool to some ppl idk. oaugh im normal abt my stuff

[fliptop]

2 & 3

2. Is it easier to draw someone facing left or right (or forward even)

if id been asked rhis question ages ago, i would say that it is definitely easier to draw someone facing left (like 3/4th view). it’s actually easier for me to draw someone facing forward nowadays, but i do struggle less drawing at fairly normal angles ^^

3. What ideas come from when you were little

im not sure how to answer this question… plus my memory is quite bad. when i was little i mainly drew things i liked haha ^^ (sonic for example). ig the original TSM comic is a better example of the ideas i had when i was little? my lengthy explanation is listed below!

for context, TSM (The Shapehead Monsters) is a webcomic i’ve been developing for several years now. the characters can be found here, and my tags for it can be found here and here (<- tag for the 2017 reboot art specifically). TSM takes place an undetermined but very long time into the future, where Earth has surpassed the lifespan of humans. here, humanoid insects known as Shapehead Monsters can be found. the plot follows Susie Square, a temperamental but kind girl on the search for her family’s killer, and her best friend/crush Cecilia Circle, a cool and collected vagabond who has a penchant for getting into tricky situations. as Susie tries to solve her family’s murder, she and Cecilia uncover more about their world than they could have ever imagined.

the above context is true for the current state of TSM, which is vastly different to the original plot of the first TSM comic i did back in 2011 (i dont have pictures on me so you will have to imagine). the 2011 comic didnt even start with susie & cecilia, it was just a sketchpad comic centered around two girls who had a crush on the same guy. from what i remember, they were shapeshifting catgirls? this plot was probably most definitely inspired by anime (i grew up watching keroro gunso lol). the girls (& by extension the guy) didnt have any names iirc. eventually, these girls wage war on each other by creating these fucked up bug creatures (indirect kaiju reference) to kill each other but they end up falling in love. the first shapehead monster (susie) is derived from these two monsters, and then the comic shifts focus to susie & her mishaps at school. tbh these were probably based on how i felt as a weird kid back when i was younger. love triangle never happened tho

susie ALSO gets into a weird love triangle at school (sean & jake who do not exist in proper TSM canon LOL) & also has like an evil twin at some point named winter (for some reason i renamed susie to summer here but then went back to susie later unprompted)??? it was really fuckinf weird. i was just fucking around drawing these little bug things back then. i mean i still am LOL but yknow. i think i got the whole shapehead thing from the sketchpad itself, it had a geometric square pattern n i just saw that & went with it.

by the way, the 2017 "reboot" as i call it was supposed to be a reboot of the og 2011 comic, except the original plot was the plot of a show that susie & cecilia were acting in (it was supposed to be a rom-com in which they fall in love despite playing each other's rival in the show). i honestly don't know where this came from, but by 2020 i had rehauled the entire thing & came up with a proper starting narrative ^^

here's a fun little design comparison!