#She has a lot of shapes and elements of her silhouette that I haven't used anywhere else

[ashilean]

HAEKA, toa Mangai of ice (9/11)

Searching the snow-blind outskirts, many a matoran has been pulled from their icy doom by the strong hands of toa Haeka. Preferring actions over words, she happily busies herself keeping the most remote shrines and patrolling the least walked paths.

Haeka wears the great Rode, it's truth-telling powers giving her unparalleled insight into the motives of strangers and the embarrassment of rescued matoran. She carries a Brumal Diskhammer and a collection of magical disks, their powers working in tandem with her tool.

Haeka has a habit of disappearing for days on end--on her own if she can't convince any of her siblings to tag along. So far, though, she has always come marching back home...

[kozachenko]

Here's a digital sketch dump of some pose/anatomy practices and some 2hu doodles, I think from now on if I don't have any big final piece to post, I'll just post sketches I liked that I did digitally (might also reblog some drawings of mine that I want more people to see, maybe idk).

Artist's Notes:

Ok so after the recent Hifuu fanart I did, I've been hoping to experiment more with how I draw faces, how I render, as well as how I stylize things. In some of the earlier sketches I did, I had an idea for a pose that I wanted to try drawing, so I took a ref pic of myself doing said pose (the leaning one btw) and then did a sketch over top of it just to get an idea for the shapes, negative space, and silhouette. After that, I wanted to do some simpler breakdowns of the shapes so I can get better at simplifying the body (these ended up being the bottom right sketches in the post). I also did some experimenting with how to push certain parts of said sketches to create a different body type (via liquify and then a more refined version based on that sketch), as well as figuring out what makes a pose feel natural and not stiff. This was also a bit of a foreshortening practice just so I can get more confident with it, and I ended up using the arms from the liquified version for the coloured Zanmu sketch I did since I liked them so much (dw I'll get to that).

The next thing I wanted to try and draw was Hisami, mainly because.... I am very bad at drawing her in my style. Last time I drew her I made her look really creepy and spindly, and it is my headcanon now that she can switch between a more human, and more creepy look whenever she wants. I'm liking where the face is going a lot, might have to refine a few things about it in the future, but it's cute (I also made the blush purple which I think is what I'm gonna do with her face from now on). I also like how her hair in the sketch turned out a lot, but the outfit..... not as much... Ever since I started changing my style to something less cartoony, I've had a hard time drawing her outfit in my style. Especially the flower veil thing she has on, which, I did try to find a way to draw, but I ended up deleting that sketch because I didn't like it. I'm also not a fan of using the colour purple, like, pure purple, magentas are fine, indigos are fine, but not strict purple. I also have a hard time with drawing all the little pattern details on her dress. I also need to find a way to draw the flower veil in a way that looks good because everytime I try it ends up just looking off (very similar to whenever I try to draw Zanmu's blue spears). I think the only solution to this problem is to do what I normally do and make my own version of the outfit, but with adjustments to suit my style while still trying to keep core elements from the original design intact (like I do with Zanmu and Keiki, and yes I am going to get to that Zanmu drawing just gimme a minute).

Ok next up is Keiki, my favourite Touhou character who I haven't drawn since the beginning of the year. Since my style has changed a lot, I wanted to just do a face sketch of her to get a hang of drawing her again, and I..... really really like how it turned out! When I drew her eyes, I realized that a good way of keeping faces too same facey can be via varying the sizes of their pupils, so that's an idea I'm gonna keep in mind from now on. I had a lot of fun with her hair, I initially was gonna do it like how it is in the official art, but I ended up not liking it, so now I'm gonna draw Keiki with wavy heir like this because it's fun and it looks nice. I also included my base sketch for Keiki's face since I was initially struggling with drawing her bandanna, and in the coloured sketch I added some more detail into her hair.

Now to finally talk about the sketches for Zanmu. Good lord was I having a tough time with her face. I also did this sketch before I figured out how I wanted to draw hair, so that's why the rendering on her hair is different (I did this soon after the Hisami sketch actually). Since I changed my art style a lot, I had to find a way to translate her face from my more cartoony style to my more detailed style, so while the face shape, nose shape and mouth was fine, I was really struggling with the eyes. I did get somewhere eventually though, and I am super happy with how it turned out. I wanted to lean more towards the androgynous side of the gender presentation spectrum, mainly because I think that makes sense for her character. Also made sure to include the silver hairs and some wrinkles just to bring some signs of her aging into her face because those are just staple features of how I draw Zanmu at this point lol. You will also notice that I gave her some scars on the right side of her face, and that's because I am a Zanmu-with-scars truther, I fucking love it whenever I see someone give Zanmu visible scars like that it just adds so much omg (I also tried to put a wolf bite mark on her arm in the full body drawing but idk if it reads well). While you can argue that her not having scars sells the idea of her being this "powerful, untouchable mastermind who is impossible to defeat," I'd say that instead of those scars representing times she got injured, they represent everyone who has failed to defeat her.

As I was drawing Zanmu's face, I referenced my sketch of to help with contrasting their features since I made Keiki's face more traditionally feminine. I also didn't mention this in my commentary on Keiki's face because I wanted to save it for here, but giving Zanmu scars also plays into the fact that she used to be human, wheras Keiki doesn't have any scars because she's a god who doesn't follow the rules of normal human biology. Plus I'm thinking about the two of them interacting again (return of Zan/Keik??? (I'm a multishipper btw) maybe???) so drawing their faces together will definitely help me in the future if I wanna draw them together (again, maybe as a ship? I've kinda been ironing out the kinks in their potential interactions (romantic and non-romantic) for a while now so idk maybe expect that in the future lol).

And now for the full body drawing, when I was doing the face sketch I did this little snippet of an outfit, had a vision, and the made it into a reality. I'll admit, part of me was worried that it would end up looking too much like Yuugi's outfits in the spinoffs and mangas, but I feel like I made enough changes to differentiate them. I tried to keep a few of the major details in Zanmu's design (i.e. the red tassles and yellow lining on her shirt) while putting a new spin on it. I also dialed up the scars to 11 since without them the whole thing kinda looked incomplete. Also, while I could say that the leaves on her kimono are "a nod to the fact that technically she should be a tengu because back then people belived that corrupt monks would turn into tengu but no Zanmu is an oni and they're maple leaves because...tengu...ahahahaha" what really ended up happening was that I looked up clothing patterns from Sengoku era Japan, liked the leaves the most because the red picked up on the red from the rest of her design and just ran with it. I also always had the idea to put Zanmu in men's clothing from Sengoku era Japan and while the accurate thing to do would be to put her in a Buddhist's clothes from that era.... from a character standpoint, I don't think Zanmu is pious enough to strictly wear the proper monk uniform, and also since she's basically the king of Hell, she would probably dress herself like royalty from that era. TBH, I probably could've been a bit more historically accurate, but again, this was mainly for conceptual purposes because I had a vision and I needed to see it through.

If I were to draw her in this sort of outfit again, I should probably try and use more references, although now that I look at it, if she were to wear it properly this would maybe, probably look a bit closer to a Kyūtai sugata (a very huge stretch, but it just kinda reminds me of that) just without the layers under and over the main piece of clothing (In the website that I searched up to try and compare the outfit in my sketch to, they name the outfit pieces but don't label them on the image, so I don't know 100% what everything is called) so I will definitely have to use that style of clothing as a reference going forward.

Also, I was kind of inspired by the ToTK design for Ganondorf since I have finished the game a while ago and I absolutely love what they did with his design (it's just so fucking cool omg) and I thought that sort of look would look good on Zanmu, so yeah got some inspo from that.

And those were all the notes for each of the sketches, I'm motivated to draw rn but kinda art blocked, so doing these little coloured sketches helps a lot.

[didsomeonesayventus]

fe engage questions!!!!

- if you could visit one of the kingdoms irl, which one would you go to?

- what are your favorite emblem pairings for units?

- which characters have your favorite designs?

Ohhhhhh

Brodia, probably. I love the autumnal leaves and the rugged terrain reminds me of alm the fun hikes i've taken

Ough. I'm very boring and haven't played with enough experimentation (I'm not really one for it) to really have a set idea gameplay wise. The rings kind of shuffle around whoever's suited best, though I think I give Alcryst Lyn pretty consistently and Pandreo tends to get Celica or Lucina. As far as characters getting along and bonding, I've been meaning to write a fic about Diamant and Celica bonding over fire trauma and her helping him get better with magic as they do. I also really love the unconditional love between Marth and Alear it makes me so ill it's like. It's almost like an eldritch horror of love where it's so big and incomprehensible and unconditional there is no name to be put to it they just care about each other so much. I also like the idea of Alcryst and Corrin getting along but that's creeping into my hcs that Corrin has dark blue hair (I actually use the exact same color from my saved colors palette for coloring their hair in fanart!) So Alcryst ends up looking lowkey like a long lost member of the family (another fic in wip hell where corrinbaki family in Askr confuses Alcryst for another sibling of Caeldori and Kana)

GAH THAT'S A HARD ONE BECAUSE EVERYTHING'S GROWN ON ME SO MUCH???? Mika Pikazo I'm sorry to have been a former Alear design disser I didn't understand your game as an illustrator and now I really love the use of color and shape. It makes me wish we had the 2D sprites again because it's such a hard style to translate properly to 3D if you don't like Engage's designs I implore you to look up the 2D concept art. Citrinne is when I really noticed and caught on to how Pikazo approaches design and had it all click into place so she has to get honorary mention. Alear's did when I started drawing him, and I love it so much now even for its occasional cursed elements (why are your suspenders attached to your metal boots and jacket???? Why are they there.) Lumera's design is also really gorgeous and I can never stop thinking about how her capelet/mantle is like a lavishly decorated shrine or altar. I love Alcryst's design, too, I know butt capes get flak but I love what they lend to a fashion silhouette and there's just something so pleasing about the ratios of red/blue and black/white (and it looks good next to alear without much editing they're #canon /silly). I also love Ivy's designs because 1) woeman hot 😍 but also 2) the contrast of her canon class and Somniel outfits so eloquently communicates her character. This is a lot but like yeah Engage design is full of bangers.

[ehlnofay]

a series of outfit concepts for Pax... I find clothing to be such an interesting part of character design and wanted to explore that more for her. especially since he's one of my more fashion-conscious characters. miscellaneous notes and extra doodles under the cut

the first four of these designs are worn in cyrodiil; the last two are from the shivering isles. I haven't done much brainstorming for cyrod fashion so that was something fun to explore - especially with the challenge of keeping to a similar-ish silhouette and with pax's tastes in mind. most inspiration was taken from byzantine fashion, with some influences from roman and celtic garb as well. there was also a fair bit of simply making shit up. (I also had quite a bit of fun fucking with the saturation and colour values a bit in editing: here's the initial image, minus the increased saturation and also with the finger tattoos on the wrong hand because I got left and right mixed up at first. oops.)

of all my characters, pax is one of the pickiest about how they dress; they don't like fashion at the expense of comfort but they don't like comfort at the expense of fashion, either. he likes bright colours and good quality fabric (ends up stealing and altering a lot of his clothes.) she tends not to wear things with very overt nibenese influences due to her own associations with that style of clothing + nibenese garb tends to have a lot of flowy extra fabric, which she doesn't like. I had a lot of fun trying to explore different ideas, colour palettes, and statement pieces while keeping to roughly similar-ish shapes; for each one I also included slightly different versions of Pax's endless repertoire of jewellery and ways to do their hair.

notes on specific designs: the third one incorporates more of how I picture nibenese fashion, the first one is a reimagining of an outfit i drew them in ages ago, and the second references a piece I wrote and haven't yet published, in which the blades get martin a lot of nice warm clothes, including a long blue tunic (seeing as cloud ruler temple is cold as shit and all he has is a ruined liturgical vestment and some cheap clothes pax stole him during their journey) and pax unceremoniously commandeers most of it. the last two outfits are mostly just self-indulgent - in the state he's in by the time they get to the shivering isles, pax isn't too fussed about appearances, but I wanted to explore what they would wear if they did give a shit. I tried to roughly keep similar elements to the rest of the outfits, with enough tweaks to make it clear that they are very much Of Another Place. I used red as a major tone and colour in both because pax fucking hates it :) (it's the colour of the deadlands, and the mythic dawn robes, and the amulet of kings.)

there were a few more specific things I would have liked to design - in particular a travelling outfit and some concepts for the really fancy garb they take on once they murder their way into a duchy - but those, as well as a breakdown of their armour, are things I would want to give more attention to detail to. so I will do all that separately sometime. however I did do an extra doodle, not included above, of their sleepwear; because it's extremely simple, and because I've never drawn her with her hair down and I really, really wanted to. (even if it's unrealistic; pax mostly sleeps with their hair still up in some finicky arrangement sewn tight enough in place to last for a week.)

[stardestroyer81]

On September 11th, 2020, I posted this, a teaser for a 'faux Earthbound-inspired project' featuring four brightly colored silhouettes of its four main characters. The concept and characters were shrouded in mystery up until April 7th of the following year, where I posted yet another teaser in the form of an in-game screenshot, revealing the character of Lauren Henley and the project's placeholder title, Project 2000.

In that post, I mentioned that Project 2000 isn't the project's final name, and that I would be unveiling its true name later on down the line. The truth of the matter was that I could have gone and revealed the true name as early as... well, 2020 if I wanted to. But a lot of the project was still being figured out at that time (Including the designs of its main characters!), and I wanted to hold off on revealing anything more until I knew I was 100% ready to explain what this 'Project 2000' even is.

Now, nearing a year after I posted the initial first teaser, I feel as though it's about time to introduce a few more original characters of mine to this blog, and with that being said...

Let's talk about Override!

Shigesato Itoi's 1994 cult classic Earthbound (Known as MOTHER 2 in Japan) flopped due to misleading marketing when it came around to being released in the states, but its witty humor, nonstandard JRPG setting and its colorful visual presentation proved to be a hit to the American audience in due time.

This, of course, led to creators opting to shape games around a similar basis to Earthbound, whether its in terms of graphical style, humor, battle tactics, and much more. I think the most popular example when the phrase "Earthbound-Inspired RPG" comes to mind is undoubtedly Toby Fox's Undertale, which shared a lot of the same humor as its inspiration as well as a similar graphical style.

Some fans liked the MOTHER series so much that they wanted to take the franchise into their own hands and create the next installment after Shigesato Itoi stated that MOTHER 3 was the last game in the franchise, and MOTHER 4 began production by fans. Many Winter 2014s later, it was unsure if the game was still in production, though the project was officially rebranded as its own entity as Oddity in 2020.

Override is, essentially, my kind of Undertale/Oddity, mixing elements from Earthbound, MOTHER 3, the Y2K bug and the general 2000s aesthetic together into one. By that first part, I mean it's an Earthbound-Inspired RPG crafted by my own hand (Dating as far back as mid-2019); it, of course, isn't an actual game, but rather a collection of conceptual art pieces and faux in-game screenshots I've made detailing what it would look like as a real game (Like Mega Man Ultimate).

Oh, right, the plot! Bear in mind that a lot of the finer details of Override's story haven't quite been figured out yet, but I can say that I at least have enough to finally get around to talking about it.

Charles Feldman, CEO of Synergon Robotics, longs to spearhead a dystopian world with an invincible army of technologic law-enforcers, though finds it almost impossible to in his current time, the year 2095, where such technology is commonplace.

For years, he has meticulously shaped a plan where he, a team of subordinates and all the robo-security he could need would time travel back just before the year 2000, wherein he would corrupt all technology at that point with a 'Y2K Bug' and force the denizens of the world to live a lifestyle not unlike the events of the novel 1984, wherein humanity's every move is closely observed, and if someone steps out of line, they fall to the wrath of the Synergon Police.

His plan, for the most part, is successful. He travels back to the date November 18th, 1997 to have enough time to prepare for his eventual world-ruling plan on midnight, January 1st, 2000. The aforementioned Synergon police are armed with powerful devices called 'Psiometers', which are watch-like gadgets which connect to the user's neural network to unlock the powers of the mind.

Psiometers alongside other tech necessary for Feldman's ploy are transferred base-to-base in the middle of the night via drones, which are equipped with cameras and can hold up to twenty pounds of equipment. However, on the night of December 30th, 1999, a flaw in the wrap-up of Feldman's ultimate plan occurs, when a last minute drone delivery of two Psiometer units results in a crash.

The drone lands in the yard of the Henley residence. Nine and a half year old Lauren Henley overhears the crash and goes outside to investigate, finding the busted drone amidst the snow. After another brief malfunction, it shuts itself down, and Lauren, vowing to figure out its origins, drags it into the garage and goes back to bed...

December 31st, 1999. Lauren brings the Synergon drone to her neighbor's house, and shows it to her best friend, nine year old Casey Treverton. The two shortly discover the drone's contents, and Lauren instantly suspects there's more to the Synergon story. They ultimately are short on answers for the time being, and keep the whole thing a secret from their parents until later that night...

One minute until the new year. Casey and Lauren hurry to the downstairs of the Treverton residence to catch the ball drop for the new millennium. Whatever weirdness happened earlier is put on the backburner as the two flop down in front of the TV, eagerly counting down the seconds left of 1999.

"5... 4... 3... 2..."

Then, a nationwide power shortage. Nobody has any clue what's going on. Eventually, the TV flickers back on, and instead of the new year festivities they had been watching prior, the picture depicts a grizzled although finely dressed man in front of a white backdrop; Charles Feldman.

He states that his message is being broadcast across every television in the country, and reveals his lengthy plan to create a highly technical dystopian society overseen by Synergon Robotics, threatening to rewire any technology he pleases for the worst should anyone oppose him.

Casey and Lauren grimace at each other.

Three months pass. Not a lot has changed this early on in, though the citizens of Maywood are under close surveillance by various automatons to make sure nobody tries anything funny. Lauren decides that she has had enough of this 'Synergon Business' and asks Casey if he's interested in figuring out how the Psiometers work and using them against Synergon to ultimately take them down.

At first, Casey is unsure, true to his nervous personality. There isn't any rational way two children could lead to the downfall of an entity which has taken over the world, but Lauren is sure of their success, and with enough coercing the two embark on a mission to take back what's theirs. Who do they meet along the way? Just how deep does the Synergon plan run? And will they reign victorious? Only time will tell...

Well, now that we have the lengthy scene-setting out of the way, let's check out the good stuff; checking out the four heroes of Override which were teased last year! It's a good thing I chose to wait to show their designs off, because the silhouettes shown in the teaser weren't the same designs as what I have now. So, let's get right into it!

It may have taken much longer than I expected to show Override off, but at the very least that means I can now get around to posting/writing about what I've come up for it! I have a lot of Override-related content on the way, though I find that this is an excellent way to introduce its world! A LOT of work was put into this, so I hope you've enjoyed everything this post has to offer!