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SPOILERS FOR CHAPTER FIVE OF RAINCODE(And a LARGE amount of text)

I wanted to do more Raincode furries cause they're honestly so fun and are really good practice because I'm kinda rusty in general. I only did Yuma and Makoto this time just cause it's a more manageable workload and they are some of the last ones I'm especially passionate about.

OKAY, BUCKLE UP BABY, THESE CHOICES HAVE LAYERS TO THEM. L A Y E R S

OKAY SO, at some point scrolling on tumblr I saw this post by Nadox showcasing a piece of Yuma's concept art, and in the art he was depicted with long hair. They theorized that this was what Number One originally looked like and he sheared his hair into that wimpy fresh almost bowl cut so he could pass as a trainee, AND I L O V E THAT. I herby declare it as correct on the grounds of I said so.

Going along with this idea, Yuma is a young wolf that has a lame haircut so everyone THINKS he's just a dog. I know a wolf in real life would be a lot harder to reasonably pass as a dog, so this requires a bit of anime logic tomfuckery, but I'm fine with that because Raincode already deals in its fair share of logic jank. I am simply being true to game in that regard! The way I drew him already isn't super wolf-like cause I made him all squishy looking like human Yuma, and made the veerrryyyy tips of the ears flop over because the pointy ones just didn't feel quite right. I know real wolf ears are only ever depicted as pointy but it was for the VIBE. Yeaahhh in hindsight I might have taken a few too many liberties. I suppose to make it a little more sensible you could say he's a wolfdog and not full wolf or something. Other than the logic I really like this choice because everyone would naturally assume Yuma's just a pathetic little puppy dog when his real identity is hiding in plain sight!

I went back and forth on alot of the fur aspects. How smooth is too smooth? How much of it should just look like blunt cuts? Should I even give him his human hair? Usually I don't like giving my furries human hair in general because I want them looking a lot more like animals rather than people, but for Yuma his hair is such an important part of his design that I ultimately decided to keep it on both him and Makoto.

MAKOTO IS A WOLF IN SHEEPS CLOTHING AND THAT IS SO FUN, SO SILLY, SO GOOFY, HOOOORAY(Specifically a dall sheep cause they have those big curly horns). In theory, the hardest part of choosing an animal for Yuma is that whatever his animal is needs to tie into Makoto, and also be able to be implemented in a way where their connection isn't obvious. Makoto having a mask helps of course, but if you pick a really distinctive animal for Yuma you'll have to come up with better ways to hide it. Others have gotten a lot more creative with how Makoto hides his species, but I didn't do that and went in the full direction of just giving him a disguise. Its a littlllleeeeee lazy but I'm too smitten with the idea to care. I was a little confused on what to do with the tail. I considered just chopping off the majority of it to make it look like a short little sheep tail and put the justification for it in his suuuuppper tragic past(Though I honestly don't know if homunculi can regenerate like lizards). Luckily, the pose makes it so you can't see it anyway so I don't have to grapple with the responsibly of weather or not I need to brutally amputate one of Makoto's body parts. I consider this a win.

Disregarding his actual animal, I think the sheep is also weirdly fitting because of some of their associations. When I met Makoto I wasn't sure what to make of him besides being cautiously optimistic about him not letting Yuma die(What a fool I was), and sheep/lambs/rams and animals in that ballpark can vary wildly in their depictions from literaly the devil to good little fluffy guys!

For his actual look I wanted the sheep parts to look costumey sort of. I was going for a similar effect as the blood in chapter 0, where it's very noticeable but you write off the weird things about it because it's not immediately relevant. So, the mask has fake horns attached. The hand hooves are just little caps over the paw fingers, and there are two gold and silver caps to mimic his rings and point to their artificiality. The feet are also fake and are suppose to look a little clunky like Makoto's actual shoes. His hair is also much more full looking, a little less limp; because his actual ears need some place to get tucked away. I think the main problem with this design is it'd make for a really awkward reveal, cause when he dramatically gets the mask taken off then he'd just be a canine with hooves.

For both of them I think wolf works very well in terms of their characters and their shared forte. Yuma spends most of the game struggling with needing to rely on others, and Makoto has been carrying the weight of Kanai Wards secret on his shoulders alone for like three years. They also both have the Coalescence forte, which by it's very nature requires the help of other people, and at the end of the day being with others and working together is what brings them farther then they could do alone(even if some of the themes get muddled at the end and arn't really as clear as I'd personally like I find that Kodaka's games can have some not so rock solid theming with shakey conclusions but this is what I chose to take away from it)

These aspects of their characters fit perfectly with the stereotypical idea of a strong and stoic lone wolf in contrast to real wolves being pack animals that work together to survive!

I thought I'd like Yuma's design more by a landside cause I've grown really fond of his human design, but I actually really love this version of Makoto. I guess any designs with horns or hooves just appeals to me in a way that paws don't. Still really happy with these two. They could most certainly be worse! I think they're both cute little guys though and I learned a lot about how to like, render from this so that's a bonus!

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Others have already been furrying the Raincode characters and doing a phenomenal job, but when I would peruse Danganrompa fanart I really liked seeing different and wildly varying interpretations for the characters' animal choices and now it is my turn, my GOD GIVEN DUTY TO PROVIDE IN THE GENISIS OF THE RAINCODE FANDOM, FOR THE HONOR OF THOSE WHO HAVE COME BEFORE ME.

For all of them I used their pose from the artbook renders. I'll say it's to keep them recognizable but that is actually a lie I'm just lazy.

Secretary Bird Halara:

Halara I did first and they were the one I was most jazzed to do because I love them dearly. I made them a secretary bird and I think it's a PERFECT fit. Ahem allow me to rattle off. Secretary birds are birds, so doomed by the narrative to have to stay away from cats, they are predatory birds and of course Halara would be at the top of the food chain. Speaking of predetory birds, secretary birds are known for their ability TO KICK VENOUMOUS SNAKES TO DEATH, AND THATS JUST TOO GOOD A FIT. They also have plumage that I could easily shape into Halara's kinda smooth swoopy hairstyle, and face markings that could be sort of representative of their glasses! I think the drawing for them is probably the weakest out of the group just because as I went along I improved and started to translate the human designs in less one to one ways, plus the pose Halara has in the artbook doesn't fit perfectly to the really big wing hand things. I still enjoyed making it because H A L A R A N I G H T M A R E but I'm honestly kinda sad at how lackluster it is compared to Fubuki and Viva who got the most interesting details and texture work. NEVER DO YOUR FAVORITE FIRST IT'S A TRAP.

Guinea Pig Desuhiko:

With Desuhiko I was going back and fourth between a few rodents, I just think he kinda looks like one and already had those pikachu cheeks. My first scetch made him a hamster, and while it DID look like him, it felt a little too... Indistinct. Desuhiko's probably my favorite design in the cast just because he looks so distinctive and has a short stocky bodytype I really really love and makes my character designer brain happy, so I swapped hamster for guinea pig. While the guinea pig face doesn't look like him quite as much as the hamster, they are very interesting and distinctive looking which I loved a lot more even with a bit of accuracy sacrificed if that makes sense. Also there are Guinea pigs with spikey wild fur that make it so I could just kinda give him his actual hair and still have it make sense. Guinea pigs are also the perfect size and shape to be thrown like a large softball and out of all the Master Detectives Desuhiko looks like he'd be the most sadisfying to chuck across a room.

Fish Fubuki:

Fubuki was really hard just because it's difficult to anthropomorphize a fish in the same way as a mammal or a avian cause of their structure. She might look a biitttt more like a fantasy creature inspired by a fish than just a fish but she's charming enough I don't completely mind. I got some SOLID advice and looked at some Splatoon NPCs characteristics to try and make her more appealing. So why fish? I got it as a suggestion that I ended up really liking because fish are notorious for their bad memory, live in tanks their whole lives(Fubuki is the definition of sheltered), and they have fins to mimic the shape of Fubukis cloak and hair. I used beta fish for reference, they don't really fit her but just being a fish was good enough for me and at that point I was prioritizing looks. She doesn't even really look like any specific species like the other three to be honest. She's defiantly the outlier of the group but that's fine, she can be special in her own unique way like always. Got a little lazy with making the hair look all that fin-like, but it's kinda the main event of her human design so I wanted to keep it as true to that as possible but looking at it now I think its tooooo copy and paste looking. Her furry design IS my brothers favorite out of the batch so that's gotta count for something!

Flying Fox Bat Vivia:

The vampire looking man was always gonna be a bat, I am but a slave to the whims of fate. I made him specifically a flying fox because they're the largest bat species and therefore can loom ominously. Vampire bat would have been fun too, but they have more of a squished bastard energy that doesn't really fit Vivia. Bats also are known for their weird sleeping habits, ala upside. Viva isn't sleeping upside down or anything like that but he DOES snooze in some weird places so I think comparing him to a bat in multiple aspects is very apt! His drawing and animal design is probably my favorite, I really like the wings, and the bat feet are super weird I loved doing those. I did have trouble incorperating his hair, flying foxes have pretty smooth heads, but they do have sort of a mane thing going on so I tried to put some of his hair texture and shape there instead. Sorry I did not give him is edgy edgy hair cut, I too love it very much but it was simply not to be. I did try to mimic it's vibe with the patterning on his head though, an illusion of his bangs.

I'm very happy with this lineup overall, they're some neat little designs if I do say so myself! I might do more but I have the chronic problem of not being able to sit still for a long time to do a BUNTCH of guys again(though for the record I would make Seth the most delightfully storm drain gutter looking creature). I also kinda wanna do Makoto and Yuma cause someone suggested a REALLY good idea for them, but the concept for Makoto with this idea would be more of an involved design that I wouldn't be able to use all of his normal outfit for so it'd probably take longer than average.

TLDR: Furries amiright?

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This is Baksu's character Latte from the 2022 Bloom V.S Wither Artfight

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This is Moodge's character Sundair from the 2022 Bloom V.S Wither Artfight

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My eyes are burning it's great.

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Gross little guys.

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I think Skeledirge's concepts are underutilized. The idea behind this design is to change the original as little as possible and maintain the original ideas. I read the original design traits as skeleton, musical instrument body, sugar skulls, and the birds that clean crocodile teeth.

I don't think this looks like a pokemon but is in what I believe is the right direction in terms of making the ideas and concepts more clear. This goes in more of a Dia De Los Muertos direction which fits well with the other two final starters being very theatrical or celebration based. I gave him a more surgar skull looking face and a clear ribcage, a mane of marigold petals, and two birds that are a bit easier to recognize as birds.

A lot of people really like skeledirge and that's great he just made cartoon smoke come out of my ears. ~~~ Pokedex Entry:

1st) "The lost souls of people and pokemon pocess the fire skelidirge breaths. These spirits play mournful melodies on this pokemon's exposed ribs"

2nd) "Skelidirge has developed a symbiotic relationship with spirits. They live inside its furnace like maw and in turn pick and clean Skelidirge's exposed bone"