#i love drawing these mfs healing through trauma by just making them do cute things for each other and smile

[enden-agolor]

today i have to offer the gay minecraft men. tomorrow? who knows…

[lake-lilac-goth]

Could you show us the progression of your character sprite? I’ve been following for a while and it’s cool to see how far she’s come!

Agh, I’ll try to the best of my ability. Do know that I despise looking at my old icons with a burning passion, so you guys are lucky that I’m doing this.

Just a quick warning, it’s gonna be a long one, so hang tight.

Let’s start with the OG.

See this bitch?? Stage 4 baby-itis. She rocked that bisexual haircut though and y’all know it. Here, she was some 18-year-old college student who refused to talk to anyone else, besides Daniel. Sis didn’t even know she was a dhampir, let alone supernatural.

This was also my first attempt of drawing in the show’s art style. Does it suck? Yes. Did I try? Absolutely. This was long before I watched Queenie’s helpful tutorial on making not-so-time-consuming icons. I reckon you guys check it out.

I hate how CLOSE her face is. A g h.

Now, we dive into this look.

Truth be told, I was in love with Wonder Woman’s hair style in DC Superhero Girls, so that’s where I got the inspiration from. I also gave Octavia this hair style on her birthday to show that she’s healed from a certain part of my her trauma. I should’ve explained that sooner, but that’s on me.

Next, we’ve got the iconic hairstyle most of you recognize her by.

After the bit of backlash I received from the second style, I wanted to try and do a bit experimenting with her hair. Thus, I came up with this. Her hair looked boring, so I gave it a bit of style and added a bow to it.

Now this...this is where I began to really thinks bout Octavia as a character.

As many of you know, one of my favorite things about Octavia is, much like me, she likes to test and bend the rules to her liking. She grew up with some hella strict parents that refused to let her show any bit of skin and for quite some time, she had major body image issues because of it. However, she eventually learned to love herself and that her body wasn’t inherently bad, so she wanted to show the world that she’s comfortable in her own skin and wears whatever she feels like wearing. She doesn’t wear her outfits to “get attention,” she wears them because it’s what she’s comfortable with; this is her way of expressing herself.

Here, I wanted to design an outfit that said that, and I did. The icons aren’t zoomed in (she finally learned personal space lmao) and they’re more expressive. I was doing a bit of experimenting here before I picked up on the method of icon-making I have now. I even made some minor adjustments to her face; the tattoo on her cheek being a prime example. Notice how saturated it was in her early icons? I toned it down. You’re welcome.

Let’s move onto this one.

This one is gonna be a bit shorter.

This took place in December, if I recall correctly. Behind the scenes, I was experimenting with Octavia’s hair, because I wanted to see what she’d look like with streaks in her hair. If you saw the sheet I made with different colors, you’d know there were a LOT; I had red, I had purple, I had blue. You name the color, I probably tried it out.

I was close to being set on light blonde, but decided to go with white instead.

If you really know me, either IRL or personally, you’d know that I have some pretty fuckin’ dark hair.

I wanted to give that dark hair to Octavia.

I was curious to see what she’d look like with her hair color being similar to mine, so I tested it out, and immediately fell in love with it. Of course, with her hair being darker, I had to readjusted the color of her eyes too make them cooler.

With this look, and at least, in my opinion, she gives off the vibe that she’s goth. It fit the overall aesthetic better, because the gothic style is all about cool and dark colors. A lot of people in the past used to think Octavia was wearing lipstick due to the shade of pink I used, so I made her lip color look more “natural.”

I’m sorry to those who were convinced that she was wearing lipstick. That was my fault.

Here, you can tell that I watched Queenie’s icon tutorial.

Drawing in the show’s art style is a fucking nightmare, and I admire those who can replicate so well that it’s scary.

Again, another science experiment. I wanted to get back into the swing of drawing in my own art style and wanted to try something new. As you can style, I took quite the amount of inspiration from the anime style, but added my own spices to the mix.

This brings us to her current design: Momtavia!

For those who aren’t aware, Octavia’s pregnant. That being said, I wanted to give her a look that said “soft mom who will give you cookies and comfort you, but will not hesitate to roundhouse kick a mf into the sun.” I think I did a pretty good job.

Now, the process itself was super tough, I’ll admit it. I went through a lot of trial and error, but I’m happy with the final result. I gave her a more mature look, and made her left eye (her left, your right) a more amber color to give off the idea that yes, this is the daughter of Penelope Priss. I got the outfit inspiration from Jinx (Teen Titans) and the hairstyle from Elsa’s final look in Frozen 2. However, her hair looked boring without the bow, so I went on Pinterest to get some hairstyle ideas. That’s when I stumbled across a M/HA meme captioned “bad bitches only ft this hairstyle.” The moment I saw Nana Shimura’s cute little hair bun, I immediately thought “holy shit, OP’s right.” After I added the little braids on the side, I was satisfied.

At this point, the white in her hair isn’t dye anymore; it’s natural. This is due to the fact that she’s the daughter of Dracula (my version, anyway). Everyone on her father’s side of the family gets some white streak in their hair as a “coming-of-age” thing, including wings. She has yet to figure out she has any, but that’s for another time.

I hope you enjoyed this extremely long and wordy evaluation of Octavia’s “evolution.” Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m gonna sit in the shower and cry over having to relive the nightmare that is Octavia’s old icons.