#im wary about tagging this for s8 bc its not canon its just speculation buuuuuut

[alitgblog]

speculating what the s8 islanders will look like as an excuse to draw lol idk why im not going in order here's the sports physiologist

ok so obviously my art style is a bit simpler than the game's and I didn't take a ton of time to render it but I think the elements are there and here's my reasoning (warning this is long lol)

the disclaimer is I read the application once and then started drawing so I think in my head I got it confused and thought this was gonna be the Bobby/Rafael cutesy fun guy of the season and rereading it now I realize I am wrong, but I still stand by certain choices.

Sports physio/cycling thing was a big thing for this. I think he shouldn't have very defined abs but the game will draw him like that. Cyclers tend to have skinnier torsos but bigger thighs/legs and I didn't draw the legs bc I'm lazy but know that in my head, he's got thick thighs. I didn't draw him with like a huge chest or arms also because of that, but because it's still LITG, he does have some definition on his arms, just not a lot. I really think I could see this guy working in sports physio.

And because he takes care of people for a living and is the "big romantic," I think he needs to look very charming, to a point where he's almost disarming. (This is where I got it in my head that he's the Bobby/Raf of the group bc lover boy vibes. Personality wise he feels like Rohan imo who is similar). Therefore I drew a lot of his features as very soft (softer jawline, fleshier nose) but also just big round eyes to draw you in. I looked at Tyrique from love island season 10 for a bit of inspo because I think he's got such a pretty face but still is pretty masculine, and he has big round eyes so that's why I did that.

I also decided on curly hair, in part because of my confusion with Bobby/Rafael, but also I think it adds to the charm because it's clearly styled but tries to look effortless. I used a younger picture of Dev Patel for it. That's also why he has a little bit of facial hair to help age him up but also works with the aesthetic I was going for. The piercings are fully a self indulgent add-in, I just it's attractive.

Ok so this is where it gets confusing because I did intially draw some sharper features on him and had a different color palette for his skin and hair. I was imagining him as "spicy white" just because Bobby and Raf are mixed so they would change it up just slightly for this guy. I think nothing that's too contrasting to make him look brooding like Joyo. So initially this was definitively a tanned white guy with curly reddish brown hair, some facial hair, and a defined nose, and then I was like this is really close to Rocco. So I changed some features and some colors and here we are now at ethnically ambiguous? I'm not gonna think too hard about the ethnicity of this character because this is fake and it's fusebox's problem when they release the real character.

Looking back, if I redrew the character, I'd go for full or half South Asian just because I did use dev patel as a hair reference. But also maybe just hopeful because aside from Angie, the other South Asian rep in recent memory I can think of is Marshall (messy), Ozzy (messier), and Suresh (messiest), so I just think we should get a cute one. (also Priya, Rohan, and Arjun who aren't nearly as bad but only one of those is a LI and they're sort of dead right now so)

anyway overall the process of drawing him was kind of a mess because I had confused some things in my head and like I said, was accidentally drawing Rocco (underrated design btw) but this was the first one I did and I don't think I'm right, this is just a fun little activity for me and he's the first one I drew so I wasn't very sure about a lot of things.

so if you read this far congrats for getting though my ramblings. The next ones I'm doing aren't nearly as complicated 😂😂