#scrapped the hair and redid it and i'm in love with it

[onyichii]

"Thank you, Yugo...."

This is version B. Version A was scrapped because it didn't sit well with me. I just didn't like something about it.

Keep reading to see the process/journey of how we got to version B (And to see version A).

I AM NOT INVITING CRITIQUES - I already have notes on the things I like, don't like, and things I want to work on.

The Journey

Here we have the thumbnail. Then from there we go to the sketch. I love the thumbnail and the sketch. I changed the eyes because I am moving away from that classic anime look. I could have stopped here and be perfectly content with the drawing.

Originally, I wanted to put Amalia into a forest-like setting. However, I felt like I had seen that image before. And that bothered me. So, I checked....and I found it. I HAD SEEN SOMTHING SIMILAR BEFORE!!!

It was a drawing by Xa-xa-xa (here is his drawing).

https://www.deviantart.com/xa-xa-xa/art/Sadida-Portrait-340141077

To me, my drawing felt too much like his. I know they're not the same, but it already bothered me. So I ditched the leafy bg.

I haven't looked at that drawing from xa-xa-xa in YEARS but my concept felt so familiar. So similar. I had to make sure I wasn't crazy. After finding it, I changed the bg to look similar to the bridge in the Sadida palace tree in s4.

Here, you can see we have two different line art styles—thick and thin. I ended up using the thin one when I made the first version (A). However, I went back and used thicker line art when i redid it to make the second version (B).

I was not satisfied with her expression, so I changed it. It looked too basic. Too bland. There is a smile but the lips overpower it. The new one looks so sweet and gentle (but I deplumped her lips 😭)

I struggled with coloring the hair on both versions. Something I will have to practice more. I like her hair in version B more. I added more flare and more tone to it.

I do like the backlighting on her in version A and I wish I brought it to version B but I'm okay with version B.

I do like how I colored the lips in version B but not version A. I legit HATED the lips look in version A. I wanted to make them look more natural hence the coloring in version B.

To me the BG vines look a little too cartoonish. I think it's because of how they're colored or shaped. I'm not sure. Maybe it's how I made them wrap around the column. So, I'll be more mindful of how vines lay against objects (and probably use more reference).

I wish I did more to the water in the bg, but since it was blurred it didn't really matter.

Well that's about it. Which version speaks to you? Version B or Version A?!

[within-your-eyes-if]

October 6th Progress Report

Hello everyone!

So, I did forget to make this update on the 1st (I even made posts on Sunday but I didn't realize it was the 1st ^^;). But when I remembered, I figured I'd just make it when I updated the game with some fixes. Which is today! There's nothing major, except that I made each flirt unique to each character (I should have done that before but honestly, I just wasn't thinking, so I deeply apologize for that.)

I'm sure you have guessed, but I'll just confirm ─ my computer is up and running and I lost nothing! Everything ran like the accident never happened except for Windows complaining about new components.

Part One is over 60k words in final final drafts and implemented. During my little bout of "writing depression" (is that the right term?), I redid the openings. Not in a "I scrapped it all!" sort of way, but in a "I could make this more impactful by rewording this and adding that." I apologize for it taking so long. I know it's better to take my time to make it right, but I wasn't planning on it taking this long and I still feel bad regardless (I'm just one of those people).

If my estimation is correct, I expect Part One to be roughly 90k words.

I'm aiming to have Part One ready by mid-November, give or take. There are a few things I'm redoing, some other parts to write, and there are still some days I want to rip my hair out. Turns out writing publicly is far more stressful than doing it for personal reasons. Who knew?! (Me. I knew, but I did it! I am still both proud and mortified with myself.)

I will be attempting to do a week of beta testing before the release. I will post an application beforehand. (I've never done this before, so yeah, "attempting" feels like the right term ;v;)

Anyways, there are some real-life events coming up and I'm going to hold off on Patreon for now, so Part One will be released on itch.io like normal.

That's about it! Thanks to all of you for being lovely, awesome, and incredibly patient with me. ♥

[helluva-world-innit]

So...they are far from perfect, but they have taken me months and I finally have these two as close to what I see in my head as I'm going to get them for now. I will just hope I improve as I draw them more or something. Digital art is also something I'm still adjusting to so...yeah. Anyway, say hey to our protags (reimagined)! Buckle up, this post got looooooong.

Charlie is the only child sired by Lucifer himself even if it's in a most unconventional way. He's essentially her father and her mother. No Lilith here, folks, sorry. I'm not Jewish and I don't feel comfortable adding her considering what Jewish folks have said about her inclusion in modern works so she's just...not appearing in this comic. A lot of this will be based on my Protestant upbringing with my Hellenic Polytheist sensibilities thrown in, just fyi.

Now, about the redesign...

I don't actually hate the redesign of Charlie in the show. Her hair is fun, her being masc-presenting is interesting, and red is actually my favorite color. However, I completely redid the Rings and like the idea of Charlie trying to unify Hell with her cause instead of just Pride Ring. She kept some of her red because Lucifer has blond/red hair in my version, depending on how much of his angelic persona drops. There's also red in her coat of many colors which is a Biblical reference as well as an extension of Charlie's ideas about Hell and how the "rainbow" of the Rings should be working together to rehabilitate Sinners instead of just torturing them and making them worse. She even made it herself from scraps of the Ringmasters' clothes, Belphagor's fleece, and an old sewing machine. Her dad hates it because it makes her look poor. They are locked in constant battle over him trying to discreetly destroy it and her salvaging it last minute. She also wears spats on her shoes. They're tap shoes because ofc they are. I let her keep her love of theater because it's cute. Lucifer secretly loves that his daughter is just as much of a showboat as he is.

JC is also Sir Not-Appearing-In-This-Comic, but at least we have Charlie.

Now, some of you are probably noticing that I made Charlie darker...that's not an accident. Charlie, by the method of her birth here, has black skin. She has her father's eyes and hair. As I get better at drawing and rendering black hair, we will see it in other styles because I love some of the things black folks with more textured hair than myself do with it. I just really like the bubble braid too. It suggests thickness not a lot of people have in their hair. Charlie has had to learn how to style her hair herself a lot since Luci can barely manage some puff buns. Doesn't help that It seems to grow back as fast as it's cut so Charlie mostly trims the ends and moisturizes the hell out of it.

I think it's fitting for Charlie to have a bit extra vibrancy with demon and angelic features because she isn't mortal. At least not completely. She does have a more horrifying form with horns and eyes and wings but she hardly ever has to use it. She also has a natural charm to her she gets from her dad that makes it very hard to turn down what she suggests. Not impossible, just very unappealing. Hoping I can get to a point where her eyes aren't so scary looking but she does have cat pupils so, we'll...see.

Funny thing about Charlie is she is a bit like Elsa. Born with powers beyond comprehension, lives in an icy castle in the mountainside of the remote (only) city in her country, and was kept away from most of her citizens until her 200th birthday.

Okay, it's not a complete 1:1 here. Yes, Lucifer kept Charlie under wraps for about 200, well 50 years from his family, the other Ringmasters. The other denizens of Hell had no idea they had a princess until the events of the comic. They really aren't sure what to make of it either. Some Hellborn think they'll be able to marry into Lucifer's good graces (Sinners cannot legally marry anyone), others consider ransoming Charlie when she ventures out to start the rehab hotel (they are so painfully mistaken; everyone from her dad to her aunt Bel has taught her how to fight viciously even if it's not her preferred method of conflict resolution. to say nothing of the protective friends she gathers quickly). It also makes Charlie a little...well, naive about just how well her plans to rehab Hell are going to go. Most of what she knows about interacting with others come from pop media and her loving and protective family. It's an eye-opening experience when she strikes out on her own.

Debating on adding more black fleece to the bottom hem of her coat too. Thots? The background is just a deserted little corner of Pride Ring which is covered in snow (yes, Pride Ring is cold like in the Divine Comedy here). The orange trees in the background are courtesy of @holoanarchy for giving me the idea when I asked "what's a good color for the leaves of Hell trees?". I'll talk more about those when I post that Ring up, though.

Okay, let's talk about this lovable asshole now.

Blitz Wire has had to struggle and fight for most of the things he has in life. From the very beginning, things have been...tough for him. Imps are not the very bottom of the social ladder in my version of circus Hell, but they still make up the majority of the working class. If you've never been working class, take it from me, it sucks rocks. Sucks even more when neither of your parents were ever really successful or good with money either, as is the case with the Wires. Blitz's parents met when they were young and idealistic in Greed Ring and shortly married after a brief courtship. Beatriz (this is what I named his mom to keep with the 'B' theme), worked in a factory where they painted figurines of Mammon and the gold paint she huffed developed into Imphysema over time. She stayed sickly throughout Blitz, Barbie, and Fizz's childhood while Buckzo took over the family carnival to help put food on the table. When Beatriz could no longer work, he put the kids to it. They were happy to help and work to get noticed by Mammon so they could rake in some dough to get better medical treatment for their mother, despite the Ringmaster being the very reason she was sick in the first place (capitalism, baby!).

Blitz, as in the canon...is not very funny. Despite having a range of acrobatic tricks and being able to think and react very quickly, he just never had a knack for nor got a grasp of how to hold people's interest and make them laugh. Is what it is. Fizz was always the star of their little sideshow attraction. Barbie came as a close second with her death-defying knife acts and torture plays. Blitz just never stood out as an entertainer as the maladjusted middle child. Over time, that became a resentment. Coupled with Buckzo's disregard for him as his son, Blitz started pushing the envelope with the acts he performed.

Finally, when he was sixteen, Blitz decided he was ready to run a giant obstacle course straight out of Hell. It went about as bad as you would expect. Fizz got the brunt of the damage when he pulled his surrogate brother out of the jaws of certain death. While he was still recovering from being scalded by holy water, Blitz was fired and kicked out of the only home he'd ever known by his father. Barbie and Beatriz kept in touch, despite Buckzo's "banning" it, but Blitz spent the remainder of his teenage years on the streets of Hell, urban foraging and doing odd jobs to save up for a place away from Greed and the posters of Fizz's face as his fame grew.

I didn't really want to change much about Blitz's clothing choices since it makes sense for him to want to look professional, but also be comfortable while slicing throats and blowing people up. Also, blue and gold comes from him being from Greed and Asmo being his company's sponsor. Took away the boots and gave him proper hooves, though. Now, I didn't base the imps' lower halves on any specific ungulates, but Blitz's top half is defs based on an iguana. I want them to be more reptilian since Wrath is pretty desert-oriented and Satan is lizard-like herself. I could probs get away with making his tail a little shorter, but I'm happy with how his horns and spines turned out. He smokes this shitty brand of cigs called Blak'N'Bluz. They aren't called that because of the black filter and blue of the Hellfire they burn on, though. It's said they actually make one's lungs black and blue with one drag because they're so caustic. They're the easiest to steal as a result and the one Blitz started with so he always comes back to them.

I wanted him and Barbie to look more twin-like and I really don't care for OG Blitz's horns. As far as the pendant he's wearing goes, it never made sense to me that his mom only left him something and never left anything for her other kids (which could not be the case but we just don't know because...well, we're never given this info). Blitz and Barbie split their mother's necklace down the middle and each of them wears a piece of it. No idea what to give Fizz from her yet.

I changed Blitz's facial scars and I'll tell you why. Forget who pointed it out in the critical tag, but the type of face scar OG Blitz has would likely leave him blind, with low vision, or with no eyelid in the eye covered in that scar tissue. No matter how you slice it, his sight would be compromised. Given that I gave that particular trait to Loona and Vaggie also has an eye patch, I decided to vary him up. He's still disabled though. As another person pointed out on a totally unrelated to HB/HH post, burn scars can impact everything from self-esteem to physical movement depending on what caused them and how they heal. Due to the majority of Blitz's scarring being on his right and back, his tail and right side usually suffer some debilitating pain flares when he overworks himself. Also, migraines and trouble extending his limbs fully. Basically, he carries a bottle of percocet around (it's like demon ibuprophen; it's fine). His pain is part of why Blitz is such a cussy grump. Hard to be pleasant when you're poor, traumatized, AND hurting all the time.

I.M.P. is still a thing in this rewrite (still debating the name), but Blitz got the idea for it when he was dating Verosika (yup, that's still a thing too). She's the one who got him an in with her boss, Asmodeus. So, he has access to Asmodean crystals since the Ringmaster also liked the idea for snatching extra wicked souls early (they're a power source and, therefore, far more valuable then someone committing tax fraud or whatever) They parted on okay terms, but Blitz adopted Loona shortly after entering his 30s. Kid's gotta eat, so he expanded the business from an imp with a knife to two imps with a van full of guns. Hiring on Moxxie from his old stomping grounds of Greed, they were able to take on more clients. That led to meeting and hiring Millie. Loona comes on hunts now that she's old enough too and they all have a blast. The rest, they say, is history.

The other side of his face for ref:

Gave him a tear-shaped scar because why not? Also a horntip cap. That one is damaged and his trying to keep it from getting worse and breaking the whole tip off.

[tapinix2]

Heuy Design !!

3 year old hoodie child my beloved

Honestly he wasn't my favourite until I started working on his role in this au and now I'm kinda loving him. I haven't had the chance to explore his feelings of responsibility for his family as the oldest yet, but it really explains a lot in terms of his anxiety, why he plans everything out, and his repressed anger issues.

I actually went through two designs for him, the first one ended up looking too different from DL, he didn't look related to them at all. So I redid it and changed a few things that I felt didn't fit while I was at it. Overall I'm much happier with this design than the first one.

Yes, he is autism coded. ADD + ADHD + ASD triplets is superior to all other headcanons.

Notes explanation and extras under the cut !!

BRO I forgot to add this part in before I queued the post RIP.

Okay, so Huey was the first to hatch and as the oldest he feels the responsibility to take care of his brothers.

He's the most organized so he's the one in charge when Donald is gone, they can't always afford a babysitter. HDL hadn't hit their troublemaker streak yet, so while they shouldn't have been left alone at least they weren't trying to hijack the house boat.

This responsibility caused him a lot of anxiety, which he doesn't even notice until he's a lot older. He doesn't like going places without his brothers, and he worries over a lot of things, especially concerning them and his family.

Honestly family is one of the most important things to Huey, and out of the three he feels this way the most for sure. He relies on them, and he doesn't know what he would do without them.

Which is exactly why I'm gonna traumatize him by forcing them away from eachother :D

Here's the OG scrapped design !

He looks sad and his hair is oddly curly, plus weird body proportions.

[wanderingaldecaldo]

What?? Me posting one of my own pics of Val on Fem V Friday? I still have some comms and Mox Photo Studio in the queue but couldn't pass up the chance to show off this cute baseball cap I made for Val this week, plus those custom black & gold mantis blades.