#she would modify her uniform to make it super cute and girly :3

[littlestpetship]

i should make a call of duty s/i but make her super mary sue and girly and very Not meant for a war environment but shes like la la la! ^_^ killing... war... bloodshed... LOL! ^_^

[thefun41]

Next up is Lesbian!Maya This one was definitely a challenge! I’ve drawn Maya a few times but I think this one is the best so far!

I’ll be blabing under the cut but in the meantime look forward to Gay!Klavier (hopefully) on Wednesday!

Edit: I have been informed that this is not the flag currently used. :/ I was wondering why kept seeing a pink one, just not where I was looking.

(Warning : rage and bitching below)

*deep breath* OH BOY! OH GOLLY AHH JEEZ Like DAMN was this a challenge. This took me an entire week!!! Other then Sebastian (because of that jacket) all of the pride requeswts have taken 3 days or less. During those 3 days I research an outfit, make a sketch, normally have a goofy side image to post before it because my brain is hyperactive, obsess over how to pose them and make the final image. Not this time!!! Even though this was an incredible struggle there was a lot that was learned by this… experience. 

So let’s break it down. 

Struggle #1 : Which flag are we using again? On the Ace Attorney Amino, the requester requested a Lesbian Maya. Here is the issue, in my research I have found a lot of lesbian pride flags and narrowed it down to 2. The lesbian pride flag which is  purple one with the black triangle and the battle axe (which was used) and lipstick lesbian, which is this pink one (see above). Now this bodes the question : What’s the difference? Well as far as I can tell, The purple one came first and is generally an umbrella flag for lesbians, while the pink one was made spicifically for a lesbian subculture : lipstick lesbians. There is a stereotype that lesbians are “masculine”, lipstick lesbians are very comfortable with their femininity, in fact very “girly” and seemed to be underrepresented sooooooo they have their own flag and subculture, kinda like the opposite of gay bear that we covered last time.  It seems like the Pink flag overtook the purple one in popularity OR whoever made the pink one was just better at marketing, who knows. Now the requested went with “a regular lesbian” so battle ax flag it is. Also battle axes are cool, so there’s that.  

Lesson learned : the LGBTQ+ community is waaaaaaay bigger then I thought with subcultures and whatnot. Knowlage is half the battle! 

Struggle #2 : Fashion is hard guys.  Picking the outfit took at least 2 days, and then I changed it at least a half dozen times. there are 3 issues I had (lists within lists, listception) : Maya’s limited style,  using the colour pallette with my messed up, self-restricted viewpoint, and Maya’s age. First Item, off the top of my head, I believe Maya is only seen in 5 outfits, her usual outfit, iris outfit for a moment, a waitress outfit for an hour, a red dress in that one promotional image where the case is super fancy, a white suit outfit thing for soundtrack stuff and a conductor uniform??? Out of the ones I can rememer, mostof thesse are dresses. When debating on weather or not I should put her in a dress I decided no because (as far as I can remember) she’s always ion a dress. and then my brain went nuts with questions.

Why is she always in a dress? is that sexist? It is a problem? What’s wrong with with her always being in a dress? Why do I want to really get her out of a dress? Am I sexist? why do only women were dresses? Is it the hips? Why don”t men wear dresses? Can they? They don’t really have hips so they can’t really wear skirts. Wait a minute men do kinda wear dresses, I mean kilts and kimono’s exist. would the bulge be an issue? Would men emphasize their bulge like women emphasize their breasts? Can men look good in dresses? Can any man look good in a dress? Can I put Edgeworth in a dress and make him look good? I’ve seen a ton of Phoenix in dresses but why not Edgey? … So yeah a lot of useless questions taking up my time for no reason. The point is I purposely designed an outfit with pants … this obviously did not happen. I had this idea of a cozy look in a cute sweater but this leads to the next issue. The issue with this cozy look? It’s too simple.Yes that look is cute but it’s not for me, it’s for the person who requested it. Any it’s entirely possible that this person may have seen the other works from this pride project and the outfits I made for them and then they just get Maya in a sweater? It’s a cute sweater but it didn’t seem fair. A similar issue happened with Phoenix but the solution to that was just to open his shirt and BOOM, extra layers and thus a more complex look. Now maybe the the OG requester wouldn’t mind but I just couldn’t do it, I feel like I needed to give her an outfit with more effort into it. And thuys Maya went back into skirt, now this lead to the third issue : Maya’s age. I found a lot of nice outfits, outfits that would look great on Maya! … When she was a teenager. Now maya is most definitely a full grown women and not a child. Now weather or not I pulled off the 28 year old Maya will be discussed later but nonetheless, all of those cute outfits I found? Out the window. I was so indecisive that I just asked my brother to pick one. Honestly? I really liked what he picked, and I confirmed with my dad that, yes, you can put this outfit on a almost 30 year old. The scarf ended up being omitted in favour of her magatama, otherwise we ended up with the same problem as before, it’s too simple. this time with a few days of work under our belt so there was no way I was going to start over. The solution to this was a nice floral pattern based on a cherry blossom. this makes it more visually simple. I think it looks pretty! After all that work I do like the end result. 

Lesson learned : Stop. Over. Thinking. Things. And for the love of god sketch it out. Just looking on google and imagining on the character  sometimes will not cut it. If I don’t get it relatively quickly, doodle, draw and scribble some more.  

Struggle #3 : Why can’t I draw women?? I am one?!?! Like seriously, why, it makes no sense. Well actually it does make sense because I am fairly sure I can count the amount of women I’ve drawn with one hand. It’s a simple measure of practice. I was foolish to think that simply drawing human’s would be enough. sadly that is not the case. Men and women are built differently and of course I failed to accommodate… many many times. The amount of times I have modified maya and changed her proportions is unreal. One thing I do all the time is make the abdomen too long and I have no idea why this is. Her face! I have no cluw what went wrong the first dozen times but it just didn’t work! I wish I could explain why but it just didn’t look right. you”ll notice that she doesn’t have lips even though she does in her new design, It’s because I have never been able to draw lips. Ever. Not once. Does she even look like an adult? I can’t even tell anymore. She is a little thicker then her concept art but making her look thinner just didn’t work out. Her arms, I had to hid them since the preportions were all off, the hands were held together in front of her checkl and they were too lanky and there was nothing I could do to make it look good and don’t get me started on her hands please don’t. If I didn’t cut off her legs I would have issues with that too. Her breasts, how on earth do you shade those??? Does not compute. DOES NOT COMPUTE!!!  So yeah the struggle is real. The solution? Trial and error. Just keep trying until it looks good. Play with your strengths. A friend of mine told me that she reminder her of Tina from Bob’s Burgers… ok? Sure. So after all that while I do like the end result I also see what can be improved, and sadly we have reached the limits of my skill at this time. 

Lessons learned : Practice practice practice. I don’t draw enough women, I need to draw more women. I can’t quite comprehend how cloths fall on the chest area and obviously looking the mirror is not a solution. What is the solution? Drawing naked people. … No seriously. Once I learn proper anatomy and human proportions and how muscles distribute over the body not only will I have a lot easier time drawing these characters I will also be able to figure out how clothing would fall on their bodies and i’ll have a easier time shading. Right now I’m drawing and shading clothing without knowing WHY it’s folding like that or why the light is hitting this area. Of course I’ll be doing this for both men and women because as started before, they are built differently. do you know what I also can’t draw? Children. I am NOT applying this to the kiddies. That’s weird and gross. The kids will have t deal with being freaks. I’m cool with that.

Struggle #04 :  Life How did we break 3 fuses at my house while I was at work? Why did it effect half my room upstairs, the computer setup that is downstairs and the WiFi on the main floor when the thing used to blow the fuse was in an upstairs room across the hall. why did no one fix it until the next day? Why just leave it like that? Why did I sleep in until 1 when I’ve been consistently waking up at 9? I had things to do what gives? Why did I accept a split shift the next day when I’m exhausted? Why do I get super stressed out when I set an alarm that I can’t sleep? Why am I spending 3 hours writing this when I never bothered to put this much effort in school work? How have I not punched someone yet?

Lessons learned : Don’t rely on anyone but yourself. Do what you can with the time allowed. Pat yourself on the back for not resorting to violence. How to change fuses. Writing this is very therapeutic.  Did you last this long? Who knows! All I do know is that yes this was a struggle but I plan on learning from this. Next up is Gay!Klaver and I’m REALLY looking forward to it!