#teddie art

[tea-ddie]

tell me about your first girlfriend

this is my new zine! it’s about high-school love, shifting identities, and basketball. thanks for taking the time to read.

[negativespace06]

these guys again

[trashcan-teddie]

New week, new WIP Wednesday!

My goal this week is to finish 1 WIP piece! Hope you all have a good week!

[potato-lord-but-not]

mbanus protocol characters….. magnus protocol characters save me….

[eggsdoodz]

might cry, might not? probably will 🧸

[lottielottieda]

butchfemme teddies! 🤍🧸💌

[pomarrillo]

damn kids in the junes tv window display again

[bethfuller]

moments in time

[clementartz]

yayyy pastrami 4

[tamagoneko]

it was clay's turn to watch branch

[tea-ddie]

Something that may or may not be clear about my book, Ballyhoo, on a surface level, is for how long it's been in the works. People who've known me for several years will remember the very first draft of the comic from 2018/2019. That version was specifically made for Webtoon and has been more-or-less scraped for the current version of the story. Because of that, all of Ballyhoo's characters have gone through pretty big changes—not just in their design/my art style evolution/etc, but also in their occupation, some elements of their backstory, and more. I've started working on Book 2 and have been making some new concept art. I realized as I looked to the future of the project, it was a good time to look back. This post will go through three of the main characters: Evelyn, Marjorie, and Oretta, and explain how we got to where we are in Ballyhoo.

Evelyn Golubev

2018: Evelyn was one of the very first characters I ever created for this story. She was originally the femme-fatale-type—her girlfriend had just mysteriously gone missing. She worked at a vaudeville-type club as a dancer and, besides being somewhat hot, ominous and foreboding in the way that a femme-fatale must be, that was about it. I was still definitely trying to understand my art style and struggled a lot with making the hair look as "natural" as I wanted. Her outfits all leaned pretty heavily femme and her makeup was heavy... but uncanny as I didn't fully understand how to color makeup on a face then.

2024: Evelyn Golubev, or better known by her stage name, "Evelyn Gold," still works at a vaudeville club, but beyond dancing, also sings and performs at other bars and clubs across the city of Portapolis. She is the frontwoman of her Baby Blue Band, which is the house-band at local lesbian bar, the Lilac. Although she still holds some of her femme-fatale vibes, I wouldn't necessarily describe her as a "femme" in the queer spaces she occupies. She wears custom blue suits at the club and brings a swagger that would make any girl blush to her performances. In both versions of her character, she holds a few secrets that she protects fiercely, but in the currently version of the story, the consequences of these secrets coming out feels more intense. Overall, I think her character has become more refined and deliberate in the story.

Marjorie Miller

2018: Oh, Marjorie. Her role in the story has shifted pretty significantly from the first drafts of the story—in this earliest drawing, she's pictured singing at what was a lesbian house party. She was always a bit desperate—trying to fit into a space that wasn't really for her. I knew she had grown up outside the city, probably in a more rural area, and was trying hard to fit into more classy and elegant circles. She mostly functioned as a background character in the lesbian scene who held a secret that would help solve the mystery (because of course this story was always a mystery).

2021: This was about at the time I was re-developing the story and laying out the groundwork for a new version of the comic. Despite scrapping the house parties, I wanted to redraw that specific scene... mostly because I liked her dress. Marjorie's hair, similar to Evelyn, was something I became more comfortable drawing with time. In 2021, you can see me trying to separate the way her somewhat messy waves and curls fell. Like I said, at this point I knew the house party scene with Marjorie wasn't going to happen, but I wasn't sure what her exact role would be. Was she a hopeful performer? Someone who performed alongside Evelyn in the Vaudeville club? Something else entirely? What was her life like when she wasn't singing? Well...

2024: Marjorie Miller is a married woman, living her perfect, heterosexual, suburban housewife life with her dearest husband George. This might seem like a hard pivot—it also feels like a hard pivot to her old friends Oretta and Evelyn, both of whom she's mostly fallen out of touch with. Despite the changes in her life, she is content with how it's worked out for her, or at least pretends to be. Still, beneath the picture-perfect surface is a woman who was, in every version of the story, desperate to fit-in and who is living a life that feels out of her depth.

Oretta Adams

2018/19: I don't have a drawing for this, but my earliest ideas for Oretta included her arriving in Portapolis on a train. This was always her introduction and it's how she arrives to the city in Ballyhoo, too. Back then, I knew she was an old friend of Marjorie's and Evelyn's who would open up an aspect of the mystery and story that both of them wanted to keep hidden for whatever reasons. I'm sure this sounds woefully underdeveloped—and that's because at that time, it really was. However, this was around the time where I started to have an inkling that maybe the trio's shared past was in the circus.

2021: Because her introduction was so vivid in my mind, a lot of Oretta's early concept art is her at the train station. Pictured in 2021 is a more relaxed version of Oretta: she smokes, she's dressed very casually and comfortably, and, of course, she has her suitcase. It was important to me that she always dressed for comfort and for herself first and foremost. This is part of why Oretta's outfits in the current story consist of a lot of 40s work-pants and sweaters.

2024: As I started writing the comic in 2021/22, it became shockingly apparently that Oretta was the main character of the story. Her being the factor that opens up secrets multiple people wanted to keep hidden put her in a prime place to act as both outsider and instigator. Oretta, Marjorie, and Evelyn share a background in circus performance and it started to make sense that she would be a writer/playwright, taking her experience in showbiz to a backstage role. And it is her play—possibly inspired by past events—that triggers the main events of the story. Her play is a catalyst for too many things coming out, and everyone seems to have a good reason for wanting to make sure the show will not go on.

In Conclusion...

Ballyhoo has been a long time in the works! I hope this is interesting, or maybe even inspiring for those starting longer stories? Things will take time, but it will be worth it. I'm really happy that Ballyhoo: Book One is out there in the world, and I'm honestly so excited to get to keep working on this project. I might do more posts like this about other characters or other aspects of the story—again, it's been in development for what seems like a pretty long time and I have a lot of thoughts about how different aspects of the story have played out.

[dancyrilkingston]

Art by Franco Matticchio

[trashcan-teddie]

[potato-lord-but-not]

ough Alice my beloved forever and ever I wish trans women were real 💔💔

[lovingparts]

butch teddy bear........

[teddybearty]

💕 S-M-I-L-E everyday!! 💕