Onyx

I bring you the variation of Brutus that both scares me and interests me at the same time. I wanted to add a creepy aspect of him that I always had mentally, where he's constantly trying to get dream hosts to lose their control and destroy themselves finding out they are a dream and not actually a real person. Even in Brutus's character development, he never really changes that? He just doesn't do it against certain people, either out of mild fear or a protective instinct he didn't know existed.

Love him though he was a blast to both simplify and detail on this ref.

Brutus- train conductor running the secondary means of getting from Dream to dream

Peanut- Christmas demon living in an abandoned town, abandoned during mid December. You can still hear the Christmas music in the town center if you listen hard enough.

Spike's alternate form, using the voices and skins of their past victims, along with taking Matt's appearance as inspiration, to make a more 'palettable' form

Clover-Mannequin Mall World

Aren and Drew- Zombie Apocolypse, but more or less inspired by Covid(I'll give context eventually dw)

Opia- Small town with a serial killer

Solace- Village burnt to the ground, only survivor being Solace themselves

Lilith :]

I made her partially pig like- the tail usually scrunches during runs.

There's not really alot to like- yap about with her?(atleast rn) She's got a mom vibe going though!

The Baleful/Tainted Lost

I wanted to lean more into like- angry ghost vibes?

So- the angrier Baleful gets, the more curled and spiky looking the 'hair' and veil thing gets.

Arms are floating and detached but disconnect more on the joints and along the wrist they can disconnect as well.

I kinda lied when I said Isaac cries the most but in a way in makes sense that the angry and miserable ghost version of a sad crying child is- like way more likely to cry more ahsbs

Also this reference was a wip since I drew like- tainted jacob💀

Isaac!

D6 is like- one of those fuzzy car decorations but hard. He sometimes uses it as a blunt weapon lmao

I feel like he'd cry the most? Just like- naturally. He's naturally very protective of himself; though he does have a few people he's willing to be looser with.

Isaac has a sweet tooth that he usually uses to keep from being snippy with people after a run.

Also to be so real- I only added the little hair spot because without it all I was thinking of was like- early fnaf Mike Schmidt ifykyk-

Bethany with her flowy gorgeous self :>

The cuffs and chains are probably gonna be gold? It matches the vibe of lile- blue and browns and stuff

During runs she usually wears a basic tee and shorts since her main outfit isn't exactly built for fast movements.

Apollyon nyehe

The void has almost like- tendril things? And it allows the void to actually crush and absorb the items its used on, allowing for either stats or being able to copy the effects.

Oh boy an actual favorite on the design for the tainted characters, and they took less time than normal!

Tainted Apollyon/The Empty

More leaning towards a busted creepy doll. He can speak, but it's heavily disjointed and sounds like a mimicry of his original self.

Went with an abyss vibe, many eyes and such to give a sense of like- an always coming apocalypse even if it's stalled? Yeah :3

Tainted Cain :3

He 'traded' the coin bag for the bag of crafting, also his head got shaved-

Kinda still kept the farmer vibe, he just can't actually do anything farm wise/plant wise because he kills anything he touches.

More of a comfortable farm fit? Save for the pants that he would most definitely trip and eat shit with while wearing.

Azazel <3

I made them a demon- saytr? Thing? Anywaysss- he doesn't like clothes much but wears the sweater cause Maggie made it and also it's loose enough that his wings can move without much restriction :3

One of the only characters designed that won't have the tears in the eyes but the eyes are happy lil orange slices.

CAIN-

The mark of Cain is on the gloved hand, it partially helps Cain at a cost, still deciding that cost ngl.

Also:

As I'm designing general ideas for the characters, like Aesthetics and such, I'm also thinking of the comic stuff for them(aka why I'm tormenting myself with 34 characters to make refs of lmao) BUT: The characters never actually die while on runs. They 'die' but spawn back in a level I'm gonna call basement 0 for now until I figure smth else out.

The sheer amount of times Tainted Lost and The Lost before Mantle spawn there is ridiculous ahhdvhsz

What video game has the best lore?

Feed your dashboard by answering my question, blogger.

Easily a tie between Hollow Knight and Binding of Isaac for me.