The OG Wu-can't-make-tea truther

the only things i really had to go on were this page showing a foundationist, Cube saying "their uniforms are pretty rad" and the fact that they're a religious boarding school, which made me inclined to lean in the direction of them having a more regal/formal/buttoned-up look than Future's Promise (as opposed to a more casual one, which could be its own type of "pretty rad"). for that reason, i opted for a waistcoat to give a more "fancy" feel, and then spruced it up by making the buttons resemble a marching band jacket. that also adds a hint of a military feel to the uniform, which felt appropriate. (i also think a marching band uniform makes a great potential base for a magical girl uniform, so...again, appropriate.)

i then played around with various ways to wear it, summer vs winter sleeves, options for lower garments, that sort of thing. i decided i liked what i had - a good overall look with plenty of room to play around to showcase an individual's personality.

finally, since the Future's Promise uniform has a blazer but no waistcoat, i decided to add a bit of contrast by leaving the Founder's Blessing as having a waistcoat with no blazer. however, i was still thinking about a potential outer layer, and i wanted to work in that alchemical sun symbol (seen on the foundationist) in a way that was a bit less subtle than the ascot pin. eventually i landed on the idea of a capelet using it as the clasp, with the idea that this is something that's worn for more formal occasions (award ceremonies, representing the school, maybe religious ceremonies) as opposed to day-to-day classes.

the black and gold color scheme came from the foundationist, but i thought it really worked for both the "formal churchy" vibe i was going for and the "pretty rad" vibe specified by Cube. i did feel like i wanted something with a bit more character than a white shirt, but a black shirt limited my options for contrast too much - eventually i settled on the grey shirt because it matched the black in a monochromatic way and the gold in a "silver and gold" way for a unified, elegant color scheme. the cream was initially intended for the capelet to contrast with the rest of the outfit while still matching the monochrome + gold scheme (and giving off a regal + holy feeling), but i ended up liking it more for the skirt and not liking the look of having the skirt and capelet match. so then i ended up playing around with a few colors for the capelet, including other colors from the palette and a few wildcard options (i ended up really liking a slightly-teal blue, but ultimately i just thought black looked the coolest).

the skirt was actually the hardest part for me to design. my original concept was a black plaid skirt (very classic school uniform look), but i thought that might be too complicated for a webcomic design and switched to a single gold stripe/ribbon on a black skirt. but then while looking at references, i got reminded that rue's magical girl form does have a plaid skirt, and i thought the plaid might work after all and tried to design a silver-and-gold plaid over the black. but it still ended up getting quite complicated in a hurry, and i wasn't really loving it either. so i switched back to the stripe idea, but keeping both the gold and silver. i played with various stripe configurations (including going back to a single stripe with one color), but i wasn't loving any of them, and i didn't like leaving the skirt as just plain black because it blended into the vest too much. finally, as a hail mary option, i let go of the black skirt and tried coloring it silver...and i hated having the skirt match the shirt even more than having the skirt match the vest. but then i tried coloring it with the cream from the capelet, and i actually really liked that! (although it did make me want to change the capelet to something else.) after a bit more experimenting confirmed for me that silver shirt, black vest + capelet, and cream skirt was definitely the combination i wanted to go with, i did a bit more playing with stripe patterns on the skirt and found something i was actually happy with.

finally, i wanted to showcase the variations a bit more (and do some more full-body drawings) by quickly coming up with some characters with different personalities who would wear the uniform in their own way. (they aren't meant to be a team or anything; just some random concepts. that being said, i did consider sigil design to be an important part of designing SD magical girls even when they mostly ended up being covered by the clothing so here's a bonus version with their sigils)