thats MISTER faggot to you

i'm glad u asked cause its a lot! I'll use my candle gijinka as an example to better explain and throw in some other stuff i've made :3

1. tone + setting

this is a more broader thing to consider when i make gijinkas, and thats tone! personally, I'd like to think of II as generally a little more grounded compared to something like bfdi, especially as time goes on. so, i try to make sure that when it comes to outfits and such, it looks like something that character would dress in on the regular

additionally (this tip is a little more ii specific), taking into account the time the character is introduced/which season im drawing the gijinka of is important to me. In candles instance, she was introduced in iii, which is more of a laid-back season and means she is more settled in her gimmick since she's new if that makes sense

compare this to someone like cheesy! early s2 cheesy is veryyyy gimmicky (bro was born like 4 days ago at the time), so his outfit is silly and surface level since it reflects the trope he's made from. but then in iv, his getup is more formal because he wants more people to take him seriously

i dont have any examples but this is especially true for s1 characters (as lightbulb puts it, they're not all there yet) so designs for that era are on the simpler side, and become more fleshed out over time

iv characters are a little tricky because of this since they are new (kinda), but generally are considerably more "normal" compared to the rest of the cast, so it depends on the character

lastly, i try not to go toooooo crazy with detail/have a version where they're simpler. it's a personal preference but also because of the medium being a tv show, so i like the designs being something that look like it could be animated regularly

2. personality + habits

up next is personality and habits! looking at candle, there's a few points about her that I'd like to keep in mind:

she's down-to-earth, calm, and spiritual

a skilled player in the game (and in people's hearts)

practical and strong (idk if that's the right word i'd use but she can hold her own is what i mean)

has a smooth and soft voice

these traits are things that I want to convey when you look at her! this can be shown in things like shape language, but luckily, objects usually already do this to an extent. so, I'll elaborate on how i added this to the gijinka in a later part

another thing i like to make sure of when making gijinkas is that i can imagine them with the voice of the character themselves (obv lol)! this is actually super important to me and i like to listen to clips of the show while imagining them as human just to make sure

an important part to also consider is habits! this can come down to a variety of things, like how active the character is, how preppy they are, profession, gender expression, etc.

for example, my old test tube design had bangs and long hair for a little bit. but seeing as she's a scientist and lots of hair in your face is a big nono, i ended up mostly removing the bangs and giving her a shorter cut for later in the show

3. object + shape

when designing, i want to make sure that their look is related the actual object themselves!

some things to note about candle:

the top of her head is flat and slopes a bit because of the heat of her flame

she has a long wick on the top of her head

shes made of wax, so she has a smooth and kind of shiny texture

purple makes up the bulk of her body

the wax on her head is melted and covers her face a little

these pieces are important because while the personality + habit stuff is something that I want to convey, I also need to make sure that I can fit the forms from the original design as much as possible so it reads better

an artist i like that's especially good at incorporating the object shape/making gijinkas in general is WinceMedia, or WMashups on twt. he's on hiatus rn and currently privated, but i reallyyyyy like his stuff! here's some examples i have saved on my computer from a while ago:

notice how a lot of his designs incorporate the shapes of the objects into the design! like the cylinder shape of test tubes body being used for her lanky build and her locs, the bottom of fans hair resembling the paper folds, and jacks head resembling the face on the card! very fun stuff, details like that are things i want to remember

this can extent to other tidbits within the show as well, which makes spotting them out very fun! for example, lots of paper gijinkas will have lazy eyes and overbites in them (myself included) because of his early renders and the fact that EP has "crazy eyes"/later changed to a lazy eye in the remake

4. mix it togetherrrr

yeah! the personality & habits are put together with the shapes in her form to help with the actual design i want

personaility + habits: for candle, she does a lot of meditating, and like mentioned earlier, she can hold her own very well in challenges. furthermore, she's a character that's mystical, but humble about her abilities/not a divine person. because of this, I made her outfit consisting of shiny pieces like the fabric wrap belt thing (it's also flowy which helps with the calm demeanor) and gold jewelry, and casual/athletic yoga wear like the sweater & leggings + sports bra. her hair is short for added activeness and put in a headband wrap/scarf thing for more down-to-earth feel. i originally had her design without the wrap but added it to help with the flowiness and visual weight. her palette is warmer because of the flame stuff and summer vibes of iii, and has a soft face to match the smoothness of her voice

object + shape: the slope of the top of her head and the dent for the wick are reused to make an off-the-shoulder sweater + since the top of her head is melted, the sweater is soft, loose, and falling, adding to the "melted wax" stuff. this is used for the hair as well, since they fall over her face and are in thick drops. the slight shine of the wax is added to the leggings since both leggings and wax kinda fall into that "matte but vaguely shiny" category, and the gold parts help vary the value and colors while adding to the flame part of her character. they also bring a slight edge to her as she mostly consists of rounded forms

anddddd done! looking at other people's gijinkas are good to see how they went about a character as well and helps my process, especially with revisions. there are a lot of good designs out there and it's always fun to see other interpretations

offhand thought + push from my mutual on twittar

I think I’d like to make an animatic of it sometime soon, but I wanted to check if it’s okay with you first! :]

yeah me too😞😞 anyways im elaborating more on him cause its fun

so fan is dead (obv). that being said, i think frankenfan is still drawn to people fan loved on the island, in a way

biggg debate on the island as to whether its actually fan and hes just in a haze for the rest of his existence or if its just his brain and body on autopilot, but everyone can agree they want nothing to do with him. well except for test tube, kinda

i keep changing her hair a lot in general lol but this is what i currently have for her

id like to think some point between episodes 11 & 12 is when she gets the haircut since i think it reflects her character better. in early episodes, shes not made to be much outside of the wacky scientist trope and is much more carefree so i tried just leaning into that. over time tho as she matures outside of her initial concept, test tube basically realizes “hey i don’t have to have my hair like this even tho its been like this forever, I’m just gonna cut it” (yay for contestant autotomy)