Every RPG needs some fancy character portraits~. It’s been a while since I posted any sketches here…

I think I’ve been making good progress with the preparation for B_P– the first batch of manga pages is fully drafted, and I’ve made up a bunch of banners to put these character portraits in once they’re done.

I’m hoping to get a lot of mileage out of these…not only am I gonna use them for status report banners (‘character joined the party!’, ‘upgrade acquired’, etc.) I am also planning to use them as emotes for the ‘heart-to-heart’ convos, and bases for alternate costumes (if I actually implement that…maybe I will, or maybe I’ll just make some for funzies). I hope I do a good job coloring them, because you’ll be seeing them very often. ^^;

Someday…

Yoooo, I finally finished writing and testing the first few areas of BLADE_Princess! I think I’ve set up the beginnings of a good game for y’all, and hopefully something to keep me drawing on a more regular basis. ^^;

If you haven’t noticed, I’ve been more into writing lately…and I don’t mind that; I love to write. But I also love to get projects done occasionally, which is hard when you’re constantly fighting off the script brainworms. 6_6 So please tell your friends, participate, and do your part to help me stay anchored in reality! 8D

In case you forgot how this goes: so B_P is structured like an RPG, but really it’s more like a visual novel, where your goal is to earn Affinity Points between Blade and Magolor (pictured) to determine the nature of their relationship. But, since the decisions will be made through polls, the only way to steer things the way you want is to follow the game and vote. ;)

Since there ARE branching paths in this game, that does mean you will potentially miss out on certain content depending on what you vote for…but I’m going to show you as much of the missed content as possible at the end of each area (i.e. whatever I have written/prepared…as we get deeper into the story and the branches diverge more, I probably won’t be able to do everything ^^; ). 

All that is to say, just focus on getting Blade and Mags to do what you want them to do, and if you’re curious about the alternatives you’ll get to see them later. Or just ask! 

Thank you! ^^

BTW, it might interest you to know that I was recently planning on reviving the project... I drafted the entire first arc of the "game", and I was gonna test it out and start running it with the audience polls and everything-- unfortunately, I started my preparations a bit too late. ^^; I'm gonna be leaving on a trip next week; I don't have time to do a manga-TTRPG with y'all right now...but hopefully when I return, I'll get back to it, and we'll get to see how Blade's story plays out~

BLADE_Princess

…I’m glad this AU idea came along, because I’ve been in WIP hell for so long…I really needed some reward doodles that I could actually feel motivated to draw~

So about 1 in 5 Kirby AU ideas takes shape as a game concept rather than a normal narrative, and this is one of those, the first one that’s JRPG-inspired. ^^ The main protagonists are a 5-member party of villains, but these two are the central characters, whose choices can affect the outcome of the story.

Blade The title character, who eventually becomes the most powerful in the group…due to a debilitating sickness that slowly destroys her mind and body. After losing her home, family, and entire civilization to similar strains of bio-magical warfare, she alone is resurrected by a strange wizard and his evil allies, and agrees to take part in their plans. During the story, Blade is continually confronted with memories of her past, and the destruction wrought by her happy family on the rest of the universe. She starts to wonder whether they all deserved to be exterminated, as her illness progresses and the idea that she should rejoin them consumes her thoughts. Meanwhile, she gradually loses control over her actions in the present, and in the end is torn between begging her adoptive father for help, or using the last of her self-awareness to take him down with her, for dragging her into this hell in the first place. +++ In this AU I really tried to break away from my usual depictions of the characters, and I think going from my usual portrayal of Dark Matter Swordsman as a classic “crouching moron hidden badass” to this more somber, sensitive character is probably the most dramatic example here. ^^; A little of that old characterization remains, however, as she’s not much of a deep thinker…she only joins the adventure because war is all she understands, and because Magolor really does remind her of her own father. Whether she remains fully loyal to him, or tries to choose a different path before the end, is up to the player, I guess. ^^;

Slowly, I think I’m getting a handle on this…I tried studying the character art from my favorite dead MMORPG, Maple Story 2, and I think it helped me find a style for the shading and rendering that’s more dramatic but still sort of cartoony.

Plus, I’ve been doing a bit of script writing, which always helps me figure things out. ^^ So please enjoy the additional work I’ve done on these character concepts.

-Between these two, Magolor definitely needed the most work: you can tell because I basically drew a full character design sheet, which is something I almost never do because I don’t like repetition. XP But it doesn’t feel repetitive when I’m totally lost to begin with. ^^; I think I got a little too abstract that first time I drew him, so my focus here was to figure out the specific shape of his body and rebuild outward from there. In stark contrast to my usual Magolor designs, he’s very tall and muscular, with an imposing silhouette (especially with his cape on). Yes, he IS hiding something under all those purple bandages, but we won’t talk about it today. ;)

-I also like that his outfit gets darker the further inside you go, from the solid white cape and glittering chains, to the silver armor and gray scarves, to the skintight navy blue fit underneath. Symbolism??? Perhaps~

-Blade’s design was already pretty solid, so I just adjusted her cape a little, and then dove straight into the Rainbow Malady concept art. ^^ Phase 1 has her sprout a second eye and wings on one side of her face. Her head catches fire, as the power of the Rainbow Sword attempts to ‘burn away the darkness’. In this phase, Blade is already in a lot of pain, but remains fully conscious and can even speak, when she isn’t coughing up multicolored blood. She can recover from this on her own with a day of rest. Phase 2 is much more serious, forcing her organs outside of her body, and growing star-shaped welts over the rest of her skin. At this point, she can no longer recover without Magolor’s help-- essentially, he uses magic to shove all her organs back where they belong and stitch up the open wounds. It’s like setting a bone after it’s broken-- just as painful as the injury itself (if not more), but necessary for proper healing…which takes about a week.  Phase 3 is the last and worst, transforming her arms into elongated wings and her whole body into burning plasma, on top of all the issues from Phase 2. Thankfully, she can’t really remain conscious in this phase-- she’s usually delirious from fever, blood loss, and her brain literally burning away. ^^; Storywise, she needs about a month to recover from this, so she doesn’t use it too often…of course, as the 'player', you can put her through it as many times as you want. =T

-Fun fact, I guess: So the primary love language between these two characters is food. ^^ I was musing about what I could do with a protagonist arc centered around worsening illness (which is…surprisingly rare), and I thought, “so what do you do for sick people? You put them to bed, you manage their symptoms, you clean and comfort them…and most importantly, you feed them.” And then ^that little doodle basically came to me in a dream, and from there evolved the idea of Magolor showing kindness to Blade by cooking for her.

Most of the time, the little affection Magolor shows to Blade is…basically performative. Think of it like a hammy supervillain petting their cat-- it’s more of a character stim than anything else. ^^; The way Magolor talks to Blade (and especially the way he talks about her…) makes it clear that the hand-holding and headpats don’t mean much.

Story Mode Boss: Galactic Envoy - Bandana Knight

One of my more unique gijinkas; I’m really proud of this one. ^^ I usually don’t pay much attention to Bandana Dee, which I guess brought forth a lot of fresh ideas.

So Bandee here isn’t the first boss of BLADE_Princess’ story, but he is the first of Kirby’s closer acquaintances to confront the villains…in a moment where Magolor is kind of expecting Kirby himself to show up, and is massively disappointed with the arrival of this “sidekick” instead.

What Bandee (or I guess BanKnight) reveals after he’s captured, however, is that Kirby is sort of…retired. No one has seen him for a long time, and most of his friends and Helpers have taken over his role as defenders of the universe. If Magolor expected to be confronted by the most prestigious and experienced hero the galaxy had to offer, technically BanKnight IS the best candidate at this point.