#character babbling

Shoutout to my [non-sona] characters who’re ace!

All ace! Some of my art is quite old, or intentionally sloppy, but some of the above pieces were done by very talented artists!

Characters (L to R): Mochi, Hachikō, Tali, Spooky, Aanair, Lin, Negative, Spider

The other day I concluded that Brazen could be a cool name for a flamescale skywing, and I guess I wanted to expand that idea. Could a flamescale be created from only partially absorbing its twin’s fire? Could an animus gene be passed onto a flamescale, or would that be overpowered? Could a flamescale hide from the rest of the sky kingdom unnoticed? If an animus flamescale existed, could they make it so their scales could only be harmful at will? How would they phrase that spell, if so?

Anyways, this string of thought occurred because I thought of this character I had as a kid, named Juniper, who was a flamescale, but at the time I didn’t know/remember Peril’s twin survived, and didn’t die in the egg. But I wondered about who Juniper’s father would be, since I’d only thought of her mother.

I was imagining the scene of them meeting again, since I was writing out a story with Juniper, and the last chapter I’d wrote was her seeing her mother again, but right after a Pyrite-like “mask” was used on her. I thought about Juniper understandably freaking out and not being sure who she was for a split second, but then her mother grasping her face and trying to calm her down, which'd be the only time she really felt any talons touch her. She’d be confused, not understanding how the talons holding her cheeks weren’t burning at all. Then maybe the backstory of her mother and father would be told. Maybe her father was a flamescale, but had been using animus magic to conceal that part of himself, due to fearing rejection and execution (he’d have to hide the fact he’s animus too, but that’s a lot easier to pull off since it’s non-visual). Her father, who well call Brazen, fell in love with Juniper’s mother, and revealed himself as a flamescale after being in a relationship for 1-2 years, but surprisingly, she was not scared, and accepted him. They knew that if they’d have dragonets, that there’d be a risk of another flamescale, but both accepted the possibility, staying far from the Sky Palace, and hiding amongst the caves in the mountains. Knowing this, Brazen enchanted his mate to be able to touch flame, no amount of burn shall harm her.

Remember the splatoons? Yeah. Some are repeats but I don’t care. Some of the drawings are kinda rough because the paper’s texture is worse on one side for whatever reason. Also, AU stuff below, no way. I spoke of Rifftide once, this is pre-Rifftide-Rifftide.

Did you know Rifftide is the only universe in which Hachikō gets any form of memory back? He gets a full-on identity crisis about it, as I’m sure anyone in his situation would. The comic thing is kinda over-the top and cringe but oh well. Dude’s unsure who he is anymore, and no matter what he goes with it’s never gonna be quite right, there’s still the memories that try and guide. (this is not intended to be any sort of offensive thing, I apologize if it comes across that way)

I made these refs back for this year’s Artfight, but never got around to finishing the rest of my characters’. I nickname these three “the main trio” because they’re the three splatoon characters I draw and like the most. All three have a thing in common, albeit for different reasons: they all don’t go by their original names! If you’d like to read character ramblings, look below the cut, if not, you may do what you like.

Thinking about when I made my splatoons into dragons. For whatever reason I post this instead of the canon characters and traits.

(explanation nonsense is beneath the cut, if you’re curious)

I’ve never really drawn the swim forms by themselves before, so I decided to doodle them while I’m waiting to be tired enough to sleep more, heh. I tried to make some visual variations between the two squids, just so it’s not too samey.

Slick’s probably the smallest of the main trio. His “fins” slightly curl up like his ears, similar to how the market squid’s fins. Mochi’s are more rounded-off and stumpy, but she’s overall the longest in swim-form. Hachikō may be the tallest, but his swim form is average, sometimes he morphs into it when spooked out of habit. Fun fact: if any of them remotely resembled the sizes of what species they were based on, Hachikō would be the smallest, as coconut octopuses are only 6 inches (15 cm) long. California market squids are about 8-11 in (190mm), and Humboldt squids are 4’11”! Mochi should be a giant, but y’know, genetics suck.

As for carrying them… they’re about the same size as the player in-game so it might be kinda hard to pull off.

(I couldn’t find a sona of some kind, so you’re the ambiguous grey fellow for now)

Whilst I never decided on an exact, precise location of where it would be, but I imagined the size and climate of it. Just for a vague idea, I’m assuming they’d be somewhere on this bit of peninsula.

Arrecife (arr-ah-see-fay) is a small suburban town plopped somewhere in the desert scrubs. It’s small enough for basically anyone to know each other but large enough to have people traveling stop by for a short bit of time. It’s not super exciting, but people pass through it while on long trips to the larger cities dotted around it. Lots is mom-and-pop shops, but also larger franchises sprinkled everywhere.

Weather is quite unpleasant, but that’s probably why the housing is cheap. It’s hot, humid, and devoid of rain, however that doesn’t stop the children from playing outside. Everyone from the area has some form of tan, just because of the sheer amount of sun. Winter brings more pleasant weather, sometimes rain. Slick and Mochi were surprised by how much cooler Inkadia was in comparison, let alone how it actually rained and snowed. Sometimes the two joke about people from outside Arrecife would think it’s a fire pit, but it just means the two are comfortable while everyone else is dying from the heat. Old, sloppy art:

She actually has bitten people before, but when she was younger. She’d probably do it again, she’d lurch forward with her beak ready to strike if threatened.

Actually, I have an old doodle of xeno Mochi biting through a skull. Why? Because Humboldt squids have a biteforce stronger than a hyena’s (~600 psi), and a human skull will break under about 520 lbs of force.