#design development

Attempt 2

This was my second attempt at designing her. I hadn’t drawn her for the last 22 pages, but that meant I finally had a better idea of what I wanted. I had created a proper Pinterest board, picking out outfits and hairstyles I could imagine for her, and wanted to test out my ideas! ...The result wasn’t what I imagined. Mixing her muscular body type with the style I wanted for her didn’t really work, but I didn’t want to change either aspect, so I just kept at it. I did kinda manage to replicate the hairstyles I included here, but only barely.

Her style is inspired by Anya Nami, though I don't have any of her songs on Nao's playlist. I tried the bob cut because of her.

Attempt 3

Here’s where I locked in on figuring out her hair, and looking back I think my attempts look really good! My favourite is the top right one, to the left of the text. It just didn’t look quite right yet...

Also another attempt at combining her style and body type, and it actually doesn’t look half bad. Success!

Attempt 4

I believe I began this page before I drew the glued-in pieces, but actually finished it after. This was where I was really starting to get somewhere. I’d been wanting to practice muscular anatomy for a while, but only had two OCs with somewhat established designs fit for that... And one of them was Nao. (I also used the other character, Nobuyuki, for a study later.)

I actually have a lot of trouble drawing without a pose reference, so drawing the legs and arm was actually pretty easy with all that reference-user experience under my belt. The leg to the left ended up looking too lean for what I wanted for Nao, so I gave it to Chi instead. Look at their silly face up in the corner!

The rest of this page I didn’t use any references with. Actually, now that I think about it, I didn’t use any references until here at all for Nao!

The main change I made here from my previous designs was to change the shape of her eye. I really hung onto her having Shidou’s eyes, but it just wasn’t working. Sometimes you really need to let go of a design element to make progress. My favourite drawing here (aside from the anatomy stuff) is the one directly between the Nao leg and arm.* The hair turned out really nice, the eyes were finally working, and I got to include a snippet of her outfit. I’m still conflicted over how to draw the long strands at the sides of her face. Do I want to keep them around shoulder length or longer? Pointing inward and stiff looking, or curled and flowy? I really don’t know yet.

*Is it just me or does she have bird vibes here? Am I delusional? Please someone tell me they can see it too.

So these doodles (and the matching one above) I did all during a maths exam (that I failed). That put aside, I think I did really well on that side profile! Technically her nose looks slightly different, but this just looked so nice that I didn’t change it. I experimented with her eyes, drew her from before she chopped off the back of her hair (canon event), and added two Chis (it’s like she’s multiplying). I find “the terror” drawing on the previous page quite amusing too.

Attempt 5

I am unsure if this can even count as an attempt, considering it’s really just a quick doodle of Nao as a kid. I like the energy though. There are doodles of two more OCs as kids, but those will be shown in another post (someday...).

And that’s it! I have a pretty damn terrible visual imagination, so when I imagine a new character they rarely have a solid appearance I can see in my head (if that makes sense). Because of this my first drawing of them usually ends up being their final design too, or close to it. This is a modern sports setting, so I’m not bothering with meaningful design aspects beyond things like hair or maybe clothes, so there’s no need to go beyond vibes and personal preference.

The idea behind Rubianno was to make the largest bird OC yet (out of my other bird OCs). It started development in 2015 or so with this sketch of a fairly nondescript looking bird. I wanted it to be a fairly stocky bird, but I wasn't sure yet of the direction I wanted to take it. It was also only 10ft tall, which is pretty short compared to later bird OCs.

Then I actually started thinking about it... and I decided I would have it be a sea bird. These concept sketches show a frigatebird-like bird and a cormorant-like bird.

The frigatebird-like one would be the one that stuck, and it became the prototype for what would be the next iteration. However... It looked kind of foul-tempered. My three (four?) previous bird OCs at this point were all heavily based on and/or inspired by video game enemies - by which I mean they were largely territorial and aggressive creatures who at best would tolerate people at a distance, and at worst, would attack them on sight. I decided this bird would be cute and oblivious, like a giant, flying dodo; and this next version of the design reflected that.

At this point, Rubianno still didn't have a name yet, but it was also no longer the humble 10ft tall bird it began as and was now... However tall that scribble in the middle sketch says it was. I can barely read it, but I think it says 19ft? Seems about right.

These sketches FINALLY lead to the first finalized version of its design. This is Rubiano (with one 'n') uploaded to DeviantArt in July, 2016. Now standing at 27ft tall, this borderline mythical seabird was "done".

I say "done" because it really wasn't quite yet! Me and a friend, TerusTheBird, came up with the idea for its backstory. I can't remember who it was who initially thought it up but I remember the idea reminding me a bit of the plot of "King Kong". A group of old-timey explorers discovered an uncharted island with this mysterious giant seabird on it. Only, they don't try to bring it back to N.Y. or whatever, and instead try to study it on the island.

It also eventually became much taller than 27ft tall; now being around 50ft or so, with the quoted 27ft being due to inaccurate measuring of its height by the explorers and poor record-keeping as it Toyhouse description states.

I attempted to draw art of the explorers arriving on the island, but it only amounted to the single silly concept scribble on the left (2016) and two genuine but unfinished attempts (2017 and 2020).

I also drew a few random sketches of it too at some point.

It wasn't until 2023 that I revisited it and decided to give it the "improved reference" treatment using the pseudo-professional style I developed in college after having my soul extracted. The intention of these references was to make a potential 3D model of it in the future easier to create - either for me, or for another artist. The wing reference was made in 2023, and the turnaround was made in 2024.

It was also at this point that the spelling of the name officially became "Rubianno" with two 'n's.

And that's about where Rubianno is as an OC. I've done a few things with it aside from the refs since the start. I included it in a 2023 artfight attack against a bird OC called the dire noddy.

I also very recently added Rubianno to my island in Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream! It's uh... Not accurate in size, but it still turned out pretty cute.