#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.

Before the redesign, Quazador's design was quite different.

It's first design, from 2015, changed very little from its initial sketch. Here it was listed as 6ft and 20 inches tall, which a) this was later changed to 6ft, and also makes no sense. Why didn't I just write 7'8''? Honestly, I just didn't understand how heights worked and b) is much shorter than the 13ft it currently stands.

The inspiration behind this bird's design mostly came from Final Fantasy monsters; especially the Zu from FFIV - which, like most iterations of the Zu across FF games, is a gigantic, monstrous bird. Unlike the Zu, this bird was meant to be fast and mischievous as opposed a flying monstrosity.

One of the more questionable design choices was the strange pose and the wing-like feathers on its legs, similar to that of an archaeopteryx. This gave it the appearance of having 4 wings - which, while a cool idea, wasn't exactly what I was going for.

In 2017, I began redesigning it. The sketches for the redesign shortened its neck a little and changed its exaggerated upright pose into something more akin to the posture of cartoon vultures. I also kept the wing-like leg feathers to some extent, but reduced them significantly.

The final result was still pretty awkward, however, and I still wasn't exactly satisfied with it. It's definitely one of my weaker bird designs, and it stayed like this up until this year, when I finally redesigned it again and tried to put a little more thought into it this time.