#gemsona tutorial

http://www.generatorland.com/usergenerator.aspx?id=14891

i created a gem/mineral name generator for creating gemsonas and gem adopts!! i try to keep the list updated with accurate names/terms, but sometimes i miss the fake gems, or names that are nicknames/synonyms for another gem. if you dont know the name of the gem, google it! O:

Picking a Gem:

Rule #1: It’s inadvisable to pick a gem that’s already in the show.  This might seem like a no-brainer, but there’s always a few newbies who might not realize this is a semi-taboo.  And when I say “a gem that’s already in the show,” I mean the exact type of gem.  Ruby, Sapphire, Garnet, Pearl.  Those are all a bad idea.  I get that there are multiple kinds of each gem type, but still.  We’re going for an original character here.  There is no shame in picking a gem like Star Quartz or Mother-of-Pearl; ones that have part of an existing gem in the name (the one exception would be any kind of diamond for obvious reasons).  Anyone who says otherwise is ignorant to how few unique types of gems there are out there.  I’m not saying a gemsona who is a type of gem that already exists in the show is a bad character, but you will have to work much harder to make it seem like its own character and not an expy.

Rule #2: Think about the physical and alleged spiritual properties of the gem you’ve chosen.  It’s not absolutely necessary, and people have made excellent gemsonas without doing this, but I personally love to make weird connections between things.   Rebecca Sugar has done this to an amazing extent with all the gems in the show— even the fusion gems.  Just for the record though, I do not believe any of the wacky “spiritual” mumbo-jumbo about gems having actual healing powers or crap like that.  I just like the connections.  Either way though, it’s totally up to you whether or not you wanna link that stuff in.  Anyway, this is fun to do if you want the gemsona to have a unique power that’s relevant to their gem type, such as Lapis Lazuli's hydrokinesis, Rose Quartz’s healing tears, or Garnet’s electricity manipulation.  For example, my gemsona is Tanzanite.  Tanzanite gems in real life are normally a murky brown, but they turn a beautiful bluish purple when exposed to extreme heat such as that of a wildfire or lightning strike.  Therefore, if I wanted to give her a unique power, I could pick something along the lines of pyrokinesis, plasmakinesis, or electrokinesis.

Rule #3: Consider the personality of your gemsona when picking a gem location.  Gem location often has a connection to a gem’s personality and thinking/acting patterns.  Also, make sure that conjuring your gem’s weapon wouldn’t be impossible (or just really impractical) with the location and weapon you picked.

Pearl's gem is located on her forehead; she's very much the intellectual of the group and acts according to her head rather than her heart.  (Unless Rose is involved *wink wonk*)

Amethyst's gem is on her chest, and she's quite passionate and boisterous, very quick to act on instinct or intense emotion; she acts according to her heart.  

Garnet's gems are in the palms of her hands; while she's also very intelligent, she's more a woman of action, and the placement on her hands could be seen as a metaphor for her being willing to get her hands dirty.

Steven's inherited gem is located in his stomach— more specifically his navel.   The abdominal chakra symbolizes a caring nature and positivity, and he tends to act on gut instinct.  Also none of the gems have belly buttons, but Steven has a gem where his belly button would be ifhe were human.  A nice nod to his hybrid nature indeed.

Lapis' gem is located on her back; she’s very guarded, keeping not only her personal thoughts and aspirations, but the most vital part of her physical self (AKA her gem) away from everyone.

Peridot's gem is on her forehead; she seemed logical to a nearly robotic level with little understanding of things like mercy and kindness until Steven came along and taught her such things.  This is due in part to her upbringing, but she definitely has a natural love for analyzing and understanding the world around her.

Jasper's gem is located where her nose would be; she's very stubborn, determined, uncompromising, and generally a tough customer... in other words, she's hard-nosed.

Blue Diamond and Yellow Diamond both have gems on their chests, but unlike Amethyst, they’re both rather cold.  You could say that given that their gems are positioned over their hearts and are, well, diamonds... they're pretty hard-hearted.  Plus, when Yellow Diamond is busy chewing out Peridot for wanting to terminate the Cluster, her leitmotif grows louder and more frantic, betraying the fact that she's very emotional and irrational underneath her facade.  The same goes for Blue Diamond when she orders that Ruby be shattered for fusing with Sapphire even though it was in an attempt to save her life.

Okay, I’ve ranted at you long enough.  Here’s the gem databases and lists that I promised you.

Geology.com (This one’s a medium-sized list with pictures of various colorful gemstones and their names.  It includes a lot of lesser-known gems, so it’s great if you haven’t found anything you like and are wanting some more options.)

KamayoJewelry.com (A list with pictures of the gemstones most commonly used in jewelry.  It’s sorted by color and there is a tab for each color.  Depending on what color you want, you can usually find anywhere from 20-30 gemstones in the color you’re looking for.  It also provides a bit of info on each gem, so it’s great if you’re wanting a hidden meaning behind the gem.  The main downside is that many of the gems are all fairly common or just the same gem in different colors.)

GemHut.com (A gigantic list of all kinds of gems, many of which are variants of common ones such as ruby or garnet.  If you don’t mind possibly getting a wacky name for your gem, this is definitely the place to go, especially if you like your gem lists to be sorted by color.  The info pages for the gems aren’t that great though, so you’ll have to do your own research on them.)

[Wikipedia] List of Gemstone Species (Last but not least, good ol’ Wikipedia.  This has every, and I do mean every kind of gem out there.  The only problems with this one are that it has non-gem minerals in there as well, and that it’s a list of the gem names without pictures next to them, so if you’re looking for something in a specific color then you’re outta luck.)

http://www.minerals.net/gemstonevarieties.aspx holy fuck that’s a lotta gems

If that’s not enough gem databases for you, then I don’t know what is.  Anyhow, here’s a few thoughts on gem weaponry and stuff like that before I give you the list of weapon databases.

Picking a Weapon:

First things first, I'll eat ya brains don’t pick an overly complex weapon or give it an overly complex design.  Think about it, you’ll probably end up drawing the damn thing a billion times.  The last thing you want is to spend an hour drawing intricate engravings on the grip of a sword that people will glance over for maybe a second.  That’s not saying you can’t add embellishments, but try to use some common sense.   Secondly, in-universe gems probably can’t pull a grenade launcher out of their asses, so yours probably shouldn’t either.  Really big or technologically complex weapons  don’t seem to be something that gems can produce naturally.  Note that this only applies to the weapon that your gem summons directly from their gem.  If their physical form has somehow been augmented by Homeworld technology or they just like to carry around other weapons with them, then the grenade launcher thing doesn’t really apply.

[Wikipedia] List of Medieval Weapons (It’s not a list with pictures, but obviously you can click on the name of a weapon or google image search it to find a picture.  This would be good for designing a gem with a particular fighting class in mind, as you’ll likely find info on what types of combatants used each weapon.)

[Wikipedia] List of Martial Arts Weapons (Pretty much the same as the above link.  There’s fewer weapons, but again, you’ll be able to learn who used which types of weapons and base your gemsona’s design off them if you so desire.)

[Wikipedia] List of Ranged Weapons (Again, similar to the above two links.  However, I should hope you’ll refrain from picking a missile launcher as your weapon.)

Name-Based Weapon Generator (Type in your name, and the generator will mutate the letters of your name to form a weapon.  Capitalization will affect your final result, so if you don’t like your result, try different capitalization or your gemsona’s name.  It takes a second to load, so don't lose your mind if it doesn't appear the second you open the page.)  

Superpower Wiki (Collaborative database containing a list of nearly every power that you could think of.  Useful for anyone trying to give their gemsona a specific power in addition to or to replace their weapon.)

The basic break down for how I designed my latest Gemsona Star Sunstone for that anon who asked a while back (sorry for the delay). My actual process was a bit different than my usual one (which you can see in my old Gemsona Tutorial) but hopefully you still get something out of it! 

I already had an idea of how I wanted her to look, so I didn’t do the body shape breakdown like I usual do when designing a character (which I ALWAYS recommend doing anyways!!!!) I didn’t take my own advice, so her design took forever. Learn from my mistake.

I wanted Star Sunstone to give off a sort of seer / goddess vibe, so I had some general ideas about what kind of outfit I wanted her to have (recreated above, since the original sketches were all pretty generic). I tried out a few different designs digitally, but none of them felt right, so I started sketching out some alternative ones in my sketchbook (typically, I start with a sketch in my sketchbook then try more designs digitally. Another reason why this took forever). Below are some of the sketchbook designs (most of them look pretty similar since by then I already knew what sort of body type / type of outfit I wanted her to have).

I ended up deviating from my original concept of her pretty quickly after changing both her body type and outfit (she was made of sharper shapes in my initial designs [not pictured]). I liked how the Colossal Woman on the Gems’ Temple has a sort of helm / second face in her design, so that’s kind of what inspired me to give Star Sunstone her diamond-shaped head cover / armor in some of her earlier sketches. I also gave her a sort of halo / sun behind her to reflect the seer / goddess imagery I was initially going for during the initial design phase.

Next, I started sketching some ideas for hair (using a generic face shape as a base and random outfits since I was just focusing on the hair). I didn’t take this step with my other gemsonas, but because I wanted Star Sunstone’s overall outline to contrast my other gemsonas, I had to really think about what sort of hair style would work best. I still wanted to be able to draw Star Sunstone easily with relatively simple shapes, so I ended up choosing a simple hair style with a diamond shape to contrast the ovals / circles that made up the rest of her design (I was really tempted to give her the curly hair in the second drawing though TT _ TT).

Using a couple pictures of star sunstones, I created a color pallet and did some color tests to see what sorts of colors would look best based on the outfit and design I settled on:

I did a lot more than four color tests during my initial design-phase, but these four show the most contrast so I’m showing these off.