#grinnames evolution

Alrighty, for all those interested, I'm going to dive into my sona's history!

Here is the very first concept for Grinnames! She wasn't even named that yet, in fact she was just a drawing of my first Minecraft skin, when I first started playing. Yup, that's right, Grinnames used to be a MINECRAFT SELF-INSERT back in about 2019.

At some point, Grinnames later became a not only a Minecraft OC, but also Dream SMP self-insert, thanks to my friend getting me into Minecraft roleplay.

Her lore used to be very simple: She was actually supposed to be the spirit of Christmas, (but for some reason was obsessed with pumpkins) and basically invent Christmas on the Minecraft server. She was a peaceful neutral player amidst all the wars raging on.

At some point I rewrote her lore and made her a ghost possessing an iron golem/robot...? The next sketch page has lore, but it also had some real names written there, so I had to cut it off.

Here are the ghost-in-the-machine sketches:

Her lore is more complicated now, so to sum it up: she starts out nice and invents Christmas. But then she learns that the Egg (the evil giant red egg-shaped god corrupting the server) is here, and thinks that killing it will give her lives back, because she remembers dying because of it. And then later her best friend, who is my best friend's self-insert, dies. Agonized by the loss, and frustrated by the weakness of her new body, she becomes cold and indifferent and focuses all her time on becoming stronger.

But! PLOT TWIST! Her body and lives are actually inside the Egg. Long ago, the Egg Cult sacrificed her and left her to rot in a cave, so that they may one day bring their god into this plane of existence! With every sacrifice, and over time, the Egg grew from her body and eventually encased her, protecting its heart. She's unknowingly the host to a great evil, and she can't remember because ghosts in DSMP lore have amnesia and aren't actually the person who died. (which is why I have demon drawings with the robot drawings)

Eventually, the Egg consumes enough of the server and hatches, and her true body emerges from it possessed by the evil god, and takes her soul. The ghost version of her disappears.

I also designed the ghost form for her:

The first sketch is my idea for two separate endings: one in which she is saved and gets out alive, and one where her spirit is cursed and left to wander or something... I don't quite recall, the lore gets convoluted here with three different rewrites of her story. I may have even scrapped the iron-golem idea at this point, and made her a full-time ghost.

The second sketch gets used for this:

And that's how we get the girl with horns and ribbons! Originally, the lore behind this design was that this was either her as a spirit, or her when she's possessed, which is why her body is rotting away beneath her clothes.

From here, I used both sketchbook and Procreate interchangeably.

Grinnames slowly went from being just a DSMP OC to a general self-insert for all types of things. Especially after I left the fandom and all its problems for good.

I ended up liking her design so much that I decided to make her my official sona.

Sketches

More Sketches

100 Followers

300 Followers

Being Edgy For Stress Relief

Breaking my Silence

And now, here we are in the present!

Currently, Grinnames is getting turned into an SMG4 self-insert, but I am taking my time writing her lore this time, because joining the SMG4 fandom and tumblr has been a special time to me, and I want to be satisfied. I'm almost done with it, and I have the basic idea down, just gotta double-check and do the hardest part: COMMIT TO ONE SINGLE MAIN NARRATIVE

Fun Facts about her current character design!

I had another sona was basically a scientist version of me, and at that time I was into military-style fashion. I combined the two to make her blue coat. It's also why earlier designs have the goggles, from my scientist sona.

Her striped horns and sleeves are inspired by Youtuber Pastra's veldigun OCs, and the fact that I actually like wearing striped shirts IRL.

The spiral eyes are inspired from Fleetway Super Sonic. I wanted Grinnames to look a little crazy from having been through trauma, and also being fused with the Egg in one version of the story. I like having this version of me let loose and laugh maniacally ok-

Her pants and shoes changed the most throughout the process, but for a long time she had these long wide-legged samurai pants, which were tied with smaller ribbons at her feet. This was inspired by Nezuko from Demon Slayer, and the samurai pants from Sky: Children of the Light

Her face, hair, and body type is basically just my interpretation of myself IRL.