#parable!ink

DISCLAIMER!!! this is NOT to bash CS.MT or their designs at all! this is all something i did for fun and nostalgia/love of the AU.

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when first sketching out some design ideas for the two, i had long forgotten they were redesigned by CS.MT themselves in 2021! these designs are a HUGE upgrade from the old ones, but i do think they could be better from a character design standpoint.

this is the two parable designs by CS.MT side by side. the one on the right is absolutely a huge improvement, and honestly, the one i have the least changes to.

in my redesign, i brought back the original crow elements the first one had, since he's meant to be based off one. i gave him back his black wings with lighter speckles, along with the addition of crow feet/legs! i thought it was pretty cool that his 2021 design has bird feet, but they're chicken feet, not crow feet. which, doesn't make much sense when considering the animal he's supposed to be based off of. it also appears that his legs have two sections, instead of three? i can't exactly tell with the pants, but i tried to make it more obvious his legs are three bones instead of two.

i also have an issue with the piece of fabric covering his tail feathers. the tail feathers are very important for flying, allowing birds to keep balance and steer themselves in the air. so, draping a thick fabric over it doesn't make sense to me. i kept the drapery around his waist, just removing the back fabric.

i decided to change up their other clothing a bit as well! i made the browns more saturated, which is just a personal preference, since i love warmer colors. i added back the swirls in his original design onto his pants, since i thought they were really cute and added visual interest! i also gave him a belt with the colors of their vials, just to add more color to his design. honestly i couldn't find a way to properly include his vials being on them without it looking funky, so i imagine he would keep them at their nest to be safe.

i also added pockets to the belt for them to collect shiny things! crows love shiny things, so i think parable would collect them and bring them back to the nest he shares with the crows.

that's really all i have to say for parable -- other parts should be self explanatory!

now, moving on to exemplum. his design is the one i had the most issues with.

the 2021 design is definitely an improvement in aesthetics, pose, and general outfit design -- however, the character design itself does not convey what it should.

exemplum is meant to be based off a moon jellyfish, a vibrant blue sea creature. he's also meant to live in the water, for the majority of his life. neither the first or second design convey that very well with the dry-land clothes, however, i do think the first design is better in a way.

the colors & shape language of the clothes say "jellyfish guy who lives in the sea" more than his new clothes. i like the way the top poncho (?) piece of clothing resembles the jellyfish's dome, while the strings trail out like it's stingers. the swirls also remind me of ocean waves, as well as the wavy eyelight and eye strings. in comparison, the newer design feels a lot more bland, and the only thing that could possibly tell you he's meant to be a jellyfish creature living in the sea is the arm strings—which, if you know about error sans, could come across as anything but jellyfish stingers! this is not a good thing, unless that was possibly the point of the design? though, i don't think it was.

this is my redesign of him!

first thing that i HAD to change was the arm strings. i made them into actual jellyfish stingers, with long frills and shorter strings at the top (in reference to the moon jellyfish itself!). i switched his eyelight back to the swirly one, as well as his eye strings.

moving on to the clothes, these desperately needed a massive overhaul. exemplum lives in the sea, meaning he would NOT wear a lot of fabric, since there's no need to & it would be a huge inconvenience while swimming around. i removed the bandages too, since those didn't make any sense to me either. i gave him a pair of loose-fabric pants that he stitched together himself instead, as well as a rope belt and some gold chains for decoration. i added back the vibrant blues and swirls of his old design onto his pants, to resemble the ocean waves. since i removed his scarf, i instead put the "assasin" symbol as a tattoo on his sternum!

i also changed up the colors of his bones a little, making them more purple-pinkish to mesh together better. i made the colors much more vibrant than his 2021 design, because i think they look really cool with underwater creature designs! they're meant to serve as a warning to other creatures as well, to not mess with him, similar to how poisonous animals are typically brightly colored.

to top this off, i gave him spotted turtle feet! they are semi-aquatic guys that can live on both land and sea, so i thought that would make sense for exemplum instead of having normal skeleton feet. plus, if parable gets animalistic feet, i think exemplum should as well :-) just for fun, i gave him a turtle tail, too.

here are the two redesigns side-by-side!! if you have any thoughts to add, feel free to!! i'm very happy with how these came out.