#rysanthe

So, back in 2021 I was kinda really burning out and not feeling great generally so I left my job and then proceeded to just kinda. drift for a while. That meant I both didn't have the money for comms, and I also just kinda drifted away from my sonas and other characters. Once I finally got another job and it looked steady enough*, I wanted to start exploring new characters! I was feelin green and purple, so I came up with a concept sketch for this Squirrel boy character who I later named Rysanthe (shortening of Chrysanthemum) and got this chibi from @neonbuck

Shortly after, I also developed a fox boy character I later named Florian and got this pic from @screamoshaymin (more active on twitter)

And I still like them both, but just haven't found much footing for them in my head. I've got a few more comms of them, but it was clear they weren't gonna be my next sona. I kinda scrapped the original ideas and went back to a classic. My irl friend @gradienttaint drew this pic for me during finals week a few years back, and I still love it, I've taken it with me to each new house since then

And I kinda took this "matcha dog" vibe, mixed it with a want for floral vibes generally, and poured it into Grove. I wrote this big character design comm description and kinda went all in with him being a sona from the get-go, and this ref from @neonbuck was the result!

And I've gotten a lot of other nice comms in the month or two since then! From this wonderful stream comm from Shlimaz

to this YCH from Zorro Chino

to this wonderful pic from my friend @theguywith-ahat today!

and overall, I'm really happy with Grove as a sona! There's a lot more comms in the oven that I'm really excited for, but so far all the pics I've gotten of Grove have been wonderful! thank u all for reading