they/them - adult - artist, composer, writer, creator of The Glass Darkly (@glassdarklypod) - this is my corner for podcast posting and fanart! - #1 doppelganger fan... uhhh oh. okay. well this is awkward. #2 doppelganger fan
“it needs to be simple, emotive, arresting in its cruelty; something that can be easily glossed into a short paragraph or two for disinterested readers.
This was already posted on Patreon but I wanted to post it here too for audio drama Sunday after a few weeks. Long story short, I've been working with concept artist, Max Portugal, to come up with character designs for the ANA leads (and some of the more prominent side characters)!
Of course, this remains an audio show: imagine/draw the characters however you want, I left it up for interpretation on purpose, there are no wrong answers, etc, etc. But that being said, it's still fun to get art made! I basically gave him some light design notes and let him run wild!
Left to right that's Sig, Bea, Happy, Lady Isadora, Luxe, and Oliver. Design notes/commentary under the cut!
Top of the lineup, we have Sig. I'm Black so I almost always picture the main characters of the things that I write as Black. Specifically, I picture him as being mixed (Black and white) but I don't think real world racial distinctions mean that much in Solegard besides which colors work best for your skin tone and how much sunscreen you need to avoid a burn. For his build, we went with the idea that, at a glance, he looks like he could be a stereotypical hero type but, in reality, he just Looks Like That. Like, in Sleeping Beauty Aurora was blessed with beauty. Sig was blessed with looking dashing but that doesn't actually translate into being good at cardio. (He also prob has some of that Peeta Mellark natural baker buffness haha.) So it's just really clear that if he was interested in being a hero, he def could be. He just Really Doesn't Want To.
Next up is our girl Bea! Bea, I always picture with short brown hair like her actress because they are so similar in personality, haha. I like that it's a little all over the place just like her. The embroidered jeans and funky colors with the shirt and jacket were all Max and they match her loud personality super well. She is, as always, holding her laptop and you can see her Toad House medallion on her right lapel.
Happy! I thought Happy was going to be the biggest design challenge because, based on how people react to him in the show, he has to look passingly human at a first glance, but also obviously inhuman at a second glance. He also has the most canon physical description in the show with a grand total of 2 features: inky black eyes and his Business Babe hat. But Max killed it with a solution that was so simple that it almost made me mad I didn't think of it: just make his skin tone inhuman and point his ears. Easy. That, plus a powerful build and dark palate really brings the whole look together. And the pop of pink from the hat is the cherry on top.
Isadora is next and the star of the show here is the armor. Sig mentions in her first episode that she has impressive armor as captain of the Queensguard and Max ran with it. The cream and gold color palate with the marigold pauldrons and filigree down the cuirass? Love. With the color scheme, it made sense to also make her blonde so that it all matches and I love the ombre. As a side note, that length of hair is so impractical for her job but it's fiiiiiiine, she's a protagonist. In the same way that Ana has Princess Hair (tm) that always looks amazing no matter how disheveled she should be, Isadora's hair never gets in the way and just flares out dramatically while in combat. You can see a scar going through her right eyebrow (one of several I'm sure) and she has her blessed sword. I especially like how stoic and all business she is here. Sig is making pies so good he's able to get this person to willingly participate in sitcom shenanigans. Their friendship is so funny to me.
Shrouded under the assassin's hood we have Luxe! For this one, Max had the cover of Mazed and Confused to look at which features a bit of Luxe. I always imagine fae to be beautiful but in an angular and unnatural way and that's the note I gave both Sunny (our cover artist) and Max. Similarly to Happy, she has an unnatural skin tone and you can't see her ears under the hood, but they're pointed. Her outfit has leaf-like veins because, as a fae, I think she's connected to nature. You'll remember that in Mazed and Confused when she does the whole As The World Falls Down ballroom scene, she glamours outfits made of flowers onto the gang.
And finally, Oliver. I feel like this one speaks for itself. Look at his little glasses. Have you ever seen a cat that was more clearly fantasy-British? No notes.
Anyway, I'm not planning on doing anything specific with these designs this second buuuuut it's nice to have them in the back pocket for the future!
Sorry I started sobbing uncontrollably when you expressed the slightest concern for my lack of human connection, and casually mentioned you think I deserve better than a life of isolation and loneliness. Super weird. Not sure what was up with that lol. You still think I’m cool and mysterious and sexy, right?
something that's really special to me is that midnight burger DID find me when time and tide had roiled me too harshly, when diurnal courses left me with no safe havens, they were out there, looking for me, and they found me
i didn't intend to be quite as ambitious as i was with all of these pieces, but everyone's characters are so cool that it was hard not to follow my heart, challenge myself, and create full scenes for them!
characters and owners are as follows! ➡️
👁 constantine losev by memorablesunshine on ig (memorablesunshine on af)
🎵 wil brennan-crow and riot tavassoli by the.creative.block on ig (thecreativeblock on af)
🐝 briar by @iconicshrub (iconicshrub on af)
⚙️ victoria by @sol-draws-sometimes (sol-has-an-obsession on af)
👗 dennis wilson by @thirteens-pocket-watch (blueboxgoburrr on af) (ft. my character shawna!)
🪞 jason kaida from @glassdarklypod (elkatt on af)
🪶 bruno tiyuk by @honkhonkpatches (sunny-patches on af)
i've had an absolute blast participating again this year! thank you SO MUCH to everyone who attacked my characters — i have been so truly spoiled, and i treasure every piece i recieved from you amazingly talented bunch. 🥹🩷
Audio drama is a weird industry to work in because one person's low budget means "We have $100 ever. Maybe $105 but only if we really need that extra 5 bucks." And then another's "We cannot justify the $30,000 console and $10,000 worth of mics we wanted to use, so we're making do with the $1200 mixer/recorder combo and $1500 worth of mics in Steve's basement studio." And then every once in a while you'll run into a guy from a Hollywood background whose low budget is "we're really only willing to spend $100k on this unless it blows up."
But the really insane thing is that these people will interact and think they all have the same version of low budget, leading to a "budget" mic recommendation where the shock mount alone is more than the person is willing to spend on their entire season.
Anyway, if you're asking for budget audio recommendations, it really helps if you throw out a number rather than "not too much."
i get why people are mad about the new carrie show and you're all right etc etc, but can people please stop writing these posts like "i can't believe they won't make Carrie fat! she's supposed to be REPULSIVE AND UGLY!!" just like rethink your wording a little..... maybe......
i keep seeing discussion about this that's hammering this in harder and harder. i get what everyone's talking about but it's really not okay to describe fat girls as every negative thing you can possibly think of just to prove a point. people seem way too eager in this conversation to use "fat" in the same sentence as "gross, dumpy, ugly, repulsive, unrelatable". can we please talk about the meat of the matter and not just keep parroting over and over "she's supposed to be fat ugly disgusting". can anyone hear me. hello
it kinda drives me crazy that we don't know what C.B. stands for in The Reality Shaper lmao. in my head, their name is "Check Bridge" because i write a CB on violin repair paperwork all the time...
"and the door was, like frederic said... wide open"
OH GOD!!
in all seriousness, Cold Shift ep 11 was fantastic and i'm so excited for this next season. very spooky but also unexpected? this is definitely taking some twists and turns...
I need a brief moment to go insane abt Dana Cardinal. She killed an alternate version of herself and took the time to bury a grave for it. She believes there's good in everyone. She wants to help people but doesn't want to be a leader. She spent enough time in the desert otherworld to be considered a great warrior. She constantly puts up with Cecil saying shit she doesn't want him to on air. She even eats dirt. God I love her so much.
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