So I know this is a really long time since my last post, but I finally got the time to finish it all up and write up a post. It's just that there are multiple parts to explain
To start off, I've got a whole lotta headcanon for what Krolia and Tex look like, and I like to draw a semi-realistic version of faces, so I don't lose any features in a design, so let's start off with Krolia
I didn't like how human she looked in the show, so I usually draw her a somewhat cartoony version of this. With Galra in the show, I usually see a flat nose, often with a "V" shape, as well as pronounced cheekbones and mouth... things... that I don't know the name of. It's a muscle, I think. I really like to go into the whole alien thing with biology and such when it comes to a design, like the larger eyes and pupils (which may or may not be heavily influenced by lilflowerpot's worldbuilding).
Next up is Keith's father, who I'll call Tex
So, it's heavily implied that Keith is Asian American, or Galra-Asian American. In Tex's design, I just lean into that and give him more facial hair.
He's basically a human Krolia with a bit of Tex's features mixed in.
For my Galra Keith design, I like to sort of invert all of his features, lest he become a genderbent Krolia. (And Keith deserves to look like his dad, too!) So every feature he gets from Krolia, he instead gets from Tex, but galra-fied. I also throw in some random design choices that I think look cool. Maybe it's from a grandparent.
So here he is! There's a lot that goes into this, so I'll try to interpret my tangled yarn ball of a thought process. First, I said before he had inverted features to human Keith, but he would also theoretically have a very different life to canon Keith. Since he's very obviously Galra, he wouldn't have been raised on Earth like canon Keith was. Whether or not Krolia packed up the whole family or Tex stayed on Earth, Galra Keith would have been raised in space.
Also, I don't imagine he would be named Keith? In the show, he was named Keith due to Tex's intervention that I read as being because of Keith's human appearance. I can't decide whether or not he would have Yorak or Keith as a name; I've been calling him Yorak-Keith in my head. I'm attached to the Yorak idea, but I also think it'd be funny for the team to meet a giant purple alien, and his name is Keith.
"But stripedsocksjpeg? Why in the hell does this boy have a buzz cut instead of his glorious, majestic, iconic mullet??" WELL. In this semi-au where Keith is visibly Galra, he's not on Earth, so in my head I've attempted to orchestrate how the story begins without Keith on Earth.
1: Yorak-Keith gets captured at some point. 2: Yorak-Keith meets Shiro in prison and becomes friends. 3: Yorak-Keith escapes to Earth with Shiro, not needing the readings and such that canon Keith had, since he has heard about the Blue lion's general location from his parents?
The buzz cut is from his time in Galra prison and the arena. In this au, since he was raised more militaristically, and definitely not being treated well by fellow inmates or guards due to his status as a Galra as well as a perceived traitor to the Empire (despite never being aligned with them), I think it would either get cut, or he would end up having to bite the bullet and cut it himself.
Either way, not a fun time for mullet boy. But that's all for my Galra Keith design!
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