You know how people like to talk about “connecting the dots” with that one corkboard insanity meme? Well, I got ✨inspired✨
It’s not all that insane actually, just a relationship map since I love making those
Green strings for families, pink for love interests, yellow for friendships (I forgot the yellow one for some)
Some of the names are kinda hard to read, so I’ll write them out with their position under the cut (plus some extra info)
I’m gonna leave out the surname(s) for some of these, because I haven’t actually posted art of them yet (they’ll be in the tags though)
Left to right, top to bottom, in groups of families:
Itoshi Chi (she/they)
Itoshi Nao (she/her)
Narcisa (she/her)
Xiomara (she/they)
Harumei (she/her?)
Nagi Hotaru (she/her)
Yuutai (he/him)
Sumireko (she/her)
(Michael Kaiser and Alexis Ness (they don’t have player icons))
Tianya (he/him)
Nobuyuki (he/him)
Tsuneo (he/him)
Sasaki Etsuko (she/her)
Killian (he/him) (not on the chart)
Not all of them are shipchildren, but most are. Almost all of them are 15 to 18 years old, except for Sumireko (5) and Etsuko (14). Also, I didn’t send all of them into football prison. I’m not a monster (most of the time)
Edit 25.04.2026: I decided it would be useful to add a list of my Haikyuu children too, since I’ve started posting about them
So. More, you say? Well, how can I refuse such an enthusiastic request!
I don’t really have any art to show for this kid, because her hairstyle is an absolute nightmare to get right, but I still want to talk about her.
Meet Itoshi Nao, local girlkisser and hater!
Here’s to the info dumb:
She was born and raised in Spain, Madrid, so her legal name is actually Nao Itoshi Shidou
Born August 24th, age 17
Has three situationships going on. At the same time. Don’t ask (pls do ask)
Sexuality is... A thing. She likes girls. And people with girl parts. She basically just likes cunt
Absolutely zero interested in romance. Keep that shit away from her. This one’s for the aros
She/her, cis girl
Do not bother her with stupid questions about her or her cousin. She’s worse at interviews than Sae could ever dream to be
She currently plays for Re Al Juvenil B de Femininos, and there’s some more stuff going on here that I’ll talk about another time because it’s a bit more complicated
Unlike Criss’ Ryusae kid, Ren, Nao actually gets along with Sae pretty well! Ryusae are as good at the whole parenting as she needs them to be. Just... Don’t bring up the youth team thing
May not seem like it, but she’s actually the shipper among my OCs. Reads yuri and yaoi for living, with the most deadpan expression
She does graffiti art! It’s both a stress and self-expression thing
Whenever I think about her, she rarely talks so I have been considering making her partially non-verbal
As much as I love Nao-chan, I did indeed have to create two whole characters just to make her more interesting
I thought it would be fun to make posts about the designs of my Blue Lock OCs/lovechildren that gave me so much trouble I had to fill multiple pages with them, and we’re starting with the one I began first and completed last... Well, I’m not sure I can even say her design is complete. I still have some gripes with it, it’s just gotten a lot better.
I made a post introducing her before, she’s my Ryusae daughter, Itoshi Nao (she/her). The reason her design gave me so much trouble is because I wanted her to have a haircut like Sae and Shidou’s eyes, but it just. Wasn’t. Working. I was also having some trouble making her body type and style work together.
This is part of my Sketchbook Dump and Design Development (Chi, Tsuneo) series.
Attempt 1
Above are my first attempts at drawing her. The top one felt a lot more like her, but I didn’t actually want her to have that hairstyle. I wanted something more unique. She’s the third BLLK OC I put on paper, so I hadn’t actually thought a lot about her character back then, and it kinda shows. The bottom one doesn’t feel like her, like my notes say “too clean” and “doesn’t look like someone who does graffiti.” I wanted her to look cool. Powerful, badass, and dangerous. This wasn’t it. (I wanna reuse the hairstyles though.)
About the uniform: I couldn’t look up what Real Madrid’s kits look like when I drew this, so I just designed something myself. I actually really like it! The lines make it look boxy and sharp, strong and robust. It fits Nao a lot. I think the little full body drawing is also cute.
Attempt 2
This was my second attempt at designing her. I hadn’t drawn her for the last 22 pages, but that meant I finally had a better idea of what I wanted. I had created a proper Pinterest board, picking out outfits and hairstyles I could imagine for her, and wanted to test out my ideas! ...The result wasn’t what I imagined. Mixing her muscular body type with the style I wanted for her didn’t really work, but I didn’t want to change either aspect, so I just kept at it. I did kinda manage to replicate the hairstyles I included here, but only barely.
Her style is inspired by Anya Nami, though I don't have any of her songs on Nao's playlist. I tried the bob cut because of her.
Attempt 3
Here’s where I locked in on figuring out her hair, and looking back I think my attempts look really good! My favourite is the top right one, to the left of the text. It just didn’t look quite right yet...
Also another attempt at combining her style and body type, and it actually doesn’t look half bad. Success!
Attempt 4
I believe I began this page before I drew the glued-in pieces, but actually finished it after. This was where I was really starting to get somewhere. I’d been wanting to practice muscular anatomy for a while, but only had two OCs with somewhat established designs fit for that... And one of them was Nao. (I also used the other character, Nobuyuki, for a study later.)
I actually have a lot of trouble drawing without a pose reference, so drawing the legs and arm was actually pretty easy with all that reference-user experience under my belt. The leg to the left ended up looking too lean for what I wanted for Nao, so I gave it to Chi instead. Look at their silly face up in the corner!
The rest of this page I didn’t use any references with. Actually, now that I think about it, I didn’t use any references until here at all for Nao!
The main change I made here from my previous designs was to change the shape of her eye. I really hung onto her having Shidou’s eyes, but it just wasn’t working. Sometimes you really need to let go of a design element to make progress. My favourite drawing here (aside from the anatomy stuff) is the one directly between the Nao leg and arm.* The hair turned out really nice, the eyes were finally working, and I got to include a snippet of her outfit. I’m still conflicted over how to draw the long strands at the sides of her face. Do I want to keep them around shoulder length or longer? Pointing inward and stiff looking, or curled and flowy? I really don’t know yet.
*Is it just me or does she have bird vibes here? Am I delusional? Please someone tell me they can see it too.
So these doodles (and the matching one above) I did all during a maths exam (that I failed). That put aside, I think I did really well on that side profile! Technically her nose looks slightly different, but this just looked so nice that I didn’t change it. I experimented with her eyes, drew her from before she chopped off the back of her hair (canon event), and added two Chis (it’s like she’s multiplying). I find “the terror” drawing on the previous page quite amusing too.
Attempt 5
I am unsure if this can even count as an attempt, considering it’s really just a quick doodle of Nao as a kid. I like the energy though. There are doodles of two more OCs as kids, but those will be shown in another post (someday...).
And that’s it! I have a pretty damn terrible visual imagination, so when I imagine a new character they rarely have a solid appearance I can see in my head (if that makes sense). Because of this my first drawing of them usually ends up being their final design too, or close to it. This is a modern sports setting, so I’m not bothering with meaningful design aspects beyond things like hair or maybe clothes, so there’s no need to go beyond vibes and personal preference.
Actually, Nao did indeed cut her hair like that to imitate Sae. Football has been her life since before she can remember, so while she doesn’t actually care about things like legacies or someone else’s approval, she doesn’t mind paying homage to her father. She does love her parents a lot, and she’s very grateful that she gets to learn from such amazing players.
