#ret-2-draw

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now, to follow up on the Cadaver redesigns from earlier today - here's Rotty! as you can see, I updated her outfit a bit - a bit more punk influence showing through, there, and as you might be able to tell, she finally has a coat to match her brothers! ...albeit not worn properly, with the sleeves turned inside out and tied around her waist, but still! you might also notice she's a bit more heavyset, which is inspired by how @shantaeandthebluemoon draws her (go commission her, BTW, her art is great) - I went for this since, well, I really like how Rotty's drawn by her for one, and it happened to coincide well with what I had in mind for her design, so...yeah! aaaaaaand I included the forehead stitch also, so that's two out of three of my goals down!

now, to address the third. I said I wanted to make Rottytops match her brothers in being noticeably inhuman. and I'm sure that some of you have noticed that, while I did give her extra eyes, she's still looking fairly human. what's with that? well, to answer that question, let me ask you this...why do you think that stitch on her side is there? :)

yeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaah she has retractable arms now. girl is EXTREMELY spider-coded in this design - I even changed up the skulls on her design to look more like an hourglass!

I imagine she also has this skull design on the back of her jacket - which, considering she tied it around her waist by turning the sleeves inside out, means it's still visible and clear to see...and considering where it's positioned...do you see what I'm getting at. do you see what I did there. honestly, very proud of this design!

also, since I've done all three of them now, a quick height ref for the Cadaver siblings with a Shantae for scale:

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"Pfffhahahahahahahaha! God, that was TERRIBLE, Rotty."

"Well, it made you laugh, didn't it? Come on, you can admit it - you can say I'm the queen of comedy."

or: some casual Shantops for Pride Month! that also happens to double as practice for me doing side-profiles...which I'm sure you can tell is not exactly my strongest suit. that being said I am happy with how I did Shantae's side-profile, or at least her face

what exactly was Rottytops' corny-ass joke? who knows! I'll leave you all to imagine it in your beautiful minds

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so normally I'd wait until morning to post this but I am very proud of this and do not want to wait so - behold, a full drawing of Shantae! with both transparent pant legs and without

now. the outfit. the outfit is actually something I've had on my mind for a while and really the only major design difference here. and I'm very glad with how it turned out! basically, it's an effort to sort of just combine the various design differences Shantae has had over her various games. for example, the pants - in the original Shantae and Advance, she has red pants with a pinkish sash acting as a belt, while in every other game the sash is gone and replaced with these bits of gold which do not seem to serve any functional purpose aside from looking cool - though they seem to be like drawstrings sort of based on a few idle animations? anyway, merged those together into a psuedo-belt with some inspiration taken from Shantae's High Voltage outfit. similarly, merged the jacket from her Pirate's Curse design with the fabric arm cuffs that got phased out along with the sash into a new jacket with inspiration taken from the Relic Hunter outfit. and uh. yeah don't have too much else to say it's just regular Shantae! hope you guys enjoy!

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and finally, the last of the Bug Moms to be redesigned - Buckshot!

...yeah I told you there was a reason Buckshot wouldn't be able to wear her short shorts.

when it came to Buckshot, I kinda KNEW I had to do something dramatically different with her design. firstly, she's the one who gives you the quest to find the Royal Jelly, so it makes sense for her to stand out in some way, and secondly, she is by FAR the worst offender of how the Bugkini squad failing the mission statement of "hot moms who are also weird gross bugs." like. with her actual design I really find it hard to believe she's more than like. 19. so! now she's a centipede centaur!

in terms of her upper half...well, Buckshot is the closest to the "normal" hourglass figure usually seen in Shantae among the Bug Moms. originally I was planning on just using that hourglass figure since I went so far outside it with Slushfund and Jawdrop (and also Buckshot is a centipede centaur so normal is relative here)...but I couldn't help myself. she can have a little bit of belly. as a treat. it fits well with the legwarmers I gave her; gives her a "mom trying to work off the baby pudge" look!

you've probably noticed a few things about her face - for one, her pupils are more circular than usual. this is because I'm kinda imagining her eyes as something along the lines of the Changelings from MLP? so yellow sliding into a white pupil along a gradient. can't exactly show that with just pen and paper though, so...yeah! and, perhaps most notably for some of you, she doesn't have a mouth on her face! where's her mouth? did I forget to draw it? well, no! her mouth is there. you just need to look a bit up :)

in terms of personality, well...the way I'm envisioning this is that Buckshot is still somewhat ditzy and cheerful, that doesn't change at all. but she also drastically plays it up and is in fact significantly more aware and intelligent than she lets on. the idea is like. okay there's a VERY specific tumblr post I have in mind where there's a maid trying to kill a rich heiress's suitor and she keeps getting frustrated that the heiress seems to keep saving the guy by accident, with one notable time being when she calls out that she sees a deer out the window. and then we get the heiress's POV and it turns out she is fully aware of the assassination attempts and is not extremely flattered but keeps foiling them specifically to see her maid's dedication to her in action. but she also did really see a deer that was genuine.

also she has horse reins. didn't have a good place to put that.

anyway, one last thing - here's a quick photoshop I did to show how I imagine the Bugkini Squad scales in comparison to each other! (with a Shantae for reference)

yeah they are BIIIIIIIIIIIIIIG

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aaaaaaaand another Bug Mom redesign, this one being Jawdrop!

Jawdrop's design to me is like. whereas Slushfund's design is the best of the three and Buckshot kinda just feels like Wayforward didn't even read the instructions on the assignment (that being "make bug milfs") Jawdrop is like. there are things there that COULD have made for a cool design. there is potential there. and they used literally none of it. that being said after drawing this and doing my best to utilize said potential myself I am the tiniest bit more understanding about why they didn't use it because good GOD this one took a while there's so much going on here

so, probably the most obvious change - Jawdrop has a mom bod now! if it wasn't obvious with Slushfund yesterday my plan is to give all the Bugkini Squad different body types from the Shantae norm to help them stand out more (both from the general Shantae female cast and each other) and I figured this fit Jawdrop best. also changed up her wardrobe; she now wears that multi-strap jacket that was hanging out of her shorts in her original design on her actual body, and I gave her Buckshot's short shorts! this is partially because Buckshot herself won't exactly be able to wear them in my redesign for her (you'll see why when I draw her later), and partially because, well...normally I don't set out to make intentionally fanservice-y designs, but with the Bug Moms/Bugkini Squad, the juxtaposition between "hot mom" and "weird gross bug" is kinda supposed to be the point? so. I think you can piece together my reasoning for the short shorts from there

the head has also seen plenty of changes! for one, while her hair somewhat obscures it, Jawdrop has the same bug-eye domes on the side of her head that Slushfund and Buckshot do - this is because I'm making it so that, rather than being an accessory, those are just the replacements for the ears. also changed the shape of the glasses, gave her antennae, and, most pressingly, changed her fabric mask into a metallic one, because come the fuck on. why give her a grill pattern on the mask if it's not even metal? what's the point?

last change has to do with what she's holding with her upper left hand - a half-melted steel rod! see, the bug I had in mind for Jawdrop was a bombardier beetle, a bug well-known for its ability to spray any potential predators with a scalding chemical from its rear end. however, rather than repeat myself and give her the actual rear end of a bombardier beetle like I gave Slushfund a bee/wasp stinger, I instead made it so that she can: A.), spray that chemical out of her legs (hence the bulbous growths on her lower legs), and B.), have that chemical replace her saliva. this is why she's wearing that mask, her saliva is caustic. enough to the point where she can eat metal! and if it looks like she's smoking a cigarette when she chomps down on the stuff and breaths out the resulting smoke from her acidic saliva breaking the metal down in seconds...yeah that's very much intentional. channeling the energy of that "can yuo put that out on me" tweet here

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I mean naturally if I'm on a hot streak with drawing Shantae characters I'm going to draw Holly. like that goes without saying

not much to say here because there's not really any changes to the design! well I just noticed that I missed her earrings as I'm typing this but like. yeah her not having the earrings is not intentional I just forgot. anyway also made this to show how she scales with Shantae

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and some more Shantae characters I've drawn, this time being Twitch and Vinegar!

much like Chef Girl, I don't actually have much issue with their canon designs (aside from Twitch's weird skirt, which like. doesn't bother me too much honestly. I just gave her some shorts under there), but UNLIKE Chef Girl, who I feel is fine with or without the slightly chubbier design I gave her, in Twitch and Vinegar's case I felt like having something different from the standard hourglass was not only fitting, but actively beneficial to their characters. like, these two are the only named members of the Ammonian Army to actually do something besides Ammo Baron himself. they SHOULD stand out in some way. hence the differing figures, with Twitch having noticeably wider hips and a slight paunch while Vinegar is more broad-shouldered and has some muscle to her (not to the extent of some other characters - i.e. my redesign for Harmony -but enough to be noticeable)

with all that being said, here are the individual pics for both Twitch and Vinegar, and a bonus pic of them in their civilian clothing!

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so, quick little drawing here -

iiiiiit's the Chef Girl, or, as I prefer to call her, Chef Brulee!

honestly no particular reasoning for this drawing, just wanted to draw the Chef Girl. so...yeah!

also, just for fun - also drew her with slightly chubbier proportions

I honestly don't have an issue with Chef Girl's design like I do with some other Shantae characters so I imagine I'm prooooooobably sticking to the canon design when I draw her in the future, but! I am also a fan of body diversity, and Chef Brulee seems like an ideal candidate for a more heavyset body type (considering, you know. she's a chef. I feel like I don't need to elaborate too much), so...figured I'd test the waters a bit with this one! let me know what you guys think of both renditions of Chef Girl!