#sarasks

[cosmignon]

for the drawing studies ask meme:

🐝 daemons / animal familiars! for ellie and jane and steel and marta? you dont have to do all if thats too much but im curious!!

🏇 emoji+steel? (or any of the others if it works better idk!! but!!!)

Aside from the rat fairy being a canonical lil familiar, the rest of these are just animal associations I’ve made while drawing them :) Ellie gets butterflies bc they’re a symbol of freedom. Steel has always been associated w/fish bc she started much much fishier in design. Marta likes bugs in general but beetles are pretty and cool she wants 2 draw them

And then my most recent used emoji is ❤️, so Steel’s just having a little gay moment thinking abt Marta

[77ngiez-archive]

hi leans in really sweetly. irouma and enosaki

RAHHHH

[cosmignon]

🤟steel!

🤟 - drawing representing the culture, native language, national origin, or other formative influence of the character.

I've been meaning to consolidate a reference sheet for the way I've been drawing Steel, this felt as good of an excuse as any :)!

Steel is Chinese, so her outfit's based on the research I did a while back for approx. Qing dynasty casual/everyday clothing, since that matches up to about the general time period* I base things in RD around. The most elaborate part of the whole thing is her cloak, which is loosely based on yunjian/cloud collars. The difference being I used the yunjian's shape to add some visual interest to her cloak, rather than it being the usual very short collars you'd see added to outfits.

*(The time period's not perfect, bc RD is a fantasy setting w/out a specific year or real world countries. But it's close enough! I like to base any clothes I design off things I find between the 1700s to 1800s.)

This is a good way to introduce this tidbit: Steel has a human form she can slip into when she wants to fit in among other humans. She also has a full name, Zhou Ningjing! That's actually the name she was born with.

Steel is a second name she comes by later in life. It's also the one she uses around most folks she's actually close to, since they're the ones who know she's draconic in nature.

[cosmignon]

Helmut for the ask game!

Yaaay Helmut ❤️

“send an ask with the name of a character i have drawn before and i'll tell you the reasoning behind a little quirk/detail in the way that i draw them”

Something pretty distinct about how I draw Helmut in “My Style” is that I really fuck with the bridge of his nose 👃in the game it curves a bit to the side but it’s smooth, while mine’s got this bump in the middle.

I think I was inspired by several artists in the fandom who draw/drew Helmut’s nose like that, but aquatodome’s artwork comes to mind specifically, like these sketches! Not the same shape, I’m not even sure what terminology to use, but I think it shows the same loving attention to drawing characters with interesting big noses.

I also try to keep the asymmetry for his eyes but that could be said for how I draw any of the psychonauts characters who have that :^)

[cosmignon]

I’ve seen them in passing, but haven’t gotten the full gist yet so I’m curious! What’s up with the stardust scouts?? What’s the main character lineup, do they have a storyline, etc??

The main characters of the Stardust Scouts are Savannah, Tabitha, Wendy, and Penny! Savannah is the "main" pov character but its an ensemble of the 4 of them!

The basic premise is that Savannah's started her first year of university after working hard her whole life to get good grades and get into a good university that lets her study astronomy. She knows she's never gonna be an astronaut but she wants to work at NASA or at least an equivalent kind of aerospace facility.

Her first year of university gets interruped by the itty bitty teensy weensy fact that her university gets attacked by an alien one day, and she one of her classmates (Wendy!) fighting it! When Savannah runs over to help she suddenly gets Magical Girl Chosen and together the two defeat the monster.

Onward from there the story would be about fighting aliens while Savannah reckons with the fact she's now got to worklife balance the university coursework she cares so much about with being a literal guardian of peace and justice. She didn't decide on this!! But she's too headstrong to give up on either and she's GOING to burn herself out eventually.

Savannah and Wendy eventually pick up Penny (fellow classmate, Wendy's partner) as a third magical scout and finally Tabitha (high school drop out, works odd jobs/gigs around town) rounds the group out so they look roughly like this 👇

I'd really like to get out more of the story by just like, yknow, drawing it, but i hope writing the basic premise helps you get to know em, or think of what else you'd like to know!!

[cosmignon]

saraaaaaa I love your magical girl ocs so much they’re such a fun group of characters …. I was curious!! I know a lot of magical girl media usually takes place in middle/high school but I’m getting the vibes this group of characters is a bit older than that?? What’s their environment like in their current story!!

you have vibe checked correctly! They're in their early 20s and more than half of them are attending university

Savannah & Penny are freshmen at the as of rn unnamed university (it needs a name... someday....) in southern california that's stem/science based, and Wendy is a sophmore at the same place

Meanwhile Tabitha dropped out of high school and therefore is more like working odd jobs around the university space. i always imagine an auto mechanic shop and a coffee place as his 2 part time jobs

And Olivia hasn't been in human school for years bc ze got alien abducted, but is currently enrolled at the university first to spy on the stardust scouts and later just to stay in touch with them.

They were originally envisioned as high-schoolers, but once I myself went to university I wanted to age them up so that they could reflect my experiences w/that. These days I'm still pretty happy w/them being that age bc I think magical girls who are out of high school is an underutilized concept :) the only magical girls i can think of who are adults are outliers like how sometimes they'll magical girl transform into more mature ladies as a disguise or be used as a symbol of like, outgrowing their purpose in life (iirc there's like, maybe a witch in pmmm who was based on that? its been 100 years)

[cosmignon]

For Savannah 👜 :0

Personal items carried by or associated with your OC, in an arrangement, labelled.

Guys I think Savvy’s into space but idk is it too subtle

Anyways since Savannah’s going to college a lot of her carried items are related, in fact this isn’t even showing all her text books, so just imagine a big stack of physics/astronomy books off to the side

Misc facts include that she uses the front of her binder’s plastic sleeve to save all her schedule/time sensitive papers, and her water bottle is just one I own in real life.

[cosmignon]

ohhh #10 for Jane and / or Ellie :—]?

10) How does your OC handle their mental health? Do they take care of themselves?

They're both just lil babies (11 and 12 years old respectively) so they don't have great coping skills. I think they've both developed little habits that in a modern sense would be seen as them doing their best 2 manage their mental health but they have a lot to learn abt their own preferences & limits

Jane has a lot of little things they do to deal w/sensory no-nos. They don't wear shoes bc they Hate how wearing shoes feels, and they've never cut their hair bc they don't want to deal w/the drastic change that'd bring. They also stim! They're not consciously choosing to do so but it's smth I try to bring into their actions sometimes, like here they're flapping their hands to get all the Bad Feelings out

Ellie meanwhile has a lot of internalized (and externalized tbh) fears abt acting out and being a Problem, so a lot of what she does to deal w/her anxiety and anger is to try to apologize and make herself small. A little soothing thing she tends to do is curl in on herself, and I think if she could she'd bury herself under blankets (she'd kill for a weighted blanket i think)

They're also both trying to take care of each other the best they can, Ellie with making sure Jane doesn't fall off a cliff and eat shit, Jane by trying their best to get em food and even cooking it even tho they don't really have all the tools needed, just a pan they stole and a dream (food as an expression of caring being smth they got from their dad).

related to this question -- Jane (& Griffin) are both canonically autistic, as in i write them with that in mind. but I don't think the terminology as it exists today would make sense to be brought up in-comic. They just know they're othered & that their father was also othered for being a Weird Eccentric (he was also autistic).

Ellie meanwhile isn't like, written to be any particular Named mental health issue but I write her with a lot of anxiety and a bit of a hidden anger (pulling from my own childhood) that I think in the modern day would at least need to be talked about with a doctor. and like if she ever read as anything in particular to an outsider I would be happy that resonated w/them :^)