UTAU Design Log
Hi! I've been mostly secretive about my UTAU's name, design, etc., but I've already put them up on Art Fight so I can't hide them anymore! I wanted to give some insight into my thought process of naming/designing/creating the character profile of my UTAU.
Name
Their name is Hanabi Shiro, by the way.
Hanabi Shiro is written as 花火シロ in Japanese. Hanabi is the surname, and Shiro is their given name. The word 花火 (hanabi) means firework. It's made up of the kanji 花 (hana), flower and 火 (hi), fire (P.S. hi is pronounced as bi due to rendaku). I chose this surname because I like the word and its meaning. My online name is Fire, so I wanted to include a word that has the kanji for fire in it.
While I didn't initially realize this, flower is my favorite Vocaloid, and hana means flower, so... LOL.
シロ (shiro) is written in katakana. This is similar to how Hatsune Miku, Megurine Luka, Kagamine Rin, Kagamine Len, Kasane Teto, Sukone Tei, Yokune Ruko, etc. are written — a two kanji surname, and a two mora given name in katakana. You may know Hatsune Miku means "first sound of the future." The ne in her name (and Megurine Luka's, etc.) means sound. I chose not to occupy the second kanji slot with ne because I'm a narcissist and I need to insert myself everywhere. Oops.
In Japanese, shi means four and roku means six. I like to think their model number's 46.
If you're familiar with Japanese culture at all, you'll know that 4 is an unlucky number in Japan since it sounds exactly like the word for death, 死. This is why I chose shi; it's a reference to their personality. I chose ro for the goroawase, so their name could be shiro (reasoning explained above).
Shiro (白 in kanji) means white. This is a reference to their mainly monochromatic design. The word shirokuro (白黒) means monochrome!
Maybe you're now wondering, then, if Hanabi Shiro is so good, then where's Hanabi Kuro!?
…I am thinking of making another UTAU named Hanabi Kuro. But that's far off into the future. I only have a vague design and vague personality, but I imagine him (he's a guy) to be perhaps even stranger than Shiro. He's mysterious, and isn't even related to Shiro at all. In fact, Hanabi Kuro is nowhere close to his real name. Maybe next time I get sick, I'll record him.
I call them Hana-chan or Shiro-chan in my head and with my friends.
Design
I've went through a couple of designs.
First, let me outline their design philosophy. I wanted their design to:
be easy (for me) to draw
be relatively monochromatic
kind of look like me!
The second requirement is there so I can sketch their design with a pencil accurately. I love doing pencil doodles when I'm bored. That's why the first iterations of their design were completely monochromatic.
This was drawn on April 30, 2026, my birthday! These are very early sketches, but a lot of the design still stayed — namely the heart ahoge (or as I've written, heart antenna).
I don't remember how I came up with the heart ahoge. I probably just thought it was cute. And it is. My interpretation is that it's an exposed nerve (wire?) ending or an antenna that transmits subliminal messages to people.
This was drawn on May 14, 2026. They're supposed to be wearing a nightgown-esque thing. I'm in my pajamas like 99% of the time, so I wanted them to be in their jammies too. They are also wearing flip-flops because I like wearing flip-flops.
Their original design has a mole on their left cheek, because I have a mole on my left cheek. Unfortunately I'm prone to forgetting to draw stuff like that, so I removed it.
May 22, 2026. This was supposed to be for my website! You can kind of make out their hands holding headphones… cute.
May 31, 2026. I thought of changing their iris shape for a little, but I decided I didn't like how it looked. So that's why it looks weird here. By the way, they're eating paper with a bunch of words on it to absorb the information.
As much as I enjoyed their monochrome design, I thought it'd look odd if they were next to other UTAU or just other characters in general, so I decided to add a little pop of color. I gave them red glasses, red eyes, a red jacket, and red flip-flops.
I'm sure you're familiar with my art, and if you're not… I don't know what to tell you. Anyway, you'll notice I have a very limited color palette — often red, white, and black, which are the same colors Shiro has in their design. (And gray for their shirt.) It's a reference!
Also, red = fire. Right?
I absolutely love megane characters, so I knew Shiro also had to be a megane. Even though they don't wear their glasses properly.
One of the first ideas I had for Shiro was for them to have completely white skin. It's also a reference to how I draw, since I tend to color everything in except the skin color (for characters with lighter skin tones). I do this because there isn't much of a difference between #FFFFFF and whatever the hell Eito Aotsuki's skin tone is. Seriously, he's as white as paper, dude.
When going outside, people probably just think they're really pale or painting their face.
It is also kind of like Homestuck. They do that in Homestuck, yeah.
June 12, 2026. This is a messier version of their reference on Art Fight. I liked this sketch so much I just decided to fix it up a little and use it for their reference. Additionally, their pen is on the wrong side of their ear. I realized it would probably be a pain in the ass to reach over to your left ear with your right hand, so I switched it. I also changed the hair direction.
I don't wear socks and sandals but I thought it would be funny if they did. I often wear socks or sandals but never both.
The current design reference I have on Art Fight! From July 3, 2026. How cute.
If you're wondering what's under their clothes — nothing. No nipples, no genitals, nothing. Asexual Drake vibes.
If drawn more realistically, I imagine they'd look Southeast Asian/Filipino, because I'm (half-)Filipino.
Personality
Their personality is based slightly off of mine, just like their design.
I don't remember a lot about how I developed their personality, because it's just a bunch of ideas I came up with over time smashed together. Initially, I wanted them to be a yandere UTAU who kills people but I didn't want to reheat Sukone Tei's nachos so I went with something different. Well, they can still be a yandere. To me, while it doesn't fit with their current character bio, they are a yandere.
One of the first things I came up with was them writing stuff down on their bandages and eating the bandages. It's funny. I still think it's funny, by the way. Or maybe it's just stupid and cringe, I don't know. If you don't like it, feel free to completely ignore it because that's the beauty of UTAU and Vocaloid.
And before I came up with that, I had the idea that they got fed so much knowledge they went insane. I still like that idea. They went insane and started killing people — that's a holdover from them being a yandere. Canonically their kill count is only one but I like to think it's way more than that.
Despite being very intelligent, they're nerfed from not being very sociable. Like me, except my intelligence is only average, high average if you're being generous. While it's impossible for robots to have neurodevelopmental disorders since they do not have neurons, they have a lot of autistic and ADHD traits. Because I have autism and ADHD. See, I don't know how to write characters without them being Myself Lite. That's why I could never be a fiction author. Nonfiction, maybe.
Factoids
Here are quick facts about them lifted straight from their Art Fight profile:
Birthday: March 14th Height: usually around 5'3 in (160cm). Age: 19 Gender: None Handedness: Ambidextrous, but prefers right hand Likes: learning new things, scented pens, random number tables Dislikes: people
Their birthday was initally May 1st, which is the day after mine. I changed it to March 14th, pi day, because of the number pi. I might change it back though IDK how much I like that one.
They're actually a little bit taller than me; I'm 5'2 or so. Yes, their height does include their ahoge.
I'm 19. So they're 19 too. But they were built around six months ago.
I'm nonbinary so they're nonbinary too.
I'm right-handed so they… oh, well, they're a highly intelligent robot, so I thought it would make sense for them to be ambidextrous. But they prefer their right hand because I am right-handed. I also know that handedness is an unnatural factoid to include for UTAU — it's mostly just birthday, height, weight, age, gender, likes, dislikes. I chose not to define their weight here but added handedness for Fun.
They like scented pens because when they eat scented ink, it almost tastes like the real thing. They like random number tables because they're unpredictable, and they're a fan of strings of information in general due to their totally possible autism. (But I only wanted to list up to 3 things for "likes," so it leaves more room for interpretation of their character.)
Umm that's it
I don't have anything else to say, but if I do I'll just edit this post. Thanks for reading. I hope you enjoyed reading. Thanks. Bye.