Hey guys! I almost had this post halfway typed last night, when my computer decided to lose internet connection. WHICH WAS WEIRD, because I didn't even switch pages or click on anything, so.... .____. But whatever, I'll try to retype everything.
While I was doodling yesterday, I wanted to compare some of the head shapes of my characters. My characters' faces still all look vaguely similar, but I think I'm starting to get somewhere. xD Most of them still don't have definitive head shapes (like Jo, Tim, Rick, TB...), but here's a couple that I'm working on.
This might not be interesting for you, but this is mostly for me so I have somewhere to put these notes without having to just remember them all the time. xD
Noland: As I sort of mentioned in the previous post, Noland was the first character I successfully (?) made an effort to give a different face shape. I had been sort of experimenting with Stefan and Gabe's heads for a little bit, but I hadn't been getting anywhere. :V
What makes Noland ~*~SPECIAL~*~ is that unlike most of my other characters, he doesn't have an upturned nose, and his head isn't triangular shaped. THIS WAS GROUNDBREAKING FOR ME! If you look at my fan art previous to this picture, everyone has really pointy chins. And I still tend to draw pointy chins, but I like to think that I'm getting better. ;u; ANYWAY, unlike a lot of my other characters, Noland's head is rectangular shaped at the root of things. Another notable thing is that he doesn't have a definite cheekbone. His jawline is also supposed to be more square or something, but........... hm.
I sometimes mess up, and his head ends up looking more like Gabe's. :V;;; I'm trying to be more consistent. xD;
Gabe: Gabe's head tends to be my default guy-in-his-20's head. ...which is kind of weird, because I get a little inconsistent with drawing his head. xD; Gabe's face is kind of like a combination of Stefan's pointy face and Noland's unpointy face. (??? IDK, THAT'S JUST HOW I THINK OF IT.) His nose is the most like how I used to draw noses on everyone, which is somewhat-up-turned-and-somewhat-pointy. (??? DON'T QUESTION ME.) Yeah, Gabe's just like the middle ground for some reason.
I remember writing early on that he would have high cheekbones, and HUZZAH. HE FINALLY DOES! I think. :T I mean, I think they look like high cheekbones... >3>
Dean: I included Dean here because I wanted to look at his face compared to Dare. :V My little sister always gets them confused whenever looking at my drawings. xD I-I THINK THEY LOOK QUITE DIFFERENT, ACTUALLY...
Dean's head and face are really similar to Stefan's. The main differences are that Dean's cheeks slope down more smoothly, and his chin comes to a definite point. (Stefan's chin kind of squares off at the end, a bit.) Another difference is that while Stefan and Dean both have long and pointy noses, Stefan's is more upturned while Dean's points down to some degree. I think Dean's nose is supposed to be smaller, too, and his cupids bow goes straight down instead of outward like Stefan. :m (NO ONE WILL NOTICE THESE THINGS GUH.)
I wrote that Dean's mouth is supposed to be farther from his nose than other characters, but idk if that'll stay true. TOO MUCH TO THINK ABOUT!
Dare: While I said that Noland was the first character I gave a different face shape, Dare was actually the first character I started thinking about faces with. But since I mostly drew his head like I drew my other characters' heads, nothing really changed. xD These days, I'm trying harder to make what I had attempted in the past actually work.
I always try to emphasize a sort of youthfulness with Dare, so his face is very baby-like with round cheeks. His facial features are all close together, and larger than how I draw facial features on other characters. Idk, the smooshed-ness of his face kind of makes it look like he's grinning all the time, which is the point I guess. (/weird vague sentence) I also draw him with the most round and upturned nose out of most of my characters. Alcott might have a more upturned nose than Dare, but I haven't drawn him in so long that I really don't know. xD
While most of his features are rounded, Dare's chin comes to a point. Because of this, I always imagine I'm drawing his head as a heart! 8D Haha.
And uh... YEAH, THERE'S THAT! 8D
By the way, did you ever wonder what Dare looked like before he got into emo fashion? WELL, WONDER NO LONGER!
THAT'S RIGHT, HE HAD SHORT HAIR. That's Dare in 8th grade (14 years old) on the left, and Dare in 9th-ish grade (15-ish years old) on the right. I've been trying to rethink some things about Dare's story for a couple days; specifically, I've been trying to figure out his reasons for the change in clothing. Originally, it was like this:
- He wants to defy "cliques"
- He wants to see how people react, as a sort of social experiment
- He likes these clothes
I really want to nix the first option, because I think cliques are SUPER exaggerated in fiction. Similar people tend to hang out together in high school, but that's just it: people tend to make friends with people who have similar interests, and don't mingle much because of differences in interests. I don't think there's as much ostracizing in high school as I was trying to portray, and I don't think "popular kids" really view themselves as popular. They may see themselves as having better interests than other people, but really I think a lot of people do that.
These days, I'm thinking Dare's reasons are more like this:
- He's very curious about how he looks in other people's eyes, and wants to explore that topic.
- He wants to know what clothes mean to guys.
- He likes these clothes.
Dare is someone who's really interested in his image and how he looks to other people. Questions that usually come to mind when he's around people are, "I wonder what someone will say/think if I say this?" and "I wonder what someone will say/think if I do this action?" It's important to note that Dare's not panicked by these questions; he's just curious about them, and wants to consider what will happen. (This is unlike Noland, who stresses about how other people view him.) Dare's also interested in adolescent-versus-adult perspective, and tries to be aware of what he says and does such that he's reasonably respectful to both adults and his peers. (This mostly applies to adults, though.) Oh, and he's also trying to figure out if clothing has an impact on how respectful you are seen to be, and how respected you are.
BUT OF COURSE, he never really says these things out loud or is even fully aware that this is what he's doing. (It's his natural thought process, so he doesn't think twice about it.) Basically, he's just a naturally self-aware person. In an old picture I drew of him, I included a quote that said "I act how I want to... I do put your perception into consideration, though." This is along the same vein, where Dare is aware of how people view him and wants to present himself positively, but still feels enough freedom to act how he wants to.
The second bullet point isn't really as important, and I haven't really thought about it much. It's just this thing that came to mind when he was talking to his aunt about what clothes mean to girls (who tend to dress to look nice), which got him thinking about what clothes mean to guys (who tend to dress for comfort).
I'm also thinking that Dare meets some sort of instigator, who gets him interested in emo fashion in particular. Haven't really thought that through, yet. I want to go in the direction that Dare's way of dressing doesn't have really anything to do with "rebellion," be it rebelling against cliques (which was my initial goal) or rebelling against adult ideals (which is what teenagers may actually tend to do when getting piercings and dying their hair).
BUT YEAH, THAT'S SOME STUFF ABOUT DARE THAT I'VE BEEN THINKING ABOUT!
Since that above picture of Dare is so dramatic, let me show you a lovely drawing to remind you of Dare's actual personality.
Keepin' it fly, Dare. I think Dare would make a fantastic rapper. ZACK, MICHKA, LOYAL! GIVE DARE A RAP PART IN ONE OF SOMETHING IMPOSSIBLE'S SONGS! 8D but not really
That's all the stuff about Dare for today. :V ...This post is getting really long. But I have a couple more doodles, so TOO BAD.
For some reason, I really felt the need to make a colored picture of Gaelnis from my fantasy story, My Dear Princess. I don't work on this story because there are just TOO MANY CHARACTERS TO THINK ABOUT and I'll just lose track. ""orz Once I get to a point with OFAV and A Life Like This, I might give it some more consideration. The story's actually got some cool aspects to it. not that you know, because I NEVER POST ANYTHING ABOUT IT
Anyway, I thought it might be cool if Gaelnis was darker skinned. Idk what ethnicity this is supposed to be. :U I ROCK! I'm pretty please with his color scheme, though. For some reason, I tend to favor dull color schemes over highly saturated color schemes.
Okay, last one!
This isn't any character of mine, but he ended up looking like Gabe's old friend William. xD NOT MY INTENTION...
Anyway, last night I was streaming on dA some outfit designs for a friend's trap character. :V (You may already know this, but a "trap" is a guy character who looks good as a girl in girl clothes. I didn't know this for a while, so I thought I'd mention.) These kind of characters tend to look like girls minus the chest, so I ended up saying something along the line of, "I'd like to see a masculine guy pull off a dress." As a result, I thought I'd give a shot at drawing it! I think he looks pretty decent, but idk. what do you think? :V My main intention was to make him look natural.
Cross dressing characters aren't usually my thing, but that's mostly because I get confused on what's actually considered cross dressing. xD; Even with Tomato, who by most standards would probably be considered a trap character, I don't really consider him to be cross dressing. I think it's because he's not really trying to say "I'm a boy in girls clothes," but "I'm wearing fashionable clothes."
Also, something I haven't really mentioned before that's more or less always been true: Tomato also has a very "I'm whatever you say I am" view on gender; so while most people call him male and he tends to identify as male, he also identifies as female when someone calls him female. I personally will only refer to him as male, as it's what he tends to lean more toward. I also won't be referring to this stuff very much in the comics, because gender identity isn't a topic I'm particularly interested it. On a side note, Tomato's gender identity is partially influenced on being an XXY person (? I think that's the correct term), as he has the chromosomes to be a boy (xy) and a girl (xx).
Even though I say cross dressing isn't really my thing, I've always been more or less interested in finding out what it'd look like for a guy to wear a dress and not be cross dressing. Guys can't really pull off dresses cut for girls because they're for a different body type, so I think the first place to start would be with tank top-like dresses, loose fitting dresses, and straight cut dresses. I have a feeling guys in dresses will be a pretty normal fashion subset in some decades. :V (Similar to how girls in suits and pants isn't considered cross dressing, while it would've been cross dressing in the 50's.) But that's just my prediction, I don't really know. xD
Anyway, there's all that. I hope I wasn't controversial in any way, as gender identity and cross dressing can be a sensitive topic for some people. Just thought I'd share some thoughts on the topic.
So yeah!! Thanks for reading this super long post, if you did, and I hope I didn't bore you too much. xD THANKS FOR ALWAYS PUTTING UP WITH MY LONG TALKING!
