Basically, what I want to do is a DRAWING version of this:
These were made in QAVimator, which is my quick and easy go-to 3D-posing program to get appropriate anatomy/proportions for a given pose, particularly one which is from an unusual art angle (or even a usual one, if it's one I don't do--directly facing forward is a really awkward angle to draw, so usually I don't).
And then obviously screencapped into MSPaint, where I did the edits shown. This is the female cast of The Descended, and half of the female cast of Red Hood Rider. (Absent: Hannah, Ana, Vili, Amy, and Ruby's Love Interest which embarrassingly enough I can't remember the name of. Technically also one of Ruby's rogues.)
Apparently, the average height of women in the US is 5'4", so even characters that are meant to be short (e.g. Sasha) aren't actually that short. (To be fair, Sasha is an adventurer, and canonically, as part of the world of Soano, adventurers are taller than the average person of their race. So while Sasha comes from a race which is short, she is taller than most of her race because of it. A similar "because, magic" explanation might work for why the elemental riders are fairly tall, too, though this is something I haven't established as canon to my knowledge.)
But anyway.
What I'd want to do, is basically to make a drawing of this (maybe with ruler height lines), but to vary the poses to the characters in question (particularly tricky for Aria, given that she's almost always flying, and half the time is ghosting out so she's not only levitating but actually has a tilt to her body). To instead of being the exact same pose, for each and every one of them to have body language appropriate to their character.
And instead of each of them having the exact same generic face of the program, for them to have character models from which they are detailed. (Aria, for instance, due to being a ghost, has a disproportionately large head and small legs/arms, with big eyes. Sinaer, Tyra, and Sally are all notably/particularly muscular, so should have muscle definition the other characters lack.)
Plus, I need to practice their outfits for the most part. Aria's outfit I've changed multiple times, though I've settled on a look that I want to keep canonical. (Technically, there's an earlyish spot in the plot where her switching to that look would be best, but I just honestly don't want to draw her the other way even if she'd be carrying the look I want for the vast majority of the story; it'd still be like 80-120ish pages of drawing her the "wrong" way.)
Sasha's outfit was incredibly ornate when I made her, and I loved it...until I realized I had to draw it each and every single time I'd have her appear. As a result, it is an outfit in need of some simplification, and also a check on whether it fits pragmatically and is in character for her to have given her background.
Tyra and Sinaer wear similar outfits, but they are in need of some redesigns and touch-ups to make them feel more appropriate for the characters' backgrounds.
Ruby's outfit I more or less have down, but I discovered a bad habit of mine in having drawn her. Her hoodie is designed with a zipper running down the middle, so she can theoretically unzip her hoodie--except as of late, I've drawn part of her hoodie above the zipper as being connected, which would make a complete part of the hoodie impossible. Even in my latest drawing of her, you can see this bad habit of mine and that was when the "...whoooops" realization sunk in.
Sally's outfit I never quite locked down to the degree I wanted it to be locked down. I know the general aesthetic of it (more or less a sailor fuku outfit; Sally is after all short for, if I recall correctly, White Sailor although I may be misremembering and would have to track down my notes for her full superhero name), but I don't have it locked down to the same degree as Ruby's.
D.D.'s outfit is...incredibly...complicated. Her aesthetic is meant to be equal parts princess (which is part of her full superhero name, after all), and in spite of that, being incredibly pragmatic for hard, strong, powerful, melee punches and the like. A look that on first perception looks like a frilly magical girl that's a mage, but which is deceptive, hiding the destructive power of the combatant.
(I was revisiting a Red Hood Rider storyline on this subject recently, actually, believe it or not. The short version of it is, more or less: Ruby uses the more physical rider aspect of her powers rather than her elemental half because she doesn't like relying on her vampiric nature; Sally has a bunch of reasons for using the more physical rider aspect of her powers rather than the elemental half, among them being that her combat style focuses on mobility whereas most earth-based powers are grounded, focus on zone of control, and keep the user stationary while also rooting the opponent down, the antithesis of her style.
But for D.D., her preference to use more physical rider aspects of her powers are out of necessity. Riders can maim, within reason, but can't kill; fire is the only element of the eight that is self-sustaining and can grow out of control; most opponents can't survive being bathed in flames and the few who can are usually completely immune to fire and thus amping fire up doesn't help her win a fight against them.)
Whitney's outfit is one I actually have crystal clarity on what it looks like. It's mostly a power rangers outfit, except while the helmet is still there, the entire face is mostly exposed; her mouth's covered by a Kakashi-styled...would it be called a bandanna?...and she has a visor over her eyes that is slightly opaque, and the helmet covers her forehead (although faintly showing a bandanna), but allows her hair out the back. (Keep in mind that Whitney's superhero name is Sky Shinobi. The aesthetic is intentional.)
It's something I know will look amazing if I can draw it, but I know that it's a look I'll probably end up butchering without having first extensively practiced.
Case in point...the last time I tried.
I actually have that image. It's this one:
And then obviously screencapped into MSPaint, where I did the edits shown. This is the female cast of The Descended, and half of the female cast of Red Hood Rider. (Absent: Hannah, Ana, Vili, Amy, and Ruby's Love Interest which embarrassingly enough I can't remember the name of. Technically also one of Ruby's rogues.)
Apparently, the average height of women in the US is 5'4", so even characters that are meant to be short (e.g. Sasha) aren't actually that short. (To be fair, Sasha is an adventurer, and canonically, as part of the world of Soano, adventurers are taller than the average person of their race. So while Sasha comes from a race which is short, she is taller than most of her race because of it. A similar "because, magic" explanation might work for why the elemental riders are fairly tall, too, though this is something I haven't established as canon to my knowledge.)
But anyway.
What I'd want to do, is basically to make a drawing of this (maybe with ruler height lines), but to vary the poses to the characters in question (particularly tricky for Aria, given that she's almost always flying, and half the time is ghosting out so she's not only levitating but actually has a tilt to her body). To instead of being the exact same pose, for each and every one of them to have body language appropriate to their character.
And instead of each of them having the exact same generic face of the program, for them to have character models from which they are detailed. (Aria, for instance, due to being a ghost, has a disproportionately large head and small legs/arms, with big eyes. Sinaer, Tyra, and Sally are all notably/particularly muscular, so should have muscle definition the other characters lack.)
Plus, I need to practice their outfits for the most part. Aria's outfit I've changed multiple times, though I've settled on a look that I want to keep canonical. (Technically, there's an earlyish spot in the plot where her switching to that look would be best, but I just honestly don't want to draw her the other way even if she'd be carrying the look I want for the vast majority of the story; it'd still be like 80-120ish pages of drawing her the "wrong" way.)
Sasha's outfit was incredibly ornate when I made her, and I loved it...until I realized I had to draw it each and every single time I'd have her appear. As a result, it is an outfit in need of some simplification, and also a check on whether it fits pragmatically and is in character for her to have given her background.
Tyra and Sinaer wear similar outfits, but they are in need of some redesigns and touch-ups to make them feel more appropriate for the characters' backgrounds.
Ruby's outfit I more or less have down, but I discovered a bad habit of mine in having drawn her. Her hoodie is designed with a zipper running down the middle, so she can theoretically unzip her hoodie--except as of late, I've drawn part of her hoodie above the zipper as being connected, which would make a complete part of the hoodie impossible. Even in my latest drawing of her, you can see this bad habit of mine and that was when the "...whoooops" realization sunk in.
Sally's outfit I never quite locked down to the degree I wanted it to be locked down. I know the general aesthetic of it (more or less a sailor fuku outfit; Sally is after all short for, if I recall correctly, White Sailor although I may be misremembering and would have to track down my notes for her full superhero name), but I don't have it locked down to the same degree as Ruby's.
D.D.'s outfit is...incredibly...complicated. Her aesthetic is meant to be equal parts princess (which is part of her full superhero name, after all), and in spite of that, being incredibly pragmatic for hard, strong, powerful, melee punches and the like. A look that on first perception looks like a frilly magical girl that's a mage, but which is deceptive, hiding the destructive power of the combatant.
(I was revisiting a Red Hood Rider storyline on this subject recently, actually, believe it or not. The short version of it is, more or less: Ruby uses the more physical rider aspect of her powers rather than her elemental half because she doesn't like relying on her vampiric nature; Sally has a bunch of reasons for using the more physical rider aspect of her powers rather than the elemental half, among them being that her combat style focuses on mobility whereas most earth-based powers are grounded, focus on zone of control, and keep the user stationary while also rooting the opponent down, the antithesis of her style.
But for D.D., her preference to use more physical rider aspects of her powers are out of necessity. Riders can maim, within reason, but can't kill; fire is the only element of the eight that is self-sustaining and can grow out of control; most opponents can't survive being bathed in flames and the few who can are usually completely immune to fire and thus amping fire up doesn't help her win a fight against them.)
Whitney's outfit is one I actually have crystal clarity on what it looks like. It's mostly a power rangers outfit, except while the helmet is still there, the entire face is mostly exposed; her mouth's covered by a Kakashi-styled...would it be called a bandanna?...and she has a visor over her eyes that is slightly opaque, and the helmet covers her forehead (although faintly showing a bandanna), but allows her hair out the back. (Keep in mind that Whitney's superhero name is Sky Shinobi. The aesthetic is intentional.)
It's something I know will look amazing if I can draw it, but I know that it's a look I'll probably end up butchering without having first extensively practiced.
Case in point...the last time I tried.
I actually have that image. It's this one:
I didn't call it "badly done" for nuthin'. Everything here is abysmally done except for Ruby which is still not as great as she should be done. It was also stealing from a K-ON image I created. You know, this one:
And, no, this is not a very accurate depiction of any of the characters. Not a one is even remotely close to how I see them in my head. I stole from an image I made using a program, and still didn't get it looking the way that I wanted to get it looking in spite of the plagiarism. I'm that bad at drawing my own characters.
Gives at least a reasonably accurate color scheme for them (Ana's fairly pale, has the mily eyes, black hair, wears fairly plain clothes; Hannah's transformed form has really long blonde hair and the green is her color; Sally is canonically ambiguously brown, has brown eyes and black hair, and her outfit is pretty standard sailor fuku fair, Ruby you know the look of by now, Whitney's not a monochromatic single shade of blue and has numerous shades from dark blue to cyan and her hair while blonde is not as radiantly blonde as Hannah's, D.D.'s slightly tanned and her outfit is primarily pink though her hair's not right, Vili's outfit involves purple clothing, and Amy's pale with black hair and red eyes as is a common vampire aesthetic).
But is so...off, in so many ways, that it gives all the wrong impressions about how they look. It's arguably not even "better than nothing", because nothing allows for you to get the look more accurate than this would, aside from the aforementioned colors being fairly good references.
Still.
I am going somewhere with this. If you combine the accurate height reference of the QAVimator. With the personalized looks of unique body language and accurate, consistently handled, bodies. And add in their preferred clothing. You get what I am aiming for.
This is the sort of creative art project that I want to undertake, it's just managing to do it.
Difficult, even when given I have located a backup of my Red Hood Rider notes. (Not the most up-to-date version of said notes, mind you, but a version I can readily and easily access.)
Gives at least a reasonably accurate color scheme for them (Ana's fairly pale, has the mily eyes, black hair, wears fairly plain clothes; Hannah's transformed form has really long blonde hair and the green is her color; Sally is canonically ambiguously brown, has brown eyes and black hair, and her outfit is pretty standard sailor fuku fair, Ruby you know the look of by now, Whitney's not a monochromatic single shade of blue and has numerous shades from dark blue to cyan and her hair while blonde is not as radiantly blonde as Hannah's, D.D.'s slightly tanned and her outfit is primarily pink though her hair's not right, Vili's outfit involves purple clothing, and Amy's pale with black hair and red eyes as is a common vampire aesthetic).
But is so...off, in so many ways, that it gives all the wrong impressions about how they look. It's arguably not even "better than nothing", because nothing allows for you to get the look more accurate than this would, aside from the aforementioned colors being fairly good references.
Still.
I am going somewhere with this. If you combine the accurate height reference of the QAVimator. With the personalized looks of unique body language and accurate, consistently handled, bodies. And add in their preferred clothing. You get what I am aiming for.
This is the sort of creative art project that I want to undertake, it's just managing to do it.
Difficult, even when given I have located a backup of my Red Hood Rider notes. (Not the most up-to-date version of said notes, mind you, but a version I can readily and easily access.)
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