Aqua's Redesign: The Beginning
For the longest time, I used Aqua's portrait from the Pinterest study as the debut of her modern design, but it wasn't until digging though my files in late 2022 that I remembered her modern design didn't debut there. The month before, I drew two versions of Aqua while figuring out her redesign, and I completely forgot about them. Now's the time for me to treat them with the respect they deserve.
This piece has a lot of "firsts" for Aqua that would be carried over into the final version of her redesign, while others debuted here and haven't appeared since. This was the first time I drew Aqua with both her ears showing, the first time I drew her with earrings and a necklace, the first time I drew her without her star pin, the first time I drew her without her Eclipse emblem, the first time I drew her with a cardigan, the first time I drew her with curly hair, the first time I drew her with a more detailed dress, and the first time I drew her with her current skin tone. That's more firsts than I'm able to count, but they all have their own significance and a few of them have their own stories.
In early 2020, I used the sprites from Danganronpa as reference a lot in my artwork. From small details in clothing to hand gestures to proportions, the sprite library was easily accessible and this was one of the first drawings I where I referenced a sprite for the arms/hand gestures. Legs were incredibly difficult for me at the time, but hands were an even greater obstacle. The hands look off because I struggled getting the gestures right, and I paid more attention to the positioning of the fingers than I did to the space between them. The feet are very small and undefined, as legs were always an issue for me, feet drawn using anatomical position references looked off, and the model sheets for cartoon characters that feature them from the front always had the feet at an angle, so my attempt at drawing them facing the front resulted in them looking stubby. I also used the Danganronpa gallery to study the hairstyles for the female characters in an effort to compress Aqua's hair. I made her hair thinner and curled it at the tips, but those were the only hair-related changes that carried over to the next drawing of her.
Changes that did not carry over were Aqua's ear-revealing hairline, done as an effort to make her look more believable and to improve drawing ears, were replaced by her longer bangs in the final version. I added the necklace to distract from how poorly the neck and torso blended together, with the earrings being added to compliment them. These were removed so I could blend the neck and torso better, but also because they felt excessive in the final version (you'll see why in that picture).
The changes that stuck here had a good reason to stay; Aqua's color palette is much brighter, her cardigan made it easier to draw hand gestures, her dress was more eye-catching with the new details added to it, and her hair was easier to draw with the curled tips. An odd detail I've noticed, especially in my old art, is that when redesigning/retooling characters, they appear blank, soulless, and/or expressionless. I can't explain why this happens, but in my newer artwork, I try to avoid this by making characters more expressive in their concept designs, even if their posture is a bit stiff. Hopefully my effort is noticeable in that regard.