Danganronpa Study: Electra
For about two years, I grouped Electra's Danganronpa study with Shadow's, only for me to discover some history behind it: Electra's study predated Shadow's by almost two weeks, with the reason being that Electra's pose study was done in conjunction with creating the redesign his modern incarnation was established on. Shadow's study was done primarily because I struggled to find a good pose for her on Pinterest. For Electra's redesign, I wanted to reflect his scientific side through his outfit and his trickster side through his expressions, which I accomplished through a Danganronpa sprite reference. Several characters are unpredictable or erratic, but most characters have a trait or two that balances out that their personality. One character in the second game embodied both of those traits, but none of his sprites fit Electra's character. It wasn't until I looked up Kokichi Oma/Ouma's** sprites from Danganronpa V3: Killing Harmony that I had options I was comfortable with. Fittingly, Kokichi is a compulsive liar who is terrifyingly smart and unpredictable, so his sprites were the perfect foundations for Electra's redesign.
I discussed most of the changes for Electra's redesign when reflecting on his Inkscape design from 2019, but Kokichi's sprite was the perfect template for his modern personality, but I'll elaborate on some of them here. Electra's hairstyle was simplified so it was easier to draw, keeping its spikiness with the only tradeoff being how difficult it would be to draw from the back. It was a fair tradeoff, which I justified by having his hair conduct and store electricity. His hair is short and spiky when electricity is running through it, only for it to go past his shoulders when there's no electricity running through it and his hair is down. His eyes were designed prior to this piece, but I modeled their expression after Kokichi's here and made them more distinct with each consecutive piece. His outfit borrows elements from three Danganronpa characters, which are noted in his official redesign, but they are subtle, mesh well with his outfit, and are only noticeable unless fans of the series have a keen eye.
In the 2021 version of his outfit, I removed his belts because I had trouble with their physics and because they were covered by tattered labcoat, which billowed out and had more flow to it than his belts ever could. Aside from a few changes, his redesign barely changed since it was released, and this was its unofficial debut.
I want to wrap this up by plugging the sprite I used for this study, which can be found here. Massive thanks to The Danganronpa Wiki for archiving the sprite I used and to Spike Chunsoft for publishing the game this sprite came from.
