Inkscape Shadow
All of my SPACE characters had it rough during the Inkscape area, but Shadow faced the worst of it. I had an idea of what direction I wanted to take her character in while simultaneously having no clue what to do with her. Every time I drew Shadow ended in a catch-22: Improving her design in certain areas hindered it in other areas, resulting in the finished piece being just barely than the piece that preceeded it. This is one of the last pieces I drew on Inkscape, but believe it or not, this is actually the second time I've drawn Shadow on that platform: the first time was in October of 2018, but I'm not posting that drawing here because while I can look back at the others and find details I still like about them, there is NOTHING I like about her first drawing. At least in this piece, I can talk about why her design evolved so much over the years.
By 2019, Shadow was a selfish, aloof cynic, a grease monkey, and the group's resident scrapper. I've reworked her personality by making her more sympathetic, but in 2019, I saw ripped clothing to be a greater sign of struggle, poverty, and scrappiness rather than physical scars. I struggled with expressions, so I thought covering one of her eyes with her hair made her edgier. That part of Shadow's old design has remained consistent in her modern iteration, alongside her eyelash placement, but neither were enough to justify my lack of expression for everyone's designs.
It's phenominal that Shadow went from my least favorite character to draw to one of my favorites in less than a year; I hated how she looked here and finished her glow up on February 3rd. I disliked how her hair looked in 2019, so I made it longer, wilder, and more unkempt, reaching the knees when it barely passed her waist before. I disliked how large her tears were in her tank top, with one revealing a strapless bra underneath, so I replaced it with a cold-shoulder top, made the tears in her shirt smaller while adding more of them, removed the patches stitched into her pants and replaced them with more realistic jean tears, and gave her more fashionable shoes. I also made her face more expressive and spent most of 2020 and 2021 touching up Shadow's modern iteration whenever I drew her.
Shadow looked the part of a grease monkey more in 2019, which no longer suited her image in 2020. She went from a scrappy, rag-wearing misfit to an Amazonian beauty that makes unkempt fashionable. It's easier for me to count the minor changes compared to the major ones: I omitted white from her color palette entirely except for her eyes and made them more cat-like, but the only area that hasn't changed significantly is her color palette. Shadow's clothes have a different palette, but it's justified by her new wardrobe. Her hair is a lighter shade of purple in the present rather than a light gray in 2019, her skin tone is similar, albeit brighter, and so are her eyes. To be honest, if she wasn't redesigned in early 2020, I don't know if I'd still be drawing Shadow today.
Vector art works well under the right circumstances, graphic design especially, but I have mixed feelings about using it in character design. Vector art limited how expressive and detailed Shadow could be, but when I used my Wacom tablet for Clip Studio Paint where vector art is present, albeit limited, it allowed Shadow to grow and become the character she is today. If I didn't switch programs, I don't know if Shadow would have survived past 2019: switching to Clip Studio Paint saved her life, and for that, I am grateful. That's what I've come away with after reflecting on this piece, so don't be afraid to chart new ground as an artist and try new things. It may give you results better than you could've ever imagined.