The Thistle Process

Okay, it's been two weeks or thereabouts, which should be more than enough time for everyone to be caught up who isn't! Starting on Friday I'm going to start the slow process of moving all my backlogged artwork into the public sector, but as with everything else, I want to show it to you guys first. 

Thistle's design has been a long process, which everyone in the $10 Tier is already pretty familiar with, as they've been patient receptors to a lot of different versions of her that I've experimented with and tried out on them. I'm compiling the highlights of that process into one post, so you can see every step.

VERSION 1.0

On the left, Thistle, as she was originally drawn in the sketch comics that inspired the entire story. On the right, her colors at the time. Dang, what a babe.

Okay, yeah, y'all caught me: I was a huge Drizzt fan as a teenager. She's obviously a Drow.

VERSION 2.0

Obviously, at some point I was desperate to get away from the connotations to DnD, and Thistle's hair color and skin tone drastically change to ones not so easily tied to the Forgotten Realms series and their incredibly angsty characters. The words "Dark Elves" disappear from the comic and are replaced by "Cave Elves."

At this point, I try to push away from the chronic SameFace I was suffering from at the time, and try messing with the exaggeration of certain features to get away from the Caucasian ones that made all my characters look the same. Her face shape completely changes, and, following some feedback from my very talented husband on what makes an appealing character design, her general anatomical and facial proportions change, too.

VERSION 2.1

Yikes.

let's...

not talk about this one

However, this is the first time the long back-hairline concept appeared, something I really liked that helped set her apart from your normal non-human fantasy races, and that stuck around.

VERSION 3.0

Thistle's features slowly begin to smooth out as I try to iron out all the angular features I was prone to draw, to make her more cute and appealing.

Here's one of the drawings that made me fall in love with the idea of Pointy Toothed and clawed Thistle. Also in this picture, something I've also only just noticed while typing this post, are the very, very first trials of giving Thistle bat ears, which I do not for the life of me remember. 

Loyal members of the $10 Tier remember me being really, really anxious about Thistle and her design at this phase, because I still had a lot of problems with potentially playing into a lot of toxic tropes common to Fantasy.

VERSION 3.1

This is around the time when I get really anxious because I realize, wow, Meg, you gotta be really careful with this, you know, because RACISM, so moving forward from this point, making her an obvious member of a Fantasy race with more monstrous physical traits becomes a huge priority.

To date, this remains one of my favorite stages, but it still lacks the appeal and softness that I ultimately wanted. I really love and miss her crazy hair in this design ("crazy" being said with affection and the best of intent), but I already have such huge problems drawing characters consistently, that tracking each shape would have been a nightmare. Ah, frizzy haired thistle, you live on in my heart.

VERSION 3.2

This is the loop I find myself trapped in for about a year: trying to combine the previous two versions into one that's clearly not Caucasian, but doesn't drift into the dark and dangerous realm of Being Problematic(TM), with clear Fantastical Monstrous Features, all while fighting anxiety induced nausea if I start thinking too much about the potential backlash if I do this wrong.

VERSION 4.0

UNTIL FINALLY, Milo steps in and saves me again. Here's a snapshot from the Photoshop file where I finally found the Thistle I had been looking for. On the far left is a quick doodle Milo did, just for kicks and giggles, that I couldn't get my eyes off of. In the middle, my attempt to recreate the features and proportions he did in my own style. On the far right - another pass that was just me tweaking some of the details, until I suddenly realized I finally had the Thistle I wanted. (THANKS MILO!)

One thing presented in this version that doesn't make it past this phase is Thistle's overbite, which makes her pointy teeth visible at all times. I freaking loved this idea, but, again, ultimately had to discard it in favor of a design that made the main character appealing. Now I just draw her pointy, irregularly sized teeth everywhere whenever humanly possible.

VERSION 5.0

THE FINAL 

I need to be careful about the shape of her ears, as I tend to draw Lyra's on Thistle by default. They should look more like how they're drawn in the previous version, and are loosely inspired by Townsend Bat ears:

chirrup chirrup

This is the Thistle that finally appeared in the comic, a scarce 5 months before her scheduled appearance. I was really cutting it close, but I'm  really happy with this result. Of course, every version has a special place in my heart, and I know people will have their favorites.

I can't tell you how relieved and thrilled I was at the general response - there are a lot of things to worry about when working on a comic of this nature, and while being aware of them is very important, I'm happy that it looked like I didn't need to worry nearly as much as I did during this process.

All right, there you go! That's Thistle for ya.