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Description
If any of you were curious as to how some of the side characters in Advent From Elsewhere looked, fear not, here are two of them, in the same image no less.

In all honesty, I was doing this mostly just to have some kind of face to put with the names, especially as far as Hidetaka was concerned, so if they looked different to you, don't treat this as the definitive vison of these characters, I gave the artist a lot of leeway regarding the details outside of what I felt was mandatory for the characters. This was mostly for my benefit.

With that said, there's more here than just retail therapy disguising as putting faces to name.

I'll start with Eiko. No not the character, the name. I put that name in the book more for Hidetaka's benefit rather than hers. I could have had some random be the one who found Cipher and Shina and brought them to him, but I didn't want the kindly Daimyo to look less kindly by not knowing about the most basic details of those under him, so I went back to the random name generator, and pulled Eiko out of it so there was an actual individual to address.
It was at this point I realized I'd struck silver, or at least copper, though I wouldn't know it until later. Now I had a side character who could be a go-to stand in for more important characters to talk to or get information from. Rather than a character getting an update or summons from "an informant" or "a messenger", I can say "Eiko came in" or have them address the character as Eiko. This was most prevalent in chapter 18 where Yori and Saya's conversation is interrupted by someone calling for them to come back, and it was just too good to say it was Eiko.
As a result there were only two real requirements for how she should look. First, I described her as looking rather militant, during a time when Kumatari had no real standing force, so her looking rather straightforward was a must, with her non-armored (or casual) appearance incorporating something a civilian watchman might use, in this case a wooden club. The second was that her armored get up looked like a normal ashigaru.
Outside of those, there was nothing really required to tell people who she was. Her hair, eyes, and so on, can really be whatever you want, I was only planning on doing so much with her anyway.

Ironically, I had more that I wanted to do with Hidetaka, even though he's only one-third of the image, and it's not that much more. Making things worse is that what more I want to do, isn't there in the story yet, I'm still writing that.
All the same, what little there is to do with him is contrasted by how much more I wanted to be set in stone. He needed to be aged and sagely, some one who was more of a poet and reader. I wanted an individual who looked like he was already through the toughest parts of his life, and was now enjoying the simpler pleasurers alongside his normal duties, but also wasn't any less savvy or willing to step up to the plate if things really needed it.
Admittedly, he doesn't dip that much into the later, as he certainly isn't riding out into combat like an actual Daimyo, but he is courteous to those around him, wise enough to know where and when to delegate his authority, and (more to the point) that he should, and the people of his province like him.
In a way, he's more like a lord before or after the era I'm basing my story on, and, much like Eiko, has a name because he's frequent enough that a vague title would be both bad writing and a disservice to his part in the story, as little as it may be compared to anyone else with a name. Despite being named first, he really is just Eiko+.

And no, before anyone asks, there is no familial connection. At no point did I ever think to make Eiko into Hidetaka's daughter, nor do I plan to.

If you want to see them in action, but organically, from the start, check out the first chapter of my story; Here

Art by Principenegro

Description
If any of you were curious as to how some of the side characters in Advent From Elsewhere looked, fear not, here are two of them, in the same image no less.

In all honesty, I was doing this mostly just to have some kind of face to put with the names, especially as far as Hidetaka was concerned, so if they looked different to you, don't treat this as the definitive vison of these characters, I gave the artist a lot of leeway regarding the details outside of what I felt was mandatory for the characters. This was mostly for my benefit.

With that said, there's more here than just retail therapy disguising as putting faces to name.

I'll start with Eiko. No not the character, the name. I put that name in the book more for Hidetaka's benefit rather than hers. I could have had some random be the one who found Cipher and Shina and brought them to him, but I didn't want the kindly Daimyo to look less kindly by not knowing about the most basic details of those under him, so I went back to the random name generator, and pulled Eiko out of it so there was an actual individual to address.
It was at this point I realized I'd struck silver, or at least copper, though I wouldn't know it until later. Now I had a side character who could be a go-to stand in for more important characters to talk to or get information from. Rather than a character getting an update or summons from "an informant" or "a messenger", I can say "Eiko came in" or have them address the character as Eiko. This was most prevalent in chapter 18 where Yori and Saya's conversation is interrupted by someone calling for them to come back, and it was just too good to say it was Eiko.
As a result there were only two real requirements for how she should look. First, I described her as looking rather militant, during a time when Kumatari had no real standing force, so her looking rather straightforward was a must, with her non-armored (or casual) appearance incorporating something a civilian watchman might use, in this case a wooden club. The second was that her armored get up looked like a normal ashigaru.
Outside of those, there was nothing really required to tell people who she was. Her hair, eyes, and so on, can really be whatever you want, I was only planning on doing so much with her anyway.

Ironically, I had more that I wanted to do with Hidetaka, even though he's only one-third of the image, and it's not that much more. Making things worse is that what more I want to do, isn't there in the story yet, I'm still writing that.
All the same, what little there is to do with him is contrasted by how much more I wanted to be set in stone. He needed to be aged and sagely, some one who was more of a poet and reader. I wanted an individual who looked like he was already through the toughest parts of his life, and was now enjoying the simpler pleasurers alongside his normal duties, but also wasn't any less savvy or willing to step up to the plate if things really needed it.
Admittedly, he doesn't dip that much into the later, as he certainly isn't riding out into combat like an actual Daimyo, but he is courteous to those around him, wise enough to know where and when to delegate his authority, and (more to the point) that he should, and the people of his province like him.
In a way, he's more like a lord before or after the era I'm basing my story on, and, much like Eiko, has a name because he's frequent enough that a vague title would be both bad writing and a disservice to his part in the story, as little as it may be compared to anyone else with a name. Despite being named first, he really is just Eiko+.

And no, before anyone asks, there is no familial connection. At no point did I ever think to make Eiko into Hidetaka's daughter, nor do I plan to.

If you want to see them in action, but organically, from the start, check out the first chapter of my story; Here

Art by Principenegro