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Description
browsing through old art made me nostalgic

i think a lot about this particular time with sophie. i regret incorporating qualities to her character that act as negative stereotypes for black women; aggressive, "strong", grossly sexual, all that noise. i regret not really putting in the time to expand on her character depth because looking back now there was a lot of potential for something deep and emotional.

i.e. 1) a lot of rage and internal turmoil that she would cope with in physically aggressive bursts, of which helps quell her fear of vulnerability and crippling shame in the short term but can lead to a lot of destructive results that hurt everyone and herself.
2) a lot of unresolved anger and aggression that developed from a deep rooted self-loathing and guilt from a string of ethically terrible decisions for her own gain in the past, of which she has no knowledge of how to healthily manage or move on from and learn from.
3) a cycle of defining herself as an eternally bad person and reasoning that if everyone only saw her as such then there's no point in trying to be something else, having no faith in herself as a person continually feeding into her already dirt low self-esteem and shit self-image.
4) not knowing how to deal with the crippling guilt and constantly getting into fights and unsafe sex in order to cope with it because she's only ever knew how to fight.
5) trying to be strong. wanting to be strong. fighting to be strong. but in the end she just wants to apologize and she doesn't know who she's apologizing to, maybe everyone she's ever hurt, maybe anyone who's ever had the unfortunate chance to meet her, maybe it's alexis, maybe it's just for existing. she hates feeling this way so she lets it out with bruises, broken bones and bloody noses. she kinda just wants to cry.
6) crippling fear of showing anything remotely emotional or vulnerable about herself because that leaves an opening for anyone to come in and hurt her again.

i could add more but at that point it'd be an essay

i don't know, kinda wish i had the knowledge about characters i do now back then. she was a negative stereotype of black women and black people in general, i acknowledge that now and i apologize as one who was ignorant and unwilling to face it. is it the result of deep rooted racism developed from institutionalized racism and perpetuated fear in our society? my gut says yes. that and my own stubborness, in that i kept trying to convince myself that i wasn't racist and that it was fine. i treated her only as something to display. i should have stopped a little and thought of ways to make her more human and relatable as a person, not some token object.
now i can see how she can be a very deep and emotionally conflicted character. i still care about her very much.
i'll likely incorporate these elements into her new persona, of which i'm calling brook now that i know better. i'll giver her a well-deserved character arc and she'll bloom into something that's self-loving and forgiving of herself.

this page started off with me redrawing her old design for fun and to get a look at my progress in drawing. i'm kinda proud because i feel like some of my practice with figure drawing is starting to pay off. anatomy is slightly easier, it feels more comfortable to draw bodies, and i feel like i have a much better grasp on things. i still struggle, but i'll keep learning and trying.

in the end i felt the urge to add in the bois, raymon and ryan, because whenever i think of this period of sophie's design and character, my train of thought gradually goes to these two.
i always wanted to know more about them as people. i absolutely loved drawing them back then, i still do. but looking back, there were times when that was only skin deep. maybe i should have asked more questions, you know? i feel guilty about that, too.
from what i can infer based on snippets of eggy and monty's art and from an old conversation, i'd imagine there would be a lot of unresolved tension for both of them and between them. maybe a lot of guilt and self-blaming on raymon's side, irrational fear and paranoia for ryan. forgive me if i'm forgetting basic facts about these two again, i haven't been checking up on them that much and i should. maybe they both blame themselves for a lot of the painful things in the past. maybe they don't trust themselves because of what happened? i don't know, but i like to imagine. if they have time, i can try to send a message about it.
(looks like this description ended up being an essay after all)

either way drawing sophie giving them physical emotional support felt like i was there for a minute. in a way it could give her some catharsis, too, you know? i always imagine her with them. like a weird family. i like imagining the conversations and the difficult but emotional times because i'm such a sap. i keep thinking about a lot of crying. i should probably stop that. it's not very fair if i keep incorporating my own characters.
i think i needed this because there's always a nagging voice in my head at any quiet moment that criticizes me for a list of different things, even if it's small and includes fictional cartoon characters. this was one of the things in that list. the last two sketches were very soothing for me.

ryan belongs to cubghost
raymon belongs to Eggscargo

Description
browsing through old art made me nostalgic

i think a lot about this particular time with sophie. i regret incorporating qualities to her character that act as negative stereotypes for black women; aggressive, "strong", grossly sexual, all that noise. i regret not really putting in the time to expand on her character depth because looking back now there was a lot of potential for something deep and emotional.

i.e. 1) a lot of rage and internal turmoil that she would cope with in physically aggressive bursts, of which helps quell her fear of vulnerability and crippling shame in the short term but can lead to a lot of destructive results that hurt everyone and herself.
2) a lot of unresolved anger and aggression that developed from a deep rooted self-loathing and guilt from a string of ethically terrible decisions for her own gain in the past, of which she has no knowledge of how to healthily manage or move on from and learn from.
3) a cycle of defining herself as an eternally bad person and reasoning that if everyone only saw her as such then there's no point in trying to be something else, having no faith in herself as a person continually feeding into her already dirt low self-esteem and shit self-image.
4) not knowing how to deal with the crippling guilt and constantly getting into fights and unsafe sex in order to cope with it because she's only ever knew how to fight.
5) trying to be strong. wanting to be strong. fighting to be strong. but in the end she just wants to apologize and she doesn't know who she's apologizing to, maybe everyone she's ever hurt, maybe anyone who's ever had the unfortunate chance to meet her, maybe it's alexis, maybe it's just for existing. she hates feeling this way so she lets it out with bruises, broken bones and bloody noses. she kinda just wants to cry.
6) crippling fear of showing anything remotely emotional or vulnerable about herself because that leaves an opening for anyone to come in and hurt her again.

i could add more but at that point it'd be an essay

i don't know, kinda wish i had the knowledge about characters i do now back then. she was a negative stereotype of black women and black people in general, i acknowledge that now and i apologize as one who was ignorant and unwilling to face it. is it the result of deep rooted racism developed from institutionalized racism and perpetuated fear in our society? my gut says yes. that and my own stubborness, in that i kept trying to convince myself that i wasn't racist and that it was fine. i treated her only as something to display. i should have stopped a little and thought of ways to make her more human and relatable as a person, not some token object.
now i can see how she can be a very deep and emotionally conflicted character. i still care about her very much.
i'll likely incorporate these elements into her new persona, of which i'm calling brook now that i know better. i'll giver her a well-deserved character arc and she'll bloom into something that's self-loving and forgiving of herself.

this page started off with me redrawing her old design for fun and to get a look at my progress in drawing. i'm kinda proud because i feel like some of my practice with figure drawing is starting to pay off. anatomy is slightly easier, it feels more comfortable to draw bodies, and i feel like i have a much better grasp on things. i still struggle, but i'll keep learning and trying.

in the end i felt the urge to add in the bois, raymon and ryan, because whenever i think of this period of sophie's design and character, my train of thought gradually goes to these two.
i always wanted to know more about them as people. i absolutely loved drawing them back then, i still do. but looking back, there were times when that was only skin deep. maybe i should have asked more questions, you know? i feel guilty about that, too.
from what i can infer based on snippets of eggy and monty's art and from an old conversation, i'd imagine there would be a lot of unresolved tension for both of them and between them. maybe a lot of guilt and self-blaming on raymon's side, irrational fear and paranoia for ryan. forgive me if i'm forgetting basic facts about these two again, i haven't been checking up on them that much and i should. maybe they both blame themselves for a lot of the painful things in the past. maybe they don't trust themselves because of what happened? i don't know, but i like to imagine. if they have time, i can try to send a message about it.
(looks like this description ended up being an essay after all)

either way drawing sophie giving them physical emotional support felt like i was there for a minute. in a way it could give her some catharsis, too, you know? i always imagine her with them. like a weird family. i like imagining the conversations and the difficult but emotional times because i'm such a sap. i keep thinking about a lot of crying. i should probably stop that. it's not very fair if i keep incorporating my own characters.
i think i needed this because there's always a nagging voice in my head at any quiet moment that criticizes me for a list of different things, even if it's small and includes fictional cartoon characters. this was one of the things in that list. the last two sketches were very soothing for me.

ryan belongs to cubghost
raymon belongs to Eggscargo