Hotwire Insolve BTS: A Brief History of Juno (Patreon)

Juno. Juno, Juno, Juno, Juno, Juno. As a character, she's not as publicly developed compared to Kyrie. Mostly cuz she doesn't show up in Hotel Trouble, I think. She's daughter of the master at a martial arts Dojo in Silver City...until it was wiped out by rival gyms. Now, Juno is the only survivor—as far as she knows. Her upbringing gave her a strong sense of fairness and morality, with the fighting skills to back them up.

That's how she is now anyway. Once upon a time, she (er, who she would become) was just some random lady I drew while I was up too late drawing. In Februrary 2022, I decided to experiment and draw some cool guys with guns using Photoshop's symmetry tool. I drew 3 people, there was no sketch or under drawing of any kind—just free-styling.

These were an inflection point for me, really. May have set me on the path to making Hotwire. Just really embracing drawing something Matrix-y and sexy for the hell of it. Juno's changed a lot from this drawing, but the...shapes are there. The sunglasses, nose, lips, face, cheek swirlys, and the wing hair. It's all kinda the same, but it's all just drawn differently. I guess shes much less busty and thin nowadays tho, haha. The hair became very angular too.

Then she was on ice til the following June, when I got the itch to make something sexy and Matrix-y again.

Juno's current appearance is still sorta just this. She's got the bodysuit with the baggy kung-fu pants with the long drawstrings. Doesn't have the gloves, but she's got wristbands, getting the silhouette there. Well, and the shoes. The shoes took me a little while to get right.

She and Kyrie hadn't really developed much as a characters outside of "they are besties" when I was making these. Once I developed the kung-fu backstory for J, I finally decided on some more sensible shoes, heh. She also uses guns less now. Not that she avoids them completely, but she will opt to pistol whip or throw them when out of bullets. Below is an early Hotel Trouble design. I knew I wanted her to be in the larger story, she just didn't make it into the the short (at least what made it to completion, I will go over Hotel Trouble production in detail down the line).

The little hair horn thing came up in this design phase. I generally try to make my characters symmetrical (makes flipping drawings for re-use in animations and stuff easier shhh), but I wanted to give her a little devilish side. She's generally pretty serious and regimented, but there's a tilt there that really comes out when she's with Kyrie...or in a good fight.

Some influences on her character are kinda funny. I was playing a lot of Enter the Matrix on the Gamecube at the time, so a significant portion of her DNA is definitely Niobe. That, and watching Hong Kong action films like Yes, Madam and She Shoots Straight lead me to the martial artist angle. Her flippy wing hair comes generally from 2000s Badass Women™ like Erin Esurance, Xbox era Joanna Dark, or Rubi Malone. Her stoic badassness definitely comes from Knuckles the Echidna too (you'll find the Sonic the Hedgehog franchise influences me in practically all ways aside from making me a furry).

She got a redesign like Kyrie did too. Simplifying and exaggerating the whole thing. Less lines, easier to draw over and over. Stuff you learn after trying to animate something and finding how it can be less of a pain in the ass, haha.

That's all on her for now!