New OC: Mio (Art and Ref Sheets) (Patreon)

This doesn't go live on socials 'till tomorrow but I am finally DONE with all of this DRAWING and I want to POST IT.

My new OC is a very short boy called Mio. I have not been able to stop thinking about or doodling him for weeks now. There's a lot of various energies and ideas that got channeled into him, mostly that I really wanted an excuse of putting someone other than women in bunny suits and the like. Who wouldn't!

My characters (and art, obviously) have, to me, always reflected various parts of my self that are fun to express and give life to. Ascari is the lens through which I see the world, or wish to see it as perhaps. Cat is pretty plainly the self inside me that will never be able to come out (I simply don't have the genes for breasts that large). Mio is... well, the road never traveled, I suppose. Part of the identity I have now is in due part to cosplayers and crossdressers I've followed (and befriended!) over the years.

I'm comfortable with who I am now but there was a long time when I wasn't, and was jealous of people who were. The confidence to know where you lie on the gender spectrum and comfort in venturing out of it was something I envied because I had so much fun exploring that alone. My friends, my family, and my environment growing up was not bad my any means but it was not conducive to me thinking this was ever something for me and, when the right bells started sounding off, there was so much that still stayed so repressed. Even before I came out, trying on a cat keyhole bikini and taking pictures in it felt so right but I could never, ever, ever post that anywhere. I wanted to so. So badly. To feel so powerful and so silenced at the same time... bad feeling.

So, Mio is the opposite of that. Mio is not loud but he radiates confidence. He loves himself to a fault. He adores anything you put him in because he knows he looks great in it. He's an attention hog, he's got nothing but affection and people on his mind, he spends his days toiling at whatever job he's been assigned to by the Zoning Authority and nights out and about with whoever will buy him drinks.

I've started sketching out my next merch collection and I'm so excited to have him be a model... and also just excited at having another person to draw silly stuff of. I've had a handful of other OCs drift in and out--like I said, they're a reflection of me and sometimes a little part of you is there until it's not--but I'm excited to have one that's, like, a more permanent thing. I really love him.

Part of that is also, like, challenging myself a little. It's no secret that I've mostly stuck to drawing women! That's kind of intentional! Some e-hentai reply guys think it's a misogyny thing and I appreciate people thinking I'm that Machiavellian about social issues but the truth is that I am gay and love women and I want to see them and draw them all the time. In the last couple months, though, I've had to draw a handful of guys for commission work and it was hard! Like, it's a practise thing! The anatomy of male-coded bodies is different and it's hard when you've not drawn that much, if at all. So, there's definitely a little of "the more I draw of this the better I will be at it, so why not also make that fun in ways that I find exciting."

You'll notice the ref sheets are insane. I can't remember what inspired me really, some of it is definitely picking up the player's handbook for Morkborg recently, but I wanted to go all out. I think I have 22 fonts in total across both pages. Rules are fake!!!!!!!!!!!!! You don't need to only use 2 or 3 fonts!!!!!!!! Fuck a layout, slap that shit everywhere so long as it feels right!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Long post over. I am now going to take a bit of a break because this has been several weeks worth of work and I need to do something other than look at Clip Studio Paint lmao