Pop Culture Reference - 155 (Patreon)

And so we get a much better look at Winny's outfit for this arc.I would like to go over the design process of this for today's page talking point. Seeing as how Winnifer has conquered her fears and embraces more of what makes her Winny I wanted this to be the ultimate Winny fit. I started with the idea of it being somewhat mtg related, there were versions where she was wearing a bandolier of deck boxes and the classic 'blue symbol nope' shirt you see. Though those were discarded since, practically, why would she need to bring deckboxes to a game of judge's tower and I didn't think sweaty blue player is the type of energy she gives off. The next element that game to me was I wanted her color scheme here to be black and yellow, going strictly off of vibes to explain this but I feel like that combination gives off 'champion' type of energy (maybe it's the pseudo goldness or it being colors that remind me of a wrestling belt) which helps cement her as winning over her fears and being a worthy contender for the ring. The yellow highlights instead of her usual jarring contrasts represent unity and ascension as she bridges the gap to her other form more. I then wanted to harken back to her first appearance with the general outfit structure as a 'see how far she has come' kind of moment. I also just really like the leggings and lacey gloves/arm things she had. Not too long ago she was going to incorporate elements of Liliana's design for costume but I didn't like that since DC was already the 'black' coded player here.

Then inspired by a member in the lemon server, Smash suggested she should be Vorthos.

The mtg analogue for players who care about the lore of the game and visually it all clicked for me. Since I believe that Winny is more of a Vorthos type player since winning or losing isn't the point, but rather the appreciation of the finer details and committing to flavor rather than competitiveness. Lastly the Kingdom Hearts blanket. This is probably the most fantastical element of the comic so far since it implies that it manifested out of thin air in the transformation. I tried my best to feasibly show that there is nothing magical happening here in the comic (like maybe Winnifer is always wearing the clothes under her normal attire, I don't know...) but this is one is probably just straight up magic. It needed to come back as the Wizard needs it cast her spells.