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WOW That's great, wonderful Jade !!! I don't know if this post is considered for you as a small interview or as a behind the scenes presentation of Once Human Au ... but I must say that the way you wrote the "story" of the project and these details about the characters, made your new project even more interesting. I feel like I am waiting for the new season of a series that you gladly watch with PASSION !!!!!! I CAN'T LOOK AT THE TIME YOU ARE FANTASTIC !!!!!!! <3 <3 <3
For your upcoming Once Human au, what was your process for designing each of the turtles, like choosing their species, their weapons, and their ages? Your au looks really interesting and unlike most fan reinterpretations of the tmnt I've seen and I can't wait to know more about it!
Ooooh, this is such a good question! To be honest, the design process was really difficult for me at first!
I had very fleshed out ideas for their personalities, dynamics, development, and especially, backstory! But I had very little in mind for what they looked like, haha!
So in designing the turtles, I tried to pick weapons, species, and looks while keeping their backstories in mind, but still put a focus on who they are now.
For weapons, I thought a lot about fight styles, looked up a bunch of Japanese weapons, and videos demonstrating their uses, trying to picture each of the characters using them, and picking the ones that I thought fit best.
Picking species was a bit harder because I wanted to keep in mind a few things:
The species’ function/abilities - for example picking a loggerhead turtle for Raph since they have the toughest turtle shells, and I thought that made sense for the team tank
The color scheme - for example picking a black pond turtle to give Donnie a space-and-stars look to fit with their sci-fi theme
Endangered species - all of the turtles and Splinter are endangered species. This didn’t really have a lot to do with their personality or anything, but I like including a bit of environmental awareness in my art and stories if/when I can
For their ages, I kind of just went with my gut and picked what I thought would create interesting character dynamics. Leo is often the oldest brother, so I was curious to see what he’d be like as the youngest. I made Raph and Donnie the same age because there are so few instances of the two of them having lots of interactions in the canon. I want to change that for this iteration, and making them the same age seemed like a good way to do that. Mikey is the middle child to further push the idea that he is the balance of the team.
Oh, and one more character design note - I took a page out of Rise of the TMNT’s book and thought about shape language. I wanted their general body type and shapes to reflect their personalities. So Mikey is all round and friendly, Leo’s plastron and armor is sharp and angular, Donnie’s design contains stiff and blocky shapes, and Raph is large and smooth with his plastron and shell looking like a shield.
Thank you so much for the interest and the kind words! I’m excited to share more and to eventually bring this iteration to life!