10+ Years of

or, Crazy Artist Draws Same OCs Again and Again
for Over a Decade

Published date: August 2024

Introduction

It’s been over 10 years since I created my ocs Ellie, Jester, and Scarecrow. 11 years to be exact, since my earliest drawing of them was from around May-June 2013. These characters have been used in a RPG maker game experiencing perpetual development hell, as subjects for illustrations, and just fun little dolls to play dress-up and make a million AUs of.

At their core, they are a simple group of 3 friends: Ellie, a normal girl who is prone to worrying and is a bit too sensible for the fantastic world she finds herself in; Jester, Ellie's self-proclaimed best friend and cheerful carnival inhabitant who has a penchant for never finishing stories; and Scarecrow, a forgetful and airheaded yet sarcastic guy who likes tending to flowers, who was searching for a certain truth. Well, if he forgot, it probably wasn't that important anyways!
Every so often, Ellie finds herself in what seems to be her bedroom in an unfamiliar world. According to her friends, she has come to visit before, and just forgotten. Their adventures usually consist of hanging out in a carnival, having tea parties, and ignoring the existence of a certain clocktower till Ellie must go. Rinse, and repeat! Forever, and ever. Because they live in a world where tomorrow and yesterday don't exist, where they can have the same adventures every time. As long as you don't stray from the garden.
If Ellie wants to stay, she must kill the mysterious 'King' of this world at the top of the clocktower.

Sounds cliche? Well I did write parts of this story as a teen after all.



Character and Artstyle Evolution Summary

First off, a quick compilation of how my OC's designs and my way of drawing them evolved over the years, and by extension my art style too.



Barney Jester Jumpscare. He's been drawn the most consistently (in terms of style and quantity) over the years. You can see how his hair became a spiky mess before I learned how to make it look like actual hair.



She's been drawn in the most variety of art styles. Maybe because of her simple design. The messy strand of hair in her bangs is a charm point.



I find Scarecrow's face hard to draw so he tends to be drawn less, or more often as chibi. Probably because his colour scheme is less fun to colour too.


Note: These evolution charts are limited to digital art. There's probably some traditional doodles here and there in my sketchbooks, but they're usually not very clean as I mainly used digital in recent years. There are some years where I didn't draw any full illustrations of them. I was pretty busy in 2022.

Forgive the inconsistent year numbering. I included more early pictures of Jester since he had a more drastic design change. Unfortunately, only one finished digital art of prototype Ellie was published to my deviantart in 2013. I lost all the early .sai files so can't find any digital doodles.

I had somewhat of an art block during 2016-2020, where I shoehorned myself into drawing in a cute style. You can see the devolution in anatomy and wildly inconsistent style during that time. In recent years (2021-present, 2024) I started experimenting more, grinding fundamentals, and improved significantly. I'm quite happy with that. Another fun thing is the difference in their personalities when comparing between these charts, which I hope is visible to anyone other than myself.




A Brief Explanation of How These Characters Came To Be

The following sketches were taken from my sketchbooks. I didn't write the date for my sketches at the time, so it's not very chronological. This was a time where I drew so much I could finish a sketchbook in weeks. I didn't have many ocs so I would often run out of ideas and randomly make new character designs.



First drawings ever of Jester and Scarecrow circa 2013. They were the product of randomly designing characters. Jester had a straightjacket themed design (which would later be changed to pajamas) and long hair. His hat originally had 4 points. Scarecrow was mostly the same actually, just edgier with a sewn up mouth. Originally, these two designs had absolutely no relation, but I must have thought that these guys would have a fun dynamic, and so it was decided that they were friends. Or co-workers. They were mercenaries of sorts working under the red queen...?



They had weapons to fight some undefined enemies. Jester had an axe and Scarecrow had a gun. The emblem is the logo of their mercenary group 'Royal Pumpkin'. At the time I was really into a manga called Karneval so it probably influenced a lot of these elements which were later scrapped. But they were always buddies since creation.



First iteration of Ellie (May 2013) who was named Mary at that time. I don't remember how exactly she came about or what her role in the story was. Probably another random design? Judging by the content of my sketchbooks at the time, she may have been inspired by Anna (K Project) and Tsukumo (Karneval). Apparently a quiet, emotionless doll archetype. Scarecrow and Jester were also undefined doll things. Her twin tail motif has survived till this day even though everything else has changed.



More Ellie concepts scrounged up from old sketchbooks. This is when she became the 'protagonist'. Her initial designs were more fantasy-like. What was going on with her skirt lol. The plot was she was in a continent comprising of four countries, and...? I don't think it actually had a plot. Just the vague notion of an 'adventure'.



One of the first group pics of the Three of Them. Traveling companions of sorts.



Group pictures of Ellie, Jester, Scarecrow, and some other characters that I don't use anymore. These are some of the first instances of The Ringmaster. Left to Right: 1) Chibis and the card suites representing the 'country' they came from. 2) Outfit swap. 3) Dark Woods Circus parody (this really dates the drawing).



A Wonderland AU. This must have been drawn sometime in mid/late-2013 judging by the art style and designs. The prototype Ellie's hair was changed to brown, probably to make her more plain looking.



Other drawings of Scarecrow and Jester from 2013 that I uploaded to deviantart. The first drawing was probably the first coloured picture of them, and Jester's colour scheme was later changed.



Then I made their 'official' reference sheets around June-July 2014. Their designs have remained relatively stable till now. This is when Ellie became more of a 'normal girl in wonderland', looking a bit plain by design. This is one of the first digital drawings I did of The Ringmaster too.
I changed the story from an epic fantasy adventure to something more contained.



More art from 2014. Some things never change.



Early pixel art sprites. I was testing them for use in rpg maker, but later decided on using sprites with a hand-drawn doodle aesthetic.



Illustrations related to the story. I was very proud of these pieces back then.



Sprites for Revellie. These originally started as sketches that I cleaned up and decided to use as the final sprites. I still think they're charming.



2015 was the year I started to use RPG Maker VX Ace to make Revellie. It wasn't very well planned out at the time, and hell the characters didn't really have a plot. It was basically walking and hanging out with your friends simulator. Which it still is. But there is a concrete goal and endpoint now. Ringmaster's design was changed to be more androgynous.


2016 onwards: Can be viewed in Doodle log 1, Doodle log 2, Revellie Collection 1, Revellie Collection 2, Pixel Art log, 3D log



The Future? and continued Development Hell

There was a quote by someone on Twitter, a piece of advice for young artists: Sometimes you have to move on. The big worldbuilding project you spent years refining may never catch on, but some random 5 minute doodle might, and that will become your 'thing'.

Well, I just can't 'move on'. Revellie is no deep worldbuilding nor epic tale of hundreds of intertwined characters. Despite the 10+ years of making stuff for Revellie and never really 'catching on', I always come back to this story. Not to say that literally nobody gives a shit about Revellie. There are some people I remember from way back in 2015, still interacting with my posts now and then on twitter or tumblr. It means the world to me. Thank you for your support, from the bottom of my heart.

I want to continue the development of Revellie, and tell their story in some tangible way. Does it have to be an RPG Maker game? No. But this medium fits with the story I'm trying to tell. Why not make a comic? I did consider it at one point. Maybe for some side stories. And god knows I'm no good with words, so trying to write a novel doesn't quite convey what I'm trying to say, ironically. Writing the script and dialogue for the game was hard enough. I could just be content making contextless illustrations and I was for a while.

Note: Crazy stream of consciousness rambling ahead... don't take it too seriously.

For the last 10 years their stories have been slowly evolving as ‘imaginary friends’ of sorts. At this point, they’re almost tulpas. Not just Ellie, Jester, and Scarecrow who go on adventures in the carnival. Representations of something. Without the time and experience, I wouldn’t have been able to give their story a satisfying conclusion. (...in my head. Even though I haven't really published anything with them yet) I have to live as long as their story goes unpublished. I just must make them real in some capacity, whether it takes 10 more years…
This does run the risk of my beloved ocs being headcanoned and misinterpreted to hell and back, losing their original intent and identity. Telephone game and death of the author. But no ideas can be 100% transferred without some loss of meaning. I don't know if anyone notices the symbolism/hidden subtext of these illustrations. There is something meaningful to myself, but without the relevant context the audience may interpret it differently. Even if we only understand 30% of each other, I hope my art makes you stop and think a little. Like piecing together lore from a game. On the flip side, I think I've accepted that my creations may never catch on and be wildly, virally popular. I really haven't made much to intrigue others. I didn't intend to make something that is literally a stereotypical 'the creator's thinly-veiled mental illness/depression/escapism fantasy' but that's what it ended up becoming. Oh well. Don’t be too concerned, this is just halfhearted crazy talk.
End stream of consciousness



In summary, Revellie as a story may or may not be completed, in the next 10 years or forever. But I still want to continue drawing them.
To the audience, I hope you continue to enjoy the adventures of Ellie and co. Thank you.

Happy 10th, 11th anniversary! To many more.





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