Dusttale: Revived | Character Concepts Pt.2

Meet a new addition to the Smiling Critters: SLEEPY SHEEPY

Text in Photo: Sleepy Sheepy is a calm, yet wise critter; soft-spoken and will happily give helpful advice to any of their friends. Their best advice? To get a good night’s rest. After all, you can’t have a fun filled day if you can barely keep your eyes open.

Scent: German Chamomile

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I’m gonna be doing each character in 3 different styles: the cartoon depiction, the Bigger Body depiction, & one where I basically do an overly detailed redesign because why not.

I’m not gonna lie, in order to get the proportions & style right, I used a technique I saw on YouTube where you basically use different body parts of the critters to create a character.

I also tried to use font that looked similar, but I couldn’t find one that was exactly the same, so sorry if the fonts weird.

I used Bobby’s torso, Bubba’s left arm, Craftycorn’s legs, & Baba’s right arm & head. The wool, face ears, horns, tail, & pendant I freestyle.

I really like how Sleepy turned out and I can’t wait to do the rest, especially the bigger body versions cause I like taking cute things and make them scary.

Also I know the poll isn’t over yet, but I originally wanted it to be open for a few days, not a whole week. Based off the results so far, it seems that I’ll be doing Mary Little next.

Upcoming Art Projects for Dusttale: Revived

This is more of a list of art projects I want to do for this AU, and get feedback from guys or even suggestions on what I can do better based off the past few slides.

This is the first time in a while that I’m actually excited for a big project.

*Side Note: As the story progresses & changes, I’ll post updated versions of past blogs for consistency & archive the old ones.

Alright so here is what is one the agenda (in no specific order):

Research & Character Notes

I’ve already posted a few of these, just gotta do it for the rest of the “Revivors” & the Survivors.

Story/Scene Character Art

Basically what I did with Asgore’s piece. Draw certain characters in certain scenes or situations that go along with the story or to showcase what they look like.

Character Reference Sheet

Character sheets…To see what they look like, simple as that.

Comic/Written Story

I’ll probably write the actual story first & then make a comic off it, or I might just say “screw it, I’m gonna do the comic first & hate my past self when I have to base the story around whatever I drew”. We’ll cross that bridge when we get there.

Multiverse Interactions

Yes I’ll be including other universes interacting or just observing this AU; it’s mainly gonna be the Bad & Star Sanses, but I might include a few others as non-canon interactions for fun.

Ask Blog (Maybe)

If this gets popular enough or I get a lot of questions, I might do an ask blog that the characters will answer or just be in some funny shenanigans.

While working on the headshot rough drafts for the AU variants of Neue, I’m also brainstorming on some concepts for, I guess a reimagining of a few AUs. This is not me trying to “improve” the original AU, it’s just me wanting to have some fun & doing my take of other AUs.

This is gonna be a veeeeeerrry looooong post.

The main 2 I’ll be working on are Horrortale & Dusttale.

I wanted to get opinions & suggestions for these concepts before delving too deep into these ideas. Please tell your thoughts on this & if I need to change/improve on.

Horrortale will be more appearance-based, meaning that I won’t be doing a lot of story building & it’s more of just redesigning the characters to look more “monstrous”. Basically they’ll be more animalistic or feral & their bodies would have gone through heavy changes to “adapt”.

*This is literally an excuse to draw the characters as big & scary horror movie style “monsters”. I guess this would make it similar to the Underworld AU, but the story or origin for the change would be similar to Horrortale, but takes place even further after the Neutral Route*

For right now, I’ve been calling this AU of an AU: Feral!Horrortale. But a few others are Dwellertale/Underdwell, Undercave/Cavetale, Carnitale & or Undermaw.

I’ve written a few ideas for their overall appearance based on Nocturnal & Cave-Adapted animals. I won’t list all of them otherwise this post will be way too long, but here are a few:

Eyes

Will become bigger

Pupils will become extremely dilated

Will become blind, either with cloudy Pupils or losing their eyes completely

Mouth

Jaw becomes much stronger

Able to be unhinged

Senses

Becomes extremely sensitive to light

Scent of smell & hearing will become much more heightened

May develop echolocation due to loss of sight

General Appearance

Depending on location, those in colder areas will become bigger, while those living in hotter areas will become smaller

Aging will slow down, longer lifespan

Psychological Changes

Will become much more aggressive & animalistic/feral

Start to communicate through nonverbal communication: clicking, chirps, barks, croaks, etc.

These are just a few of concepts for this version of Horrortale.

For Dusttale, it’ll be more story-based, but will have some illustrations here & there. The main differences is that Vani would be from this version & would detail an alternate ending for Vani, also this version would include Sans being “hired” to work for Nightmare.

Now before I go on about the basic concept for this AU, I’ll need to explain a few things first:

Sans’s Killing Spree: I don’t know if in the original he killed all monsters (I kept getting mixed answers or no answers at all), but in this version he only killed most monsters. There were a few that were able to get away & hide before Sans could get them; Sans only wanted to get enough EXP to reach LV 19 or 20 (I can’t decide which one yet). Vani, & probably characters like Monster Kid, Napstablook & Mettaton (Ghost Form), would be one of these survivors.

*As a side note: Papyrus in this AU is an actual ghost & not a hallucination, but I’ll go over that in another post*

Frisk & Chara: In this AU, Frisk & Chara are basically “organic” A.I. attached to a “Real World Anchor” aka Frisk’s body/vessel. Chara was the original concept for the “Fallen Human”, but was scrapped due to them being too “independent & free-willed”. Frisk is the current concept prototype for the “Fallen Human”, made from original data & a blank template; however bits of Chara’s A.I. was used as filler for missing information within Frisk’s A.I., this causes Chara to appear as a glitched phantom (good example of this would be Glitchtrap from FNaF Help Wanted). Chara has little to no control over Frisk, instead they can only give “suggestions” to hopefully influence Frisk’s actions.

The Player: The Player is depicted/described as a higher entity or deity, they could be seen as the “Angel” sent to create peace between humans & monsters (this is based off the theory that the rune we see throughout the game is a depiction of 2 monsters, a human & an angel). The Player at the beginning of the route will have minimal control over Frisk, mainly able to give “directions or actions” that Frisk should follow. But the more EXP that is gained, the more control the Player will have over Frisk. This could cause a total takeover with the Player “ejecting” the A.I. from the anchor aka vessel.

How Did Vani Survive: In the most simplistic way of describing: she can’t die, her soul will automatically heal itself/her. Now in further details: Vani was born with (what I’ll be calling for now) a glitched soul; this causes the soul to look, well glitched out. However it has an ability to automatically heal itself & its body, but not through the usual way; via magic or healing items. Whenever Vani takes damage, the soul will “reload” her back to the point/time & placement right before she takes damage; however the world around her is not affected or altered by this ability, to everyone around her: she looks like she’s “lagging” or “glitching”. Fortunately, or more like unfortunately, this ability is automatically & Vani is unable to “deactivate” it; it use to be super over efficient (would activate if Vani took 1HP or less), but started to calm down has Vani got older (would activate if Vani loses half or more). Even if her HP reaches 0, the soul will activate its ability & essentially “resurrect” Vani; this is what happened when Sans was trying to kill her.

Ok now that that’s out of the way, the basic concept of this AU is…

BRINGING BACK THE DEAD!!!

Or Vani & the remaining monsters tried to improve on the artificial DETERMINATION to resurrect the fallen monsters. But it still causes them to melt, but can gain stability by “merging” with other monsters or inanimate objects (sticks, plants, sturdy clothing, etc.).

This obviously a huge info dump, but I’m super excited about this & I wanted to get everyone’s opinion or suggestion before I go too deep in.

Dusttale: Revived | Research Notes for INTEGRITY

The Jester

Here is the finished reference for the Jester:

His name is based off the word “Heckler” or “Heckle”, & his last name is a reference the term “Gleeman” which was a professional entertainer.

Dusttale: Revived | Research Notes for JUSTICE

Neue AU Headshot Rough Drafts: Avenir

Here are the rough draft headshots for Avenir: Fellswap Gold Neue:

Much like Miriam (in that he’ll play a minor/background role or a one off), he’s by far in my top favorite characters I’ve made. He’s so pretty & elegant, at least to me anyways.

Avenir is on of my first tries at making a trans character: specifically female to male (I’m working more on his backstory, I’m debating if Avenir transitioned due to “political”/royal duty reasons rather than personal/identity reasons.) If anyone has any suggestions on how I can improve at portraying a trans character, please leave a comment.

Also you can’t tell from the headshot, but in the simple design he has his real horns out (which are thinner, smaller & damaged), while in the detailed design he’s wearing fake horns (much bigger & “grander”).

For reference regarding the hair, horns & ears; he’s based of the Valais Blackneck Goat (Picture not mine, found on Google):

Here’s a line of the headshot rough drafts so far:

Mati Character Sheet

I have finally finished the character sheet for my OC: Mati!

I’ll be creating another character sheet for Mati to explain Mati’s abilities & effects on the residents/visitors of Gravity Falls.

Here’s a pic of the character sheet without the words:

And here’s one with a different background & showing Mati’s name:

Zelyezda: The Iron Mistress

Zelyezda is the Overlord over the ballet industry, specifically Russian ballet, and is part of the Theatre Overlords lead by The Puppeteer.

When she was alive, she was a ballet dancer and teacher at the Imperial School of Ballet in St. Petersburg, Russia.

However, she was very egotistical and belittled those around her. She was also strict and cruel in her teachings, bullying and berating her students that didn’t meet her expectations, not even the students who were top of the class were safe from her wrath.

One of her students dropped out of the school and then ended her life. However, Zelyezda didn’t feel any remorse, but the girl’s brother wanted revenge.

During one of her performances, the brother messed with props hanging above, causing them to fall on top of Zelyezda, breaking both her legs.

Due to this incident, Zelyezda couldn’t dance or even walk, causing her to sink into a deep depression, where she eventually met the same end as the student.

After arriving in Hell, she was greeted by The Puppeteer, who has been watching her perform during her past life. The Puppeteer offered to fix her legs, return her fame and glory, and give total control over the souls she collect in exchange for her “working” under The Puppeteer, making her follow The Puppeteer’s every demand when needed. She accepted with no hesitation.

She still looks down (both figuratively and literally) on everyone around her, and acts entitled around her acquaintances. She does act kind, almost motherly, towards one of the Overlords due to his young age, reminding her of the student, and he prefers to be around her. After learning about the Hazbin Hotel and what Charlie is trying to accomplish, Zelyezda urges the young Overlord to go there to try and be redeemed, wanting to give him a better afterlife and to break free from The Puppeteer’s control.

Design

Her name “Zelyezda” is a combination of the Russian words for “Iron” and Train”.

She is around 13ft tall, making her the tallest of the Theatre Overlords, and taller than Val.

Her sharpness represents her “sharp” tongue and how she acted towards everyone.

Regarding the colors, I wanted to do dark colors, similar to the Black Swan.

She’s made of porcelain to represent her fragile ego, with cracks covering her legs to represent that they were beyond repair and around her neck to represent how she died (hanging).

The ribbons around her ankles, wrists, and neck act as “shackles” due to being under The Puppeteer’s control.

The giant eye on the back of her head looks like a bun when closed, this takes the saying “eyes on the back of her head” quite literally.

Here is a basic reference without the dress and makeup:

Now there’s 2

Mati has many abilities both known & unknown.

One of these abilities is that Mati is able to change Mati’s appearance to anyone that Mati has seen. However, the form is not a perfect replica, & most likely used for intimidation rather than “blending in”.

Mati is able to adjust & change the color/size/thickness of Mati’s body to mimic skin, clothing, accessories & hair; along with being able to form facial features like a mouth, teeth, nose & iris/pupils. However Mati is unable to form eyebrows, makeup & “natural” internal organs. Mati does have some difficulties forming shoes, resulting the impersonation’s feet to still look hoof-like.

Example: Mabel Pines

First impressions with the Pines was not the greatest, then again, if you saw that wouldn’t you react the same way?

Another one of Mati’s abilities, that isn’t depicted above, is that Mati is able to mimic other’s voices. However this works differently to how this ability is normally explained.

Mati can hear & “store” the sounds of words that Mati has heard. Mati can then use these words to communicate. Imagine Bumblebee from Transformers but instead of using a radio, Mati’s repeating words that Mati has heard to communicate. Mati is able to “keep” words for about a couple of months, however Mati can keep words that hold emotional or sentimental value for as long as decades.

Should have seen Stanford’s face when he heard Stanley screaming his name, only to find Mati calmly standing there.

Also you may have noticed that no pronouns are used when describing Mati, this another one of Mati’s abilities. It feels natural to those who are affected by this, even Mati doesn’t know why this happens.