Forest City Blog

CW: I swore     Shield your eyes, it is time for some of the ugliest designs in Forest City history!!!!!!! Incarnation 4 : 4!? What!? But you already did 4 and 5...actually I didn't, you see, young grasshopper, I kept this one for later, it actually was designed on October 14, 2020, 3 days before Incarnation 5. This is probably the hardest design to talk about. You see, I designed this version of Bonnie without really taking a look into her character. I mostly got inspired by previous designs and took elements that I thought were cool. Apparently, polka dot stockings are really ugly, but this sketch is the most pleasing to look at, in my opinion, I wish that I had stopped here with the nasty design, but this was up to my standard for the time...THIS!?!?1?!? The problem children with this design consist of: the pose, the silhouette, the facial expression is not selling it for me, the scrunchie, and the tail looks tacked on, it always does, even in the new art. Despite thi...

      I almost was tempted not to share these sketches because I don't think they fit into the character file...standards?  These are the weird middle child images that I kind of like, it's like when you look back at your old art and say, "Hey I actually think this is good." The Bonnie designs in these illustrations are actually similar to the new design, I kind of like her face shape a lot in these drawings. Anyway, freshman/sophomore year is a big part of the story, a major plot point happens, that I feel is necessary to showcase my design process. I won't go too much into detail with my ideas and process behind these images, as they are mostly just kind of generic like, I added the heart hair clip, that disappeared from existence.   Incarnation 5 : This illustration was done on October, 17, 2020. Despite the old look of this artwork, I really like the face on Bonnie, it has this level of teen awkwardness to it that I want from this time of her life, now ...

    Bonnie has always been a character where her design has been the most displeasing to me. For context, when I first began designing the prototype characters, Bonnie wasn't even a thing. There wasn't a mean girl character to start out with, the prototype characters were always setting up the story with a drastically different conflict from the end product. So at its conception, Bonnie never existed.     It may have been Hamilton fever that led me down to the path of mean girl characters or The Owl House . Probably more on the side of Mean Girls and Heathers . Bonnie was a character that was originally inspired by those 1980s-2000s mean girl characters from my childhood, design wise. On paper, Bonnie doesn't act like those '90s mean girls and that was never my original idea with this character. What makes Cobalt, Midge, and Tora mean, isn't what makes Bonnie mean. So designing this character was a long and difficult process, considering my 1980s-2000s in...

    It’s not actually Valentine’s Day, but the school decided to let us hand out our Valentine’s cards and treats during homeroom. This was the first year I had gotten anything from anyone besides-     “Hey, Mac,” said Tora, who was practically towering over me, his jaw was crooked and he had an under bite. I winced at the thought of what happened to him. He handed me a small box and I peeked inside to see-     “These look really good!” I practically shouted, “I never knew you could bake.”     “My grandma helped me,” he said, his yellow eyes darted away, “I wanted to give them to you because I’ve known you for so long.”     My eyes widened, so I was right about knowing Tora since my childhood. I’m sure Hazel would love these butter pecan cookies. I sat down at my desk.     “Sorry I’m late,” Cobalt began, he flopped down at his desk and quickly checked the cups in his hands, “Earl gray and spiced po...

    Cobalt waved at me as I stepped inside of Hazel’s house, I took my shoes off at the front door and set them aside.     “How was the library?” Hazel began.     “We didn’t go,” I replied.     “Oh…” her voice trailed off, “well where did you go.”     “The mall…” I answered quietly, “Clove’s.”     “You went to Clove’s!” Hazel said in surprise while her brown eyes widened.     I pondered on what to say, but finally decided to break the question, “Did you know she was living in Forest City?”     “I did,” Hazel admitted, “I was going to tell you when the time was right…because of your father.”     It took a minute for this all to make sense with me, I wanted to be angry, but instead I understood why she would keep this from me. Dad would have freaked out if he had known I was talking to Clove or that I was going to her house.     “Cobalt did ...

     Now, I had the paintings in my arms and I had realized who was in the door, my eyes almost filled with tears of joy. I shoved the painting in Monty's arms and ran over towards the figure.      "Mac!?" Clove began, "What are you doing in my apartment?"      "This isn't an art studio?" I asked.      "Surprise!?" Cobalt said and winced awkwardly.      "Yeah, this was kind of planned," Monty admitted and nudged Cobalt in the arm.      "Yeah...definitely...totally was planned...to the t," Cobalt replied in bits and pieces, he shot a cool look at Clove.      "Oh hey Cobalt," Safiya walked past Clove and waved at Cobalt.      "What's going on here?" I asked and released Clove from my grasp.      "You know...that's a great question," Cobalt replied, "...for Monty to answer!"      "How do you two know of Cobalt already?" I asked Clove and Safi...