Avatar Ten Years Later Compilation

Download

Aang Finished

In case it isn't totally obvious, by the time I got to Aang I was burnt out. If I ever do something like this, I'm going to post these things all at once. The prolonged month seemed to really kill the impact of what I was doing. Also, I imagine if I were doing this as a commissions or as part of a job all of this stuff would be required all at once. Indeed most of it was finished all at once, and this prolonged thing to avoid flooding people's inbox was just foolish.

Anyway

My attitude towards Aang was always, that he was the most Adult of the four kids. I sometimes hear children talk about what it means to be mature and they always touch on ideas that I don't agree with. Maturity does not mean an absence of fun. Maturity does not mean brooding. Maturity is knowing your faults, but still dealing with them. Knowing who you are, what you're about and sticking to that. Aang was the most mature of the entire group.

because of this I feel he needed to change very little. He was fine the way he was. He merely went through puberty. He's full grown, muscular (as martial artists who master several kinds of martial arts tend to be), and handsome. Or at least I tried to make him handsome.

Aang

The Rest of Sokka Week

About the design:

Sokka, like his sister, is a difficult character to describe and ultimately translate. Like Toph, he is a character of contradictions. For example, he usually comes up with the plan that saves the day, but at times acts completely oblivious and stupid. Sokka basically exists for two purposes, to move the plot along, or be funny.

He also is a ladies man. No one who watched the series didn't realize this. He even gave some of the best advice for attracting women ever. "Maintain maximum aloofness." Anyone who knows anything about attracting women realizes that this is completely accurate.

He's smart, atheltic, funny, and understands the opposite sex despite being a mysoginist. I know quite a few people like this. So I based the design on those people. He's tall, handsome, confident, and has a shit eating grin. He's a douche.

A douche we love.

There, a short description. Finally. --- Must. Resist. Urge. To. Elaborate.


Sorry about not updating. I simply haven't had the wherewithal to do it. I mean, not only am I working on other art, but classes and stuff are getting in the way. Like yesterday I spent 8 hours writing a paper for Economics. It's getting towards thanksgiving and a lot of teachers have major stuff due just before thanksgiving. Their logic is that if you get all of the important stuff in before thanksgiving, then students can enjoy their vacation. That's true, but still it puts a lot of pressure to get stuff done.

I'm the kind of guy that likes to get stuff done the second I get it or a week or two before it's due. Like all of these things I'm posting were done a month and a half ago. So I'm trying to get stuff done early and it's taking up most of my time.

Getting sick and being in school is really putting a damper on this whole thing, isn't it?

Oh well. One more week. Next up Aang.

I'm sad that Aang gets no love. I actually have alot to say about him.

TYL Sokka Old Costume and Fire Nation Costume

Tuesday's Normal Wear

Sorry, Election = shitty connection for some reason

Wednesday's

This one's on time woot woot

TYL Sokka Adult Costume

I actually have a lot to say about this, but I don't have the wherewithal to write it right now. Tomorrow I'll do it. I promise

Sokka
Age: 25
Height: Between 5’7” and 5’8”

About the design:
“A buffet of manliness.”

longer description coming soon

TYL Katara Special Costumes

Misato

I wound up tossing this one. It wasn't up to par in terms of quality.

Yoko

I like this one way way more.

TYL Katara Adult Swimwear

Almost done with Katara. Shame too, she was my favorite.

Three For One

Sorry about missing yesterday's update. Like I said, I felt myself getting sick, so after school I downed some NyQuill and went right to bed. I woke up about 10 minutes before I had to get to class today, so I wasn't able to upload the images this morning.

Today, I give you two Katara images and one special image of Kei as an apology.

TYL Katara Second Fire Nation Costume

and

TYL Katara Swimwear

and Finally
Kei- "Yuri, not now."

Part of me wants to make a Beat Angel Escalayer inspired image with Kei as Escalayer and Yuri as that purple haired robot chick. Some of you know what this means.

TYL Katara Fire Nation Costume

Late again.

I feel like I'm coming down with something. I think it's the flu or something. Damn viruses.

TYL Katara Old Costume

Sorry, this one is late. I had too much to do today. Oh well, at least it's up at the same time as the DA one.

TYL Katara Adult Costume

Katara
Age: 24
Height: Between 5’6” and 5’7”

About the design:
I’m going to try to make this much shorter than the Toph thing. Hopefully I can avoid an inane wall of text that no one will really give a shit about.

I actually had an idea for an older Katara a while ago. Deviant Art removed that painting for some reason, but some of you may remember it. (It’s in one of my blog posts if you’re interested in seeing it.)

Katara is a difficult character to pin down, describe and ultimately translate. Whenever I see a description of her, I usually find that it either exaggerates or glosses over her flaws. As such, I think it’s hard to really portray an older Katara wrong. Instead of focusing on what not to do, you have to pin down one of many possibilities.

I think Katara is one of the most accurate depictions of an adolescent girl ever put to TV. In the series her personality is volatile and ever changing. One moment she’s the voice of reason, the next she’s trying to justify stealing or committing murder. In the first season her attitude towards Aang changes and fluctuates from admiration, to jealousy, to maternal, and so on and so on.

As Katara would age, and as puberty passed, this volatile nature would probably go away, or at the very least, be subdued. Most likely, it would merely be subdued. Rarely does a character trait that overwhelming just dissapear. So with this design I want to give a hint of that youthful volatility but still communicate that she had matured as well.

Physically, I wanted to describe this design as “A babe that exhibits a beautifully controlled and asymmetric flow.” I wanted her body to have kind of a wave like quality to it. Her stance is the first attempt to communicate this. All of her weight is on one side giving her an asymmetric balance. Her features (hips, breasts, shoulder, hair, etc.) culminate to give this wave like quality across the countour of her left side, but then there is a much more rigid right side to counteract and balance the figure. This decision further compliments my idea of giving her a kind of under control volatility. Were she to shift her weight, surely she would be more stable, but she chooses not to. She remains stable by conscious choice of how to balance herself.

I also wanted her to be attractive. I wanted her to look kind of like a model. She needed to be “a siren godess.”

To that end, I also chose to age her face a bit. Pick up any anatomy book, any good one at least, and you’ll find a basic layout of how a face can change over time. The fact is, what is said is not gospel. Not all faces grow and change like that. But , our faces do indeed change as we age. Yet, we remain recognizable. I changed Katara’s face to appear more adult, but still retain her innate attractiveness.

I’ve been trying to do that with all of these characters. Age their face, but keep them recognizable.

I also chose to make her well endowed, and to give her shapely hips. I did this to communicate that she’s gone through puberty. I put these two elements together in a way that I think makes her very attractive and shows her obvious age. When it comes to endowments, with Toph, that was just ridiculousness, this attempt is meant to be attractive. Of course, whether or not I succeed is based entirely on the viewer’s tastes. Her hips and legs are thicker to give her a kind of dancer like quality.

Honestly, I read through all of this and think I succeeded more in my previous painting than in this character design. Oh well.


Looks like I failed in making this shorter. Oh well. Maybe Aang’s or Sokka’s will be shorter.

Sorry for the blathering once again.

Toph 10 Years Later Adult Costume

Today I begin uploading my "Avatar Ten Years Later" character designs. I'll upload them here 6 hours before I upload them on DA. As I mentioned on DA, I attempted to follow a few rules of logic and flex my character design muscles without starting from scratch. Here are the basic rules I followed:

1. Must gain at least 1 to 2 heads in proportion.

2. Must be obviously older, in otherwords, they have to look like they've been hit by puberty like a ton of bricks.

3. Each character aesthetic must be described on one sentence. For example, Sokka's aesthetic description is "A buffet of manliness."


Each image will be accompanied with a description of how that basic character was designed. My thought processes.

Anyway, without further adieu.




Toph
Age: 22
Height: Between just Over 5’ and just under 6’ (depending on whether or not you count her hair as a part of her height)


About the design:
Instead of talking about what I did, first let me say what I tried not to do. In all of Avatar, Toph is the most drawn as an adult despite the fact that all of the main cast are children. Why? Because Toph is such an intriguing character and the youngest of the main cast, one can’t help but ask oneself, “I wonder what she’ll be like as an adult?” In most of the fan art I’ve seen a few things happen that I don’t agree with and tried not to do.

Some tend to make her tall, skinny, and girly. That has never sat right with me. None of those adjectives will ever really describe Toph in the series. Toph, despite being a girl, is a stocky and mannish character, that’s half of what makes her intriguing.

However, there is the other side of the coin, and I feel that this interpretation is just as wrong. The interpretation that makes her really really muscled and too mannish, a testosterone dripping body builder girl. I don’t like that either, because despite being stocky and mannish Toph is still a girl. (Remember Tales of Ba Sing Se.)

That contradiction is half of the intrigue of the character. So I approached the character with contradiction in mind.

Toph’s posture and expression are meant to communicate the contradiction in her character. We can tell that she is happy, proud and confident from her stance, hands on her hips, and the wide smile on her face. However, at the same time she is standing on her tiptoes. It’s almost as if she’s still not comfortable being the short member of the group, and is attempting to compensate.

Remember Toph was the most confident and self assured of the group, but was still insecure about her appearance, sad about how she had treated her parents, and was insecure about how others saw her. She went out of her way to prove she could carry her own weight, was visibly hurt when other girls made fun of her appearance, and well, the parent thing should be obvious.

With her basic structure, I approached the character with one basic idea. “Thick.” When I say “Thick” I don’t mean muscled, but I don’t mean fat either. Sort of a compromise between the two. That compromise informed the creation of this design

But in trying to make this compromise I ran in to a little snag. She looked exactly like her old self. Apparently that was the philosophy of her young design as well. I mean, just look at how stocky she is. A good example is when she first wakes up in Tales of Ba Sing Se. Compare her to Aang, someone who is roughly the same age as her. There is a comparable difference between the two in terms of height and general width. I think it is just her nature to be very... compact... like a rock.

As I said before, my strategy with all of these characters was to make it look like they’d been hit by puberty like a ton of bricks. Just making her “thick” didn’t really communicate that. So I made her shapelier, and initially attempted restraint. However, she wound up looking a little too much like Jin. Which in all truth is probably very accurate, but I didn’t want it to look like a color swap on one character. These needed to be unique silhouettes.

Going back and forth, I was finally like “fuck it!” I wound up making her even shapelier than Jin and making her even more well endowed than Jin. I feared the repercussions from the fans but also worried about it ruining the character. Then a friend of mine pointed out, that there is a cliché in Anime where the manliest or the most confident female character usually is the best endowed. He pointed to Kuukaku from Bleach, Kei from Dirty Pair Flash, and Motoko from Ghost in the Shell. I decided to play to this cliché and have fun with it.

I hope that fun comes through and that you enjoy it. Thank you for taking the time to read my blathering. :D

More Deviant Art deletions

A cunt deleted this work, so I'm posting this here. This is my virtual middle finger. Sit on it and spin.

OR

I hope that the ones who support and enjoyed this work will enjoy it here instead. I'll be uploading work like this here instead from now on. Deviant Art is now my print bitch, nothing more.