#eta: i feel the need to clarify that the reason why i dont want to talk about her isn't just because i wasnt happy that she was mimicking me

[etihw000]

You, Boun, Ninja and Taxi were my inspo for doing character designs, though I have to ask, what was the logic of the fashion you gave when interpreting the skins back at like 2013/2014? I could never figure out how to get that 2010s mcyt aesthetic of designs.

i’m gonna put this here for future reference: i do not want to answer asks that mention taxey. so if anyone else had sent in an ask involving her i probably deleted it and will continue to delete them, sorry.

but you tickled a bit of my rambling bones because i do like to talk, and she is part of what happened (i will hereby refer to her as T); so here we go.

i think you can separate my designs into two eras: before-T and after-T. before T came around, my designs interpreted the skins pretty literally. here’s bodil, here’s sky/ty/mitch/jerome, here’s bashur, and here’s jason.

my explanation on this: i was 13 and didn’t really like challenging myself. i’m pretty sure i took jason’s design from dopier, for example. so i took the easy way route out on a lot of things! 

but most notably, i didn’t want to draw complicated designs like sky’s. so the answer was very simple and clear: obviously, put it onto a sweater! i’m sure it was originally meant to be armor, but i didn’t want to draw armor. that’s too much thinking, too much highlighting, and i just wanted to pump out fanart for what i liked.

i didn’t like drawing checkerboards, so i switched them to lines.

i didn’t want to draw an anthro, so i just made it into a bear hat ala michael (i’m pretty sure this bear-type hat was more prominent in 2014, but it seems to have been simplified into just a hoodie with bear ears?).

i didn’t want to draw a humanoid watermelon nor did i even know where to begin with that, so i just drew bashur’s skin as a human and mirrored the design onto his hair and everything else was kept similarly.

it’s what happened with jason’s design - remember his astronaut-y outfit? yeah, i changed it to a hoodie shortly afterwards with an astronaut-y print. hated drawing that shit, challenging yourself is dead.

so in early 2014 (i came to the realization that i actually didn’t draw mcyt in 2013; i started drawing it in 2014), honestly just look at the skins you want to interpret and go with the simplest possible outcome. the end.

however, if you’re talking a bit later with the more unique designs - there was one notable thing that happened that caused it.

T.

see, i was a cranky little 14 year old child who got way too much attention. and with that attention came people copying my art - and one of them was T. 

i was highly uncomfortable at the time because, well, when you’re 14 you want to be unique as possible; you wanna stand out. and i was the only one who drew mcyt in this vaguely anime style way (because it wasn’t minecraft). and because we were all fucking weebs i assume people just started copying my art style wholesale.

see, people would mistake me for T. and vice-versa. i was extremely unhappy with this bullshit. “why are people mistaking me for this person,” i thought very unhappily to myself. and because i didn’t want to change my bloody art style, i decided designs were the way to go. so i went a bit crazy with it.

started out pretty simple. i cut ty’s shirt slightly differently (it still plagues his fanart to this day, i’m sorry ty). i gave bodil a beanie. everything was fine.

and then i still didn’t fucking want to draw checkerboards, so i just made a unique design for mitch. it followed with zek (the jacket on the right with the blue), who also had a checkerboard print. 

i did not want anyone replicating what i did, because it pissed me the fuck off something fierce. and i don’t know nor do i remember this clearly, but i’m pretty sure T started doing the same damn thing anyway. and i’m pretty sure it’s only T, because when I talked with swift and jasie they didn’t remember doing this shit. it was literally the two of us and whoever happened to be watching us do it.

it wasn’t meant to be easy to replicate. 

it was meant to be a bitch to replicate.

(i did it with rage too. the man didn’t even have a checkerboard skin. the long hair also plagues his fanart to this day, too. sorry rage.)

the other designs (ragegaming-era) were in 2015. and i was still the same angry 14-year old kid, especially since the T situation hadn’t gotten any better. we were still being mistaken for each other. people were genuinely confused about which of us were who and i don’t know how to explain to you how much anger was packed into my tiny 14 year old unsocialized body. 

i genuinely still don’t understand it now because our art styles were fundamentally different.

so i pitch you this question: what happens if simple skins meet this anger at being copied when even the simpler prints intended to be a bitch to replicate end up being mimicked, especially when the person you didn’t want copying you followed you into a wholeass new fandom? (we were more divided than now; TC and Crew were two completely different fandoms lol; we didn’t generally unite ourselves under ‘mcyt’)

you end up with other weird attempts. strangely asymmetrical cuts. even more complicated patterns. i apparently hid these but it was hell, i tell you. 

but i can assure you that the patterns on my designs were almost always symmetrical, albeit colored differently from the other side. the asymmetrical parts were different - a cut, a rolled up pant leg. something that you could do with a regular article of clothing. i know that in my circle there were some people that would have different length in shoes. i never did that. i would literally never write words on a shirt, too. i wasn’t one of those graphic tee people.

then i guess in late 2015 i got tired of it all and went back to the simple times of just not wanting to draw difficult designs before quitting altogether.

so you want to know what defined 2014 designs? 

it was a 14 year old’s absolute anger at being copied to fucking death and having to be mistaken for other people.

i hope this helped and i am now going to choose to forget that i ever decided to answer this ask. not because it was a bad ask, but because i don’t like thinking about T in particular. 

thank you for indulging my rambling bones. here’s a tl;dr for you:

Before-T designs (simpler)

the interpretations are literal.

if you can’t tell what’s going on, just make it a sweater and copy the patterns on the skin 1:1.

if there’s a different head (jason’s astronaut helmet, jerome’s bacca head) just make it a hood or a hat.

After-T designs (more difficult)

you still don’t wanna draw things out of your comfort zone, so stay out of the armor/anthro business.

give every design two layers - three at most. 

you love hoodies :)

if the skin is simple, use slightly different shades to add patterns (i believe he had a plain blue hoodie and plain black pants).

want to be even MORE unique than before? add something asymmetrical. remove a sleeve, roll up a pant leg, or something, but never shoes or gloves. they are sacred and you shouldn’t do that to them.

idk someone pointed out that i was apparently allergic to necks because i kept giving designs chokers or scarves or whatever. they’re usually solid in color

#2013mcyt but make it crow #y'know i worried a bit that i would come off as this extremely salty asshole for writing this reply #but then i remembered that i was the asshole of the 2014 fandom so like whatever #ask #eta: i feel the need to clarify that the reason why i dont want to talk about her isn't just because i wasnt happy that she was mimicking me #the reason is something deeper and more personal lol!!!! im petty but not THAT petty