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satellite-blossom · 22 days

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NEW ART !? It's more likely than you think !

I've redesigned Léa's Magical form again, but this time around I've actually colored (& shaded) the whole thing ; I'll share more of my process under the read more.

Feel free to reblog this (but it's ok if you don't) !

(Léa use they/them pronouns and are agender)

So this is Léa's old Magical form, or at least the last art of it I had completed before the 2024 version :

I was going for a fancy, somewhat ouji inspired outfit that'd still be comfortable to wear, as Léa Acorn's style is all about being cute yet comfy. Their body saw no change from their regular form.

I think I was already not fully satisfied with this design by the end of 2021, but as time went on my list of grievances kept growing longer. I started to dislike how much of the design was pure white ; it's not really something I like on Magical Girl designs but for some reason I included it here, probably because I was trying to branch out and take inspiration from series like Lolirock & Pretty Cure for once. I also ended up finding the jacket kinda dumb, or at least the way it fit on top of the shirt seemed off. I had no idea how to color the shoes when I drew this design and it was bugging me more and more over time.

But while I fell out of love with the outfit, my main grievance was the staff-paintbrush-scythe hybrid, which was not only drawn poorly but also pretty boring. I couldn't help but try to redesign it just a month or two after completing the new ref, but I didn't want to redo the whole thing as back then I still made my refs in Microsoft Publisher with the help of Photofiltre, which was a slow and painful process I dreaded.

(Léa's Mobian forms 2021 ref, for... Reference)

So between my laziness, art block and the general state of my life I wasn't able to complete any new design before this year (2024). Let's break down this new design, shall we ?

This was my main inspo board this time around :

As you can see I kept the lolita/ouji influence but added some streetwear elements to it. I felt like the previous design didn't do a great job showcasing the mix of preppy prince & comfy fashion Léa are supposed to encapsulate, so I brought up pictures of a character that had only influenced their story and personality so far : Sora from Kingdom Hearts !

It's not something I bring up a lot anymore, but I used to be well-versed in Kingdom Hearts lore and Léa's story was heavily influenced by it ; they were even supposed to fight with a keyblade at one point ! Design-wise, I borrowed the length of Sora's shorts/jumpsuit for Léa's bloomers, and replaced their cropped suit jacket by a short-sleeved hoodie (which also mirrors some of their Sonic.exe world designs). I mixed these elements with lolita items for a cuter look.

Léa share my love of ties, so I've replaced their bow tie by a regular one ; it's somewhat short to showcase their shirt, which is a revamped version of the old one.

For the legwear I took inspiration from some long flowy legwarmers I saw in a few fairy kei coords, and also the shoes from this CocoPPaDolls screenshot I've taken years ago, back when the game was still up :

(I miss this game every day)

And of course I needed the shoes to be velcro LED shoes, because that's just the Léa Acorn way.

The rounded pink heart-shaped gems throughout the outfit were somewhat inspired by Amulet Heart from Shugo Chara.

Talking about gems, time to talk about the staff ! It was inspired by Amulet Spade's paintbrush, some Lolirock items, and a bunch of bootleg Magical Girl wands. Why reference bootleg wands, you might ask ? Well, since they're already off compared to the real deals, they allow me to not design wands that are too similar to ones from well-known properties.

I've been meaning to make Léa's eyes pink in their magical form for years but didn't actually follow through for a while. I ended up making their eyes brownish pink to not make their eyes too light, as I felt like it'd remove some of their charm (I already felt guilty for not keeping their eyes brown in this form). And of course, I had to bedazzle their eyes to hell and back.

Actually all this shininess and sparkling was inspired by the original drawing of Léa's Magical Form drawn all the way back in 2017 and redrawn in 2018 :

For some reason I took a lot of inspiration from Sailor Moon for these despite Léa's role being inspired by Card Captor Sakura (and Kingdom Hearts). Also Wish Gems used to be called "Magical Chaos Emeralds" and look just like the regular Chaos Emeralds, which was kinda dumb. But I loved the energy of these pieces so I've tried to recapture the "sparkly pink magical transformation void" vibes they had ; I hope I've succeeded on that front.

Anyway, thank you for reading this all the way through ! I hope this was an interesting read, somewhat.

#my berry own art #sth #sonic oc #magical transformation #magical girl #magical boy #magical enby #mobian oc #mobian #Léa Acorn #sonic fan character #kawaii #artists on tumblr #art #digital art #sonic fc #sonic original character #oc redesign #scythe

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