Note: most of this blog entry was lost when my old WriteFreely instance shut down, and as such was rewritten.

It's been a while since my last writing, but it isn't from lack of wanting to! Instead—as life always does—I've been given a new curve-ball in the planning department which has captivated my attention: Art Fight. Now you might be thinking: “that doesn't start until July 1st, what could you be doing in the interim?” To which I'd say “wow, I wish more people said interim,” but also: “making a character profile.” I had no intention of joining, but I was convinced in early June by someone I know that it's a fun experience, and folks really are doing it just to have fun making art. Not to mention the fact I've been having a lot of trouble making visual art as of late, and I felt maybe some outside pressure would help me get some lines on the canvas. While it's still up in the air how I'll react when the event gets into full swing, even just preparing before the start date has been very rewarding for me! Where I'm normally struggling to open Krita more than a couple times a month, I've been drawing virtually every day throughout June.

When you sign up for Art Fight, you're given the ability to add characters, which is what others are allowed to draw for you during the event. The pictures and description that accompany a character would be their character profile—effectively a reference sheet. So there I was, figuratively naked on the street corner, in need of something to represent me. As opposed to rummaging through proverbial bargain-bin of my older art, I had a strong urge to take this opportunity to tailor my own suit from scratch. I was going to create a reference sheet in the few weeks that I had left, and it was going to be something I would be proud of! For years now I've seen a myriad of such sheets, none of which I've felt instructed me to draw the character better than any other image would've. I refused to fall into the same trap of a single mirror image flip, and a blurb about liking ice cream and hating mean folks. So, with that all being said, what did I end up with?

After a few weeks—and about 45 hours in Krita—I managed to condense the essence of Foxfire into something comprehensive and digestible. It's actually large enough that it's broken up into two images, and spans several segments:

Page Section
1A Full Body 360°
1B Emotion Board
1C His Proportions
1D Do's and Don'ts
2A General Writing
2B The Toon Force

You can further think of this like I title the pages, which pretty much amounts to: “drawing the little guy,” and “writing the little guy.” The rules I had for myself were pretty straightforward, which was that I want to show off all the main facets of Foxfire, but that everything I wrote must also be accompanied by a drawing. By doing this, not only do I provide more and more references for drawing the character in unique ways, but it also allows for his identity to become apparent to anyone who reads it through. It's one thing to be told Foxfire is a cartoon ham and a goofball, who'd subvert reality itself to make a dad joke, and another thing entirely to experience it. Writing characters is something I find woefully lacking in reference sheets, and I really don't understand why. If you want someone to do anything beyond making a character stand in the void, the artist needs to have information about who they are. What's their moral compass like? How do they react in various situations? What types of intelligence do they have? What are things they normally do in their world? Even things like identity will often be tossed along without consideration for nuance. If a character is trans-fem, non-binary, or asexual, I don't think I've ever seen a sheet spend time to elaborate on what that experience means to the character. Identity is not a monolith, and the same terms can be used to house a whole host of preferences and lived experience.

Anyway, for the first time in my life, I finally feel satisfied with a character reference sheet. It might not answer every possible detail, but it feels like a fairly tight ship that should give someone all of the tools they need to design their own scenario with Foxfire. I drew him more in the last three weeks than I did in the last three years, all because I finally had an outside reason to do so. I also hope in some small way, I can make others consider thinking harder about their own reference sheets. If a character or a sona means a lot to you, really show us who they are, and put in that extra elbow grease to impart that on the page. Make a reference sheet that'll allow you to never pull a different image from your old pile, because it's just that comprehensive!

I wanted to make one of these for Kate too, but I didn't have enough time. Perhaps when the event is over I can though, or at the very least, before Art Fight 2027—if I decide to do this again! Once the event begins, everything else will continue to be on the back burner like it has been, until August. I didn't want to disappear for that long though, so I felt obliged to write something about the event before it actually began. It'll be bittersweet, since I'll both want to be spending all of this time drawing, but I want to write too! There's a few topics I've already lapsed on, since I've been so focused on the character profile, and I'm sure there'll be more still throughout the month of July. When I wrap up with Art Fight—no matter how the event goes—I imagine it'll be an experience worth writing about too, so I'll be sure to do that when I can. I'm quite excited to see all of this play out, especially with how much I've been pushing myself just preparing for it. Speaking of, if you're interested in the event too, here is my Art Fight info:

Art Fight unfortunately locks its site down to only registered users, which I do not agree with. If you do not wish to register an account, you may view the new reference sheet via the Mastodon post. The additional info on Art Fight amounts to me saying I use free (as in freedom) software to create, that you can draw my characters in any way you see fit, and that if I draw your characters, you may use, modify, and distribute the drawing under the terms of CC-BY-SA 4.0.

All writing is licensed under CC-BY-ND with attribution to Foxfire. The FSF recommends this license for opinion pieces.