FA+
Shop
A Question of Size
5 days ago
For the two people that will read this:
Something I've been pondering while whittling away on a story.
OCs usually have a 'canon' size, something their owners stick to with varying degrees of fidelity.
Some see the height on the reference sheet as sacred and cling to it for dear life. Others think those fancy numbers are a dare to go far higher or much lower than advertised. Others still have a fluid happy medium; its a character's general size in their day-to-day life until someone or something zaps em', If they haven't embiggened or shrank themselves first.
I fall in camp three three, personally? All my characters have heights I'm supposed to obey. Heck, their heights are posted in each of their profiles. But I rarely ever follow them for long.
When writing, I try to envision them interacting with the world at whatever size they're currently at. How hard the ground shakes and breaks with each step they take. How much difficulty (or lack thereof) they have with too-narrow streets. How bodies become thinner than individual strands of hair. How a tiny struggles to climb to the mountainous peak that is the ridge on the tip of your finger as they shrink smaller and smaller, squeaking to the heavens (your living room) and flailing their itty-bitty hands, trying and failing to get your attention. How it'd feel to be smaller than the dot at the end of this sentence.
When editing someone big or tall, especially during growth sequences, I always bump them up bigger and bigger each pass. A little more height. Teensy bit more muscle. More boob. More ass. More everything. Without fail.
I just can't help myself. :v
Tell me about one of your OCs. How tall or short are they? How big or small can they get? What's your 'comfortable limit' with them, if there is one? Do you follow their advertised height exactly, or do you flow with their ups and downs? If you're an author or an artist, do you (sub)consciously make your subjects larger or smaller come adjustment time?
OCs usually have a 'canon' size, something their owners stick to with varying degrees of fidelity.
Some see the height on the reference sheet as sacred and cling to it for dear life. Others think those fancy numbers are a dare to go far higher or much lower than advertised. Others still have a fluid happy medium; its a character's general size in their day-to-day life until someone or something zaps em', If they haven't embiggened or shrank themselves first.
I fall in camp three three, personally? All my characters have heights I'm supposed to obey. Heck, their heights are posted in each of their profiles. But I rarely ever follow them for long.
When writing, I try to envision them interacting with the world at whatever size they're currently at. How hard the ground shakes and breaks with each step they take. How much difficulty (or lack thereof) they have with too-narrow streets. How bodies become thinner than individual strands of hair. How a tiny struggles to climb to the mountainous peak that is the ridge on the tip of your finger as they shrink smaller and smaller, squeaking to the heavens (your living room) and flailing their itty-bitty hands, trying and failing to get your attention. How it'd feel to be smaller than the dot at the end of this sentence.
When editing someone big or tall, especially during growth sequences, I always bump them up bigger and bigger each pass. A little more height. Teensy bit more muscle. More boob. More ass. More everything. Without fail.
I just can't help myself. :v
Tell me about one of your OCs. How tall or short are they? How big or small can they get? What's your 'comfortable limit' with them, if there is one? Do you follow their advertised height exactly, or do you flow with their ups and downs? If you're an author or an artist, do you (sub)consciously make your subjects larger or smaller come adjustment time?
I play fast and loose with 'who can/can't grow'; there's size differences in individuals, and Mircon Corp. that builds devices, but apart from those who can push limits one way or another, height in normies kinda plateaus to... whatever I feel like, honestly. :v
Was there a reason to create an offshoot setting that separates limited growth and massive behemoths? Or is the other setting its own thing?
And eeeh, the alt Earth stuff with Anastasia and co was overall quite limiting and ended up being so much potential work to justify shifts in history that I just lost passion for it. The new setting however is open for me to be as free as I please. The potential for massive sizes is there, but it's going to be part of the settings progression rather than something that can just happen.
I imagine fluctuating sizes can make for some fun/interesting encounters during campaigns.
Obviously, I really like growth. Not just height and size but BE, AE, muscle growth, the works. When writing I try to base the story around a perceived final height which the climax revolves around. But writing isn't so static and that can change while I'm typing. In the same way that characters can act differently than I want because that's how they'd realistically act, their heights will change because it makes more sense that way.
I'll be honest, I don't almost never have a final height planned out. How they'll reach a certain size and the impact it has on others, sure, but up there it gets very cloudy (pun intended). For me, I get into their head - more like they get into mine, if we're being honest - and the perspective shifts from 'what do I want?' to 'what would they do?' Would they impose limits on themselves, when I wouldn't? Would I stop them when their point has been made, or would they keep going and push things to the extreme? Different characters have different answers, and that always ends up with fun routes in stories that I didn't intend.
What would you say is more fun to work with? A character whose thoughts on size vibe with yours, or a character you'd have to proverbially battle against to wrangle in? Or a hesitant character need to encourage?
I usually write with an ending in mind. A punchline, if you will. Sometimes it changes mid-story because the characters act a different way than I predicted, but otherwise it's fun to try and justify how they get there.
Yeah, I also shoot for a general ending, but even that can change based on spur of the moment things I didn't anticipate. You've read the original version of the current story I'm working on. The beginning and middle is more or less the same if you squint hard enough, but everything afterwards radically different. And lengthier... the things I do for my characters...
But it's been a while since my last story. Now I have a gallery of characters, but only some can grow. Miura can gain a tiny bit of height and much more muscle mass while gaining power her own way, while Rafale became a power-hungry Galarian Zapdos, so much it makes her previous form just "muscular". So yeah, none of my girls can flatten cities under her paws, but I had fun with Rafale being a macro for once (see the pic from Commoddity), because dynamax is a thing and I wanted to take the opportunity for that.
Still, growth is something very exceptionnal in my "universe". I don't feel like making my OCs giant sized for no reason. If I wanted an exceptionnally large gal, I'd have a proper OC that can be any size it want to be. I like my characters when they're a above the average height (with a max size of around 8ft), but with strong bodies, at least athletic level. So far I have Rafale with an humongous physique, but I wonder if I'll have an even stronger gal in the future?
Pokemon OCs do have a massive advantage of different forms and regional variants (mega, dynamax, Alolan, Galarian, Hisuian, Paldean) opening up new doors. Feeling the urge to make Mirage or Rafale macro? Dynamax (great pic btw)! Want a moltres that's bigger than normal? Say they're from Galar! The sky's the limit. If you do make someone even stronger than Rafale, I look forward to seeing them! :D
I don't have any plan for that kind of character in the future, but... who knows?