Well, just when I thought I wouldn't be designing any more characters just yet, this one comes up out of nowhere. Seriously, this is the third character design idea I've had just this month!!! The first was Foosie, the second was a leafy seadragon dude whose design turned out... okay. I've kind of shelved him. Maybe he'll come back some other day, maybe not. But recently in a furry Discord server, I was reminded yet again by seeing someone else's anthro moth, that I've been meaning to do one myself for ages, whereupon two users at once said they'd love to see my take. A week later, and here we are.

So this is Harper! He's a moth, as you might be able to tell. As for what exact species she is, I don't think I can give an answer to that. I went in for aesthetics rather than scientific accuracy, so there was a lot of artistic licence used (as one kind of has to when anthropomorphising arthropods). For his colours, I went for a predominantly black-and-white aesthetic, just to spice things up a bit since I'm so used to using bright colours. Her fur (?) is more ivory-coloured, though, with the ruff around his neck being a dark brown, just so she's not literally just black and white. That would be kind of boring. But I will say... after I made his palette and popped it in my folder next to Foosie's... (link)

Wow, what a difference in terms of complexity and overall tone. (This moth has a classy colour palette!) Because it occurred to me while designing her that he does superficially resemble Foosie with the big expressive eyes, floofy hair, cheek fluff, you know, that kind of thing. But the colours (including the inverted eyes) give her an altogether different feel. The eyes were inspired by the moth that kickstarted the lamp meme last year: (link)

I love the look of those eyes. But yeah, anyway, I may as well address the elephant in the room. You may have noticed me being cheeky with the pronouns. Well, when I started, I wasn't sure if I wanted my moth to be male or female... so then I thought, why not leave it as a mystery? I love the idea of a character who's so perfectly androgynous that nobody can actually tell by looking at them - so all their friends are arguing about it behind their back and trying to solve the mystery, but they're too embarrassed to just ask! And then all their efforts to find out completely fail, or in other words, wacky hijinks ensue. Meanwhile Harper is completely oblivious to this, but if he was aware she would probably find it hilarious. I also liked the idea of designing a character and leaving the audience to formulate their own headcanons about their gender. So then at the end of the hypothetical series you'd have the big reveal and the fans who'd been arguing in the forums would get to find out who was right... unless there was no reveal and instead the moral of the story was that it doesn't matter if Harper is a boy or a girl, what matters is who s/he is on the inside and what a good friend s/he is. I'm reminded of the debate over Mangle from FNAF...

Oh, whoops, I got really caught up in that hypothetical scenario which probably doesn't make sense to anyone but me. But yeah, I have no strong feelings one way or the other on Harper's sex. Is that the hairstyle of a tomboy or an emo boy? Are those feminine curves, or is it just an illusion caused by the thick fluff around the hips? You decide! 😉 I could go on about all the specific choices I made, but I've already gone on long enough. I will mention the name though - "Harper" might seem like a slightly weird choice, but I wanted to be sure to pick a unisex name and this was the one I found that I liked the best for this character (it sounds classy to match the colour scheme). What do you think? Did I do a good job at creating an androgynous character who could very plausibly make someone second-guess their gender, or does s/he unmistakably look like one or the other? Answers on a postcard, please.

_{I know his face may look a little weird in some of the drawings, but her facial structure is kind of unlike any I've tried before, so until I draw him again (IF I draw her again) it may take a little while to get it down.}