story stuff i had laying around from last year


upper left: style exploration when i was intentionally going for a The Lion King adjacent look. quickly decided i hated it. featured here is a generic "teenage" lion boy

upper right: more style exploration. i was originally going to go for a faux 90s 2D VHS aesthetic, again as an obvious homage to its main source of inspiration, but the story has enough (ow the) edge to it that it felt inappropriate to make it as cute or stylized as TLK. i wanted realistic proportions with simplified details, but no matter what i tried i couldn't be pleased with what i'd made

lower left: once i decided i wanted to go for a rendered realistic look, i began making and, if i could find them, editing 3D assets to use for character artwork down the line. this is a closeup of the "young lion cub" base specifically done for testing expressions ',:/

lower right: this is the same base with the neutral expression. i either later edited this base to fix the facial proportions a bit or i just thought i did and tbh now it feels funnier not to check (i will hate myself for this down the line)