Shun Amino - reference sheet and the story behind the design

Shun Amino, soon to be 19, daughter of friends of the Komadori Inn managers, helping at the hotel during summer for a couple of years now. But this one probably will be her last time, as she's enrolling into a university when the next academic year starts. Usually cheerful and full of energy, she seems to be lost in unpleasant thoughts lately. Does it have to do with the uncertainty of the changes in her life in the near future? Or maybe because of the secrets she keep?

Aside from the sexy hotel owner, the "co-worker-next door" type of girl was also an obvious choice for the roster of main characters. After all, a married boss and a co-worker are completely different relationship dynamics, and both can provide interesting ideas for adventures.

While the idea for Shun came quickly, I didn't have many specific requirements for her appearance. I only knew that due to the chosen field of study, the position of her parents and her young age, she should be portrayed as a fashionable "upper class" person on the one hand, but cheerful and open to new relationships on the other. As for her physique, she was supposed to be somewhere between Tsubame and Fuyuko - so bigger breasts, but not really huge .

As before, SleeplessMax started sketching faces first, and this were his first attempts.

You can immediately see which one we chose. I felt that her bangs and medium-length hair perfectly conveyed her lightheartedness, and at the same time interestingly stood out from other characters.

SleeplessMax also perfectly reflected her character in the poses he prepared for her.

With his face and color samples, the first version of Shun looked like this.

I immediately knew "we need to go bigger", so here are the next versions...

And two more with a comparison to Fuyuko. This time I had the feeling that the "sweet spot" was the version on the left.

At this point, I was confident it would be simple from now on, but since Shun was supposed to look fashionable, we had a little trouble getting her casual clothes to match. One of her sets is of course the work clothes she'll be wearing while she's at work, but what about the other?

Ideas and proposals evolved and we tossed them back and forth. Some of them were too elegant, making her seem unapproachable, some of the color choices would make her hard to distinguish between the other girls in the pixel-art version.

First takes on her casual clothes, and Komadori Inn uniform on the right

Pants, maybe? Or different type of shirt?

Shorter sleeves? Or longer sleeves and a different skirt?

Some different color options.

Final effect? You can see it at the top of this post.

Let me know if you liked any of the other versions better!

And of course, here you can see Shun naked!