Tony - Reference sheet 2025

Tony

He’s just having fun with his friends. 

He's the keyboardist and a backup vocalist of the WornDown Children.

He's always trying to make someone laugh, often himself. Thus he can come up as a very unserious person.

He identifies as “straight” even though he has felt attraction for both sexes in the past, with a clear preference for women. He hasn't stopped to reflect on it.

He’s the son of a lawyer and a housewife. His parents had a very dysfunctional marriage until they got a messy divorce when Tony was 10. His father remarried shortly after and moved out to start a new family.

He assisted at a music school/store where he met Liliana, Diana and Zara. There he also met a kid named David who became his best friend until he became a little distant after his mother passed away.

He and Davo reconnected after Tony was contacted by Zara who invited him to play in her new band and later he got Davo to join as well.

He's been in some relationships but these have been only varying levels of casual so far the longest one so far was 6 months with a girl named Jenny.

…

 And that's a fan's favorite, Tony! 

I mean, kinda. From my male characters he’s by far the one who has received more fanart and guys dming me to tell me he's cute. (This is actually true and it has happened at least twice lmao)

Getting back to this ref sheet business, here's the ref for the pianist for the band who, after RJ, is the one to have changed the most from his original sheet, not because of a redesign but on the basis of me learning to draw him better.

This one’s funny because Tony is the one with the most cartoon energy of them all because even in his more sober proportions he kind of doesn't make sense.

There's a thing I do with most of my characters “head fur tufts” or “hairstyles” or however you'd like to call them where I stylize them to the side of their heads. 

This means that, at least in my mind, when a character’s “hair” goes to one side of the head it actually going to the front a la Simba just for example, except for a few exemptions, like Davo who's “hair” is actually supposed to go to the side of his head though I'm so consistently inconsistent on which one, I actually forget it myself for example, and also when I just feel like it doesn't. I like the shape it gives to their heads. But one can still kind of imagine how would that work on a 3D space

Well, Tony's head feathers usually go behind his beak and it doesn't really make sense. If I were to make a rotation animation of all of them, I think I could figure out how except for Tony, I'd have to go off model with him.

I actually once made a doodle of how he would have to look to kind of make sense in 3d, and he doesn't look bad, but clearly I'm still not changing him. In fact, it fits his personality to be the more cartoony one. He's the type to always be doing bits and such. In fact a couple of times in comics I've drawn him with cartoon proportions and noodle arms even though the rest of the band had regular ones.

See, I'm a true believer in the power of cartoons.

I kind of also want to draw a companion guide on how that part of my style works with these refs. But that's be later.

Here you also get a rare Tony where you can see both his eyes at the same time. It's important to me that people know I can actually draw him like that so they know that me not doing it is me being lazy and not unable lol.

One actual change I made from his original sheet is that he’s no longer wearing a scarf. I thought back then that it could be like his thing, but I drew him in a scarf like two times and then I just forgot to do it again.

He already had a thing with his striped long sleeve polo shirts anyway. 

Fun fact, his name and his fondness for striped polo shirts and I guess obviously his instrument started as a reference to Genesis’ keyboardist Tony Banks. But that's where the references end. If there is anything else, it would be a coincidence.

It's the only time I've done a reference to a real person like that I think.

Some things I kind of want to expand in regards to the relationship part of the presentation. He's never really been in a serious relationship which makes sense as he’s a kind of unserious person. 

So when he has gone out with different people it's always something casual. It also doesn't happen that often as this is making it sound and he’s surprisingly discreet about it. The one girlfriend he had that the band members got to know (that they know of) is a girl named Jenny who has been named dropped at least once, she's also a bit of a mess. They met online and had enough fun together to keep seeing each other for half a year but then they just sort of stopped. She may appear one of these days.

Another thing I didn't mention in the “official" part of his presentation is his relationship with Tak. I couldn't word it easily but another reason is that, technically speaking, in the moment of the “story” they technically don't have one. 

But long story short, they met at highschool. They weren't as close back then but Tony had a huge crush on her. He never asked her out due to a combination of cold feet and bad timings, 

It took him sometime to get over her and then she started working with the band in the visual aspect. Now they're actually closer than in highschool and I guess Tony is not completely sure how he feels right now.

And that's it for now, next is Diana, and probably after Tak. But it may not be next week, before I want to finish a thing. 

Remember I said my next comic would be titled either “Play the game” or “Our House”? Turns out I lied, It will be called “Savoy Truffle (2025 Remaster)” or maybe Deluxe or maybe a completely different thing. See, I wanted to post that one this week, but while re-reading it I realized it could work better, and it’s kind of important to me because that’s Lola’s introduction. (I like Lola). I’m not remaking it, I’m just adding a couple of things. Also, I already started working on Play the game. So I may do those before Diana’s ref. But who knows…