Reintroducing Melanie

First of all, thanks for all the positive feedback on the previous archive post with all the original Mel art. Everyone was really great & supportive! I planned on replying to folks once I posted this, but this ended up taking forever & it had to be balanced with a deceptively busy work schedule.

With the other post, I wasn’t really looking to have a pity party or trash anything that holds any kind of nostalgia value for anyone. The art was just from so long ago! I’m still working on improving, but I feel like I‘ve progressed a lot since then. I like her in them, I like the concepts of each, but for me, looking back? The art  come off as a little embarrassing. Hell, the original Melanie scan was drawn so damn tiny (I was afraid of someone stumbling on to it). We’re talking napkin sized. I almost actually redrew them (still might one or two).

||| 

Ok but as for this, I had been kicking around the idea of bringing her back for a while, but I felt it would maybe be a little weird if I just picked up drawing her the exact same after such a long hiatus. I had started playing with the premise of keeping her age consistent with those original pieces, so she’d maybe be a bit more ‘MILF-coded’ now.

I feel that, due to recent events, the term ”Cool Aunt” has been tainted a bit, but that was the vibe I was going for here with her personality. The more I’ve toyed with the idea, the more I love the idea of a therapist that specializes in mostly expansion-related clientele, given her own history of so many expansions. 

To be clear, she doesn’t really have one specific trademark outfit or look like other OC’s. Just dark hair (with very slight gray streaks on either side now). She‘s got the money to be a little more stylish now, but it’s mostly put into finding bright, vintage professional clothes. Still her casual clothes are old & mostly stretchy, given her luck.

I have a short outline for a story, & an idea of a series way way far down the line but nothing else planned for her immediately at the moment. But once I clear a few other things off my plate, maybe I’ll look to maybe do some swaps with mutuals. Hit me up if you’re interested.