The Chronological Annie: 2018-2022

2018-2019

Something about her that I don’t draw enough is that she enjoys wearing oversized jackets - which is a little ironic since she’s only worn normal-sized jackets until now. Her eyebrows started getting a little larger here.

No comments on her design here, but this is by far my favorite Annie comic so it gets included. Better luck next time, Annie!

Right about here is where her design really got away from me -  she started shifting from a cute, fluffy red panda design to a kind of burly red panda - and while the design itself isn’t terrible per se, it wasn’t actually what I was shooting for with her. I actually ended up being really unhappy with her design for a good while.

2020

…I did manage to draw one of my favorite Annie panels during this time though (the first one), so it’s not a complete loss!

Still, I wasn’t super thrilled with ho she had evolved and I wanted to fix that. I thought for a while about what to do, what was the best way to interpret a red panda into a character design? And after much thought the answer I decided on was just “do whatever makes her fun to draw”.

Basically everything but her face was changed - a completely new outfit, her necklace became a choker, and of course a new body type. Instead of focusing on incorporating panda-ish shapes I just focused on what shapes would be most fun to draw, which is why she has such baggy pants and the fur poking out from her choker is doing whatever it’s doing. It’s a design I ended up liking a lot and made her a lot more fun to draw.

It’s pretty subtle but her shirt is inspired by another piece of Japanese media - no hints, but props if you can guess it.

2021

There’s the beach jacket again!

2022

The most recent and most mild change she gets is giving her round eyebrows back - they way they evolved made them look pretty much exactly like Tanner’s or Rory’s eyebrows, and while they could be expressive the little brows were something unique to her. Also, not enough of my characters wear shirts with pictures despite Tanner complaining about just that.

… And of course, the secret of her choker is revealed!

Annie doesn’t have quite as many changes as my other characters, but personally I feel like her design lows are much lower. Luckily I also feel like she’s really fun to draw now, and we’ll be seeing a lot more of her in the future!