Lady Pandan Thumbnails + IRL updates

Fair warning - she might not be canon. Pandan is one of my favorite dessert flavors, but I wasn't planning to have Lady Pandan in Sugarplum Cafe because I had no idea how I'd design her. But a friend wants to commission me to draw a Sugarplum Ladies-style illustration for his OC as a Lady Pandan, so I thought I'd take a shot!

For those of you who are unfamiliar with pandan, it is a leaf that, when infused with rice or desserts, gives off a fragrant smell not unlike vanilla and coconut. It also imparts an iconic green hue, although it's often spruced up with food coloring to enhance the green.

My friend is Vietnamese and his OC likes to wear high fashion inspired by Vietnamese fashion, so he provided some really helpful references for the design. I was particular drawn to the áo nhật bình, specifically that chic circular hat. Everyone knows the ao dai, but I can't turn away from a headpiece.

I want to do more than just copy the traditional outfit though, especially if Lady Pandan becomes canon. Sugarplum Cafe is my chance to show my skills with original fashion design after all, so I want to challenge myself to draw inspo from the regional fashion and adapt it to my personal tastes.

So I came up with a few thumbnails, but I'm not loving any of them entirely. Mainly because they rely on embroidery patterns, and I'm worried the detailing will look more costumey than high fashion. It's probably between 2 and 4 for me at the moment, but I'm gonna think about it.

1 - My first attempt, a rectangular silhouette based on the collar. It feels clunky though, and it's the kind of dress where she has to constantly be showing the square hips which could lead to awkward poses for her arms.

2 - In my head, I see a sleeker silhouette for Lady Pandan so I drew a simpler silhouette. It feels the most "ladylike" to me out of the 5 but I worry it is too minimal.

3 - Trying to make 2 more interesting by turning the dress into a set of pants. But Lady Pandan feels like a dress lady, in my head.

4 - This one I think is the most interesting - I exaggerated the bulky silhouette of the dress but gave it more structure. But again, I do think Lady Pandan is a sleeker girl, so I'm not sure. I'm also worried this might look more like Russian traditional costume than Vietnamese?

5 - Just riffing off the "sleek" silhouette, but something about this makes the hat look more like an angelic halo than traditional costume.

Life stuff

I apologize for this month's updates being sparse. I mentioned I was traveling, but I was also in the weeds with job interviews - I ended up doing several interviews during the trip, unplanned. It's been really stressful tbh, especially this month as I was wrapping everything up, but I'm happy to announce the job hunt is FINALLY OVER!!

I will be working at Netflix's games division starting in May! It was nothing short of a miracle - for most of this month I honestly thought I'd be accepting an offer from Meta and was grappling with the consequences of that...but Netflix came through at the last minute and I'm so, so happy and grateful.

Good news - it's fully remote! (I was gonna have to go into the office 3 days a week for Meta...seriously dodged a bullet.) Bad news - Netflix employees don't get Netflix for free! Shocking, right? Apparently we do get early access to content though, if we buy a subscription.

And now that I have a steady stream of income again, I'll be able to resume working on Sugarplum and next month's updates will be back to their usual quality!

Thank you all for dealing with my angst and everything, and for supporting me through all this. With Netflix's compensation I am definitely not dependent on the Patreon anymore, but as always I appreciate your patronage and support of my work so much!