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Camilla by LordDominic

Camilla

LordDominic

More portraits, this time featuring Camilla, a white wolf character I haven't used in several years.


Normally, I'd put some tidbit about her biography here, like how she's the cashier at the Bennettons' pizza place with a personality that sorta straddles the line between "sassy" and "snotty" at times and how she sometimes babysits Lil' Bean, or how she frequents the concert scene in town and that's where she met Mick, but instead I think I need to talk about how she's seemingly a cursed character design.


She started out as an adopted design, something I picked up because I had a handful of those DeviantArt "points" back in 2013. Her original design was very Sonic the Hedgehog, if I recall correctly, and I immediately made a number of aesthetic changes to make her fit in with my style and canon...
Only to have the creator of the design approach me to say "that was actually a design I didn't mean to sell, sorry...".
Luckily, they were willing to discuss things with me and decided that since I'd made so many changes to the design, there wouldn't be any issue if I kept using my version. Phew!


...And then a few years later I started seeing a white wolf goth girl popping up in fan art of some YouTube series that bore a striking resemblence to Camilla, to the point where I considered just quietly abandoning her altogether because I don't want to deal with the "this is a Luna ripoff you stole this" comments... but let's be honest, white wolves with big hair are not the most unique character design, and I let the "this idea may be too derivative of another idea to pursue" thoughts hold me back too many times in the past, so I shouldn't let this stop me.



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Submission Information

Views:
131
Comments:
9
Favorites:
6
Rating:
General
Category:
Visual / Digital

Comments

  • Link

    I'm glad you didn't abandon her, she's a very nice design. I know a lot of artists get very upset about derivative art and if someone is trying to make a living from their work I understand. In other circumstances if the derivation is acknowledged or in this case explained as "She came from here" plus a first date of publication I just don't understand why people get so upset - but as you know they do and I can understand why you might avoid possible confrontation in a hobby that's supposed to be fun. I feel calling your work a hobby could be bordering on insulting, it really wasn't meant to be. Quick change of tack. She looks like one of those ladies of indeterminate age. For some reason I see her as a receptionist. She also reminds me slightly of a friends wife but I can't think why.

    • Link

      Thanks! I've cited my influences before and expressed my regret toward letting "people will call this a rip-off" concerns make me tone down a lot of the weirdness that made my earlier character designs and their world what they were (although, in many ways, that caused me to branch out and try other things, so maybe it was a net positive?), so I figured I shouldn't let that happen again.

      Indeed, all I would need to do is go to DeviantArt and find art of Camilla that was posted in 2013, and that should solve the problem if it arises, and it wouldn't be the first time I have had such accusations leveled at me. Story time!
      A few times between 2014-2018, I had people come to me claiming I "ripped off" their Five Nights At Freddy's fan characters, usually in the case of Harry Horse and Sammy Sheep. First off... both of my character designs are painfully generic visually, so seeing someone else draw a brown horse or white sheep is just sort of to be expected. Second, the naming scheme used in the canon material they were based on made use of alliterative names, and my own take on that scheme required two-syllable names ending in a "Y", so the choices were a tad limited.
      And finally, like you said, I could show them where I had designed and posted the characters months before theirs, and that would shut them up pretty quick! But, still, it was quite annoying to have people approach me and say "hey, this character with some vague similarities to MY character? Change it."

      No, you're right to say this is a hobby, I'm not insulted one bit. I honestly have to tell myself that all the time, this is a hobby, and I probably should tone down my output a bit since I suffer from quite a bit of burnout more and more frequently in trying to keep up that daily art output, an output level that doesn't actually seem to benefit me or anyone else all that greatly.

      All that ranting aside... "Indeterminate age" is probably due more to my drawing style, I've noticed that most of my adult characters read as "adult" but it's not clear if they're 20 or 50, and I honestly don't bother to pin down exact ages most of the time anyways. Camilla is in her early 20s, though, if I had to be specific I'd say she's probably 21 or 22. Old enough to (legally) be familiar with the bar, concert and party scenes around town, and to have a job that she's been at for a while, young enough to still have that somewhat sassy/snotty girl attitude that comes with being in one's late teens but old enough be growing out of that a bit, and to have friends in college even though that definitely wasn't for her.
      I really should have drawn her more than I have in the past, I think years ago I did start a sketch of her leaning over the counter at the pizza place and blowing a bubble with her bubble gum (and yes I am painfully aware of the risks associated with a creature covered in hair having access to chewing gum) and looking bored that I never got around to finishing. That would also lead into me giving some more thought to what the inside of the Bennetton's Pizza Time Restaurant looks like, and developing the cast of weirdos that works there a bit more... Ever have the opposite of "art block", where you have ideas, but for whatever reason just either can't motivate yourself to pursue them, or worse yet, try to draw them but fail to do so successfully to the point where the frustration causes the more traditional type of art block?

  • Link

    Tardis55

    Cute

  • Link

    On a very selfish level I hope you don't cut back on your output, I start my day looking at this site and Deviant Art and it's an unusual day that there isn't something new on both. The difference is I'm watching seventeen artists on the other site and four here where your output is about 90% of my inbox, looking through your folders I remember seeing at the bottom of a page the "Next" button with a figure over a thousand, I've never seen that for anyone else.

    I'm going to have to cut this short getting constant interruptions people want feeding etc.

    • Link

      Well, burnout can and does become an issue, and there have been a couple of times in the past where I've had to go on hiatus to just relax and draw some stuff without worrying about the constant output--it really does seem like my only value/relevance as an artist is my output. Sometimes I feel like one of those YouTube channels that just cranks out repetitive "life hack" or "top 10" videos daily just to stay "relevant in the algorithm"--minus the motivation of monetization.

      That said, I think it reflects more on the activity level of Weasyl (and the fact that you only follow four here, which is a minuscule sample size, and the fact that the other three spend a lot of time on their art and maybe post once or twice a month on average) that I make up 90% of your inbox--I do know, and follow, a few artists who also seem to have daily or near-daily output. Over on DA I have "3.5k" (I hate this modern social media trend of rounding things, I love actual data) posts, when I was cross-posting from DA to FA/Weasyl I was a bit more selective about what I migrated and I combined some things, like those weeks of nothing but portraits, into single posts.

  • Link

    On the subject of age of characters have you ever tried drawing the same character at different stages of their life. I remember seeing art work by Paul Kidby where he redrew two of Terry Pratchetts witches as younger women, he also did Angua an officer in the city watch in both her human and wolf forms. I don't know if you are familiar with his art but if not it's well worth a look. I'd be intrigued to see how Skunk boy would look in his fifty's and would the Great Horned Skunk Dog age at all?

    I just added Camilla to favorites partly because of the why her eyes draw me into the picture, to the point where it's almost difficult to concentrate on other parts of the drawing, I'm always intrigued by the power in some pieces of art but also for the look of intelligence behind the sassiness she is one of those characters that make me wish I could step into this world you are creating. How strange a female character this time what is happening to the heavily (consciously?) suppressed side of my nature!

    I fully understand the state of mind you describe as the opposite of art block and being unable to motivate, I have recently started work again after a year on furlough, working at a different company and am shocked at how little I achieved given a year off, in my defense I was reluctant to spend money but that does not excuse the state of my house and garden. I am supposed to be building a new bench / assembly table for my workshop and so far in weeks have only finished the legs, I also want to build a laser cutter but it's becoming a lazier cutter.

    My new job feels very strange as in the office I work in most of the time everyone else is working from home, they tend to come in one day a week but last week I was on my own the whole time, doesn't help with motivation levels either and a bit of human contact would go a long way.

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      I have done a bit of drawing characters at different ages/stages of life, but mostly drawing the infant characters as children/teens/adults. Drawing some of the adults as middle-aged or elders might be something to try (as those age groups are severely underrepresented in my art and I should practice drawing signs of age like wrinkles and greying muzzles anyways), assuming I can find the motivation of course.

      I also find her eyes quite interesting, one of the things I really like about using very "neutral" color palettes is how they can make a splash of color really pop out--in Camilla's case, aside from some hair dye and clothing, she's pure white, so her deep blue eyes really stand out in comparison. I find that some of my other characters, like the underutilized Chandra Reva, have a similar effect--being nearly entirely grey means Chandra's blue eyes stand out, possibly even more than Camilla's! I find that characters with too many bright colors and patterns just become a bit visually overwhelming, and my general distaste for the stereotypical "fursona" that is a neon green fox or bright blue wolf leads me to want to focus on using natural colors with an unusual (yet still natural-colored) fur pattern or a splash of vibrant color for the eyes or some marking or detail... and failing that, I just need to make the character feel interesting or fun somehow. Nothing about Dominika really stands out in the coloration department, for example, she's a pretty generic (albeit overweight) red fox, yet something about how I portray her seems to interest people in her all the same.

      I do wonder if the whole "lack of motivation" thing is an anxiety response of sorts, sometimes it feels like a case of "choice paralysis", other times it just feels overwhelming (in the case of doing actual house work, for example), and other times there's just a general lack of motivation. For example, you gave me the idea of drawing Skunk Boy as a middle-aged man, and there's nothing really stopping me from doing so in terms of actual costs beyond spending time, and it would indeed be good practice for drawing not only humanoids, but diversifying my art in general... yet despite being an absolute win as as far as ideas go, getting motivated to do anything with the idea might be what kills it.

      Sometimes I legit want to show people the dozens of sketches I have in various stages of completion ranging from "rough outlined pose" to "I could shade this a bit and call it a finished piece", but I don't think I ever will... I suppose if I ever really want to sell out, I could offer up the unused sketches as some "Your Character Here" thing, furries seem to love the whole "YCH" thing, or at the very least, artists love spamming reminders for their YCH auctions four times a day on FA.

      I'm not sure what to say about the work situation--my own job was virtually unaffected aside from the dining room being closed so I went from The Front Till Guy to Lord of the Fries. I suppose a bit of human contact would be helpful and motivating, but how long before things go back to normal and you're lamenting having a bunch of people wandering around the office and lollygagging and distracting you?