How Kurobi was born?
The name I use on my website as well as in games is also how my OC, my self-insert is called. But have you ever wondered, how she actually came into being?
Was it some idea of story? World? Universe? Not really, although I do plan to give her a world to live in.
In fact, she first came out as a video game character.
How it all started...
It's year 2020, not a very fortunate year I know, but here's where all things begun. During that time, by inspiration from one online artist I used to follow back on Twitter I felt a need of creating my own character.
The need actually came because I began thinking "Damn, I do like drawing shoddy fan arts of people's OCs, but maybe I should get my own character to draw one day.". And here it struck.
Firstly I had to create a design. Back then I used MS Paint, GIMP and Drawpile. The last program is basically a drawing program, that lets you host a session to draw with other people.
The first design was a cat girl. Yes, coming from a guy, who likes fox girls, I firstly intended for my first OC to be a cat girl. Why? Well, firstly I just wanted to bash everything I liked into a character (I would do it the second time, but this time with more thought taken into it) and just draw it.
The result?
I would show it, but unfortunately, the image was lost to time, I had sent it only to a few people I lost contact with a long time ago.
You just had to imagine, that the design took a lot from designs of Fujiwara no Mokou and Yamame Kurodani from touhou, with the hair and cat elements taken from Moge-ko from Mogeko Castle.
I never came out with any sensible name for it...
For the actual birth of Kurobi, a few months had to pass...
Birth from cubes
A few months later, in August, I decided, that I want to make myself a Minecraft skin. Since I did not want to make another existing character - I decided to let my imagination loose and started thinking of appearance.
And the result was actually far better, than a cat girl mentioned before.
Here are the first known pictures of Kurobi:
"I am placing blocks and shit..."
Fleshing out the character
Back then the new OC hasn't got any name, but it didn't last long. With emphasis on her red hair, I had to come with a name, that gave me associations with the red color.
This also came in a video game, though a different one - Unturned.
In one of the maps - Russia, there was a small area called "Krovi Estate". An abandoned estate, occupied by Mafia mobs, that got infected. The name of the area comes from the russian word "Кровь (Krovi)", which means blood.
With the word for a name, I had to make it fit the anime girl aesthetic. I "Japanized" the word, so it could be written, like how would probably a Japanese person say it. (I did not choose the word for blood in Polish - "krew", because it would not probably sound well)
With that, here came the characteristics - and I simply made her a gun nut, just like I am one myself. I just needed to draw her and voila, the first drawing of Kurobi happened in the same month.
"What are you looking at?"
Her design was simpler, consisting of a T-shirt, hoodie, jeans and sneakers. This is was her first design version - She didn't have gloves and bandages yet.
Every revision of her design was still made as a change for minecraft skin. The changes covered changing hairstyle, as well as giving her gloves, switching watch's position, giving her a forearm bandage, gloves and a holster.
The drawing would receive similar changes, eventually receiving colored form. (It's ugly though, I used it only as a reference for a friend)
This is the last time you see the watch and a ponytail.
Gab's rendition of Kurobi, and the same image you see in my About page.
Finalized design, done with the other friend involved giving her another bandage, on her left forearm, as well as giving her combat boots, instead of sneakers.
So far she only received minor changes, giving her mostly joke forms, like the one in a picture made by my other friend - Rapahel.
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA" ~ Beheaded Kamikaze, 1377 B. C. , Egypt
The future of Kurobi
So far, I do not plan on chnaging anything in her design. Like I mentioned in the beginning, I plan to give her a world to live in, making her both a character of her own story, as well as be my self-insert.
I had a lot of ideas of her appearing in various costumes or appearances based on games I played, such as appearing in a H.E.V Suit, or with a halo hovering above her head.
But the world I plan to introduce her in would be a separate game, made by myself.
What would be in this world? Maybe it's something to say about in another article.