Anonymous asked: how have you gotten so much people to love your OCs so much? i don't mean that to be rude, i'm just curious because when I follow artists usually i'm not interested in the stories they produce, I only appreciate their art, but yours i'm SO invested in by the stories AND the designs! do you have any tips on how to do that?
Gosh, well, honestly I’m glad you feel that way but I’m not sure about “getting” people to love your characters- all I know is that I love them very much myself! I’ve never tried to make anyone else like them. I love them, listen to them, and try to never make them do anything they wouldn’t just because it would be interesting or something petty like that; all characters have their own personalities and voices, I think you just have to learn to hear those voices and respect them. Basically I think if you respect a character people will respect them as well, and love kind of goes with that automatically because you love people you respect?
Probably. Yeah. I’m still learning, sorry, not the greatest answer.
Anonymous asked: Hero is so cute- how do you do it? I love how unique she is too, can you tell me some of her influences?
I’m so glad you feel that way! :D honestly Hero was so important that I spent a huge amount of time thinking about her character and design- RGB came to me much more naturally and practically fully-formed, but it was so critical that Hero was Hero, not just ‘a’ hero.
There are a lot of disparate influences in her, but one of the ideas that came to me first was that she should be simple and toy-like. Her design was highly inspired by teddy-bears and stuffed animals (Winnie the Pooh, Paddington, the Velveteen Rabbit etc.), not only in her attitude but in her movement. She has a tendency to hold her arms very straight, as if they really are stuffed-toy arms, and with her over-sized wellies her gait is similarly clumpy and stiff. When she’s being active, however, like up in the tree, she can demonstrate that she really is like a real animal too. Hero is a scrambling, climbing, curious and generally very creature-like child, and I hope I’ve communicated that so far!
“I based [the Mad Hatter’s first episode, Mad as a Hatter] on a really tragic story that happened in Silicon Valley about five years ago, about this guy who was a brilliant but shy computer designer and had a fixation on a woman, and he shot everybody in the office. With the Hatter, I made somebody who is technologically brilliant, but who lives in this dream world and was probably ridiculed as a kid; everybody used to call him names because he looked geeky and looked like the Mad Hatter. He actually had a poster of the Mad Hatter up. He liked Alice in Wonderland. When he came up with a way of controlling people, suddenly, they were able to do his will, and he loved it, and he was able to bring his fantasies of Wonderland and living happily ever after to life. But the main reason he did it was he was in love with somebody, and he didn’t want to use that power to control her because he knew that he’d lose her, but ultimately, he had to. That drove him over the edge and drove him crazy, so there’s an element of sorrow to that character—unrequited love taken to the nth degree.”—Paul Dini
I love Chell. I don’t think you actually understand how much I love her. True, I have a thing for mute characters, but I just adore how understated and insanely brave and utterly tenacious she is. Also there’s the fact that she was designed to look humanly hot; not some contorted amalgamation of hips, spinal chord and boobs. I could actually write a whole essay on the value of this character though so I’d better cut it off here.
All the people I ship romantically with this character
Wheatley. Wheatley, and sometimes Wheatley (oh also Wheatley is cute).
My non-romantic OTP for this character
SPAAAACE COOOOORE. I just imagine him as this ridiculous, hyper-active little brother to her. I also adore her relationship with GLaDOS; it’s so complex and filled with hate and mutual fear and respect. Also, wit. Got to love that.
My unpopular opinion about this character
Uh… no, not sure I have any of those. Really.
One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon.
Nope. Again, good job Valve. They knew how much to give us and how much to leave out; I’m perfectly happy with what we got.
