New story announcement: Pink Agent

This is copy & pasted from my SFW account, but it still applies here since I plan on writing an NSFW fic featuring this cast of characters.

I've been hyping this blog up for a while, and that's because it's a big deal for me. Partly because it's September, and just last night I realized that all I've written this year fanfiction-wise was a chapter of Changeling Theory back in April.

It's been a long year for me. I'm going through things. I've been dealing a lot with mental health issues recently, but I'm doing what I can to work through them.

But enough about that. You're here for content. So, why is this story a big deal? It's because it's my first time building a character from the ground up before writing the actual story. So, how's all that planning going? Well, take a look!

In this blog, I plan to explain the process that went into creating these characters and what my intentions are with them.

It started when I tried to write a story on my NSFW account. I had the idea to write a Power Pony's OC. The fic I intended to write was going to be an anthology, a collage of whatever I was interested in writing about relating to that character. My own flavor of the week. But I had already run into a problem. I couldn't get a good visual of the character!

I originally pictured them as a Green Lantern knock-off with pink powers instead of green, so it was easy to picture a pony in a spandex suit. However, it was not so easy coming up with that character's alter ego. I did what I normally do when I don't know where to take a story. I wrote a few paragraphs until I got a feel for what the story is. I rewrote that draft almost as quickly as I grew to hate the first. Usually, the second draft is all I need to get by, but I still couldn't get a good visual of the character.

I decided I needed a few days to plan things out, and what resulted was a much larger story idea. I pictured a black pony with pink flames. An idea! And one that sounded like it'd look cool visually, too.

A name was quickly thought up: Pink Scorch. Now I just needed to come up with an alter ego. I started by writing a list of names.

Sweet N Spicy
Sweet Spice
Cool August
Winter Heat
Mint Blaze
Emerald Flare

Winter Heat sounded like the most pony name in my opinion, plus it implied a certain duality between her everyday life and superhero persona. I also had the idea that Winter Heat would have a little demon companion that tailed her everywhere she went.

Okay, character is conceptualized, now I just need a good visual of who they are and an understanding of their personality. Luckily, my job pays me well enough that I can easily afford art without worrying about bills. I DMed an artist I had interacted with in the past, SheraThoz. On my Breathtaking Carnality account, I had written a story called Always Plan Ahead, which was based on some artwork he'd uploaded to Derpibooru. I told him I'd keep in touch with him in case I ever needed art, so I tried him.

From this point forward, I would like to just tell the character creation process through the various sketches that he drew followed by brief explanations of what needed to be changed. I originally wanted to go through the entire step-by-step process of what it took to make this character, but it quickly became tedious.

First conceptual sketch of Pink Scorch. Mask wasn't needed since the character could already transform into a demon. I was also unsure if a suit in general was necessary.

I was unsure if a suit was befitting for the character for two reasons. The first being that rather than be inspired by traditional superhero stories, the character was inspired by a few animes I really liked, such as One Punch Man and Chainsaw Man. Also, the character is an anti-hero, so she might not see the need for a super suit.

The first concept for the super suit. This idea was never expanded upon. She fights crime in the nude.

The artist asked me to send some pictures for inspiration. I couldn't think of what to send, but since the character was partly inspired by Chainsaw Man (in terms of relatable protagonists), I sent him a picture of Denji. Although I figured Pink Scorch would be an easy idea to draw, I sent him a picture of Ghost Rider because he was the closest thing I could think of as a source of inspiration. For some reason.

Winter Heat after sending him a picture of Denji.

Pink Scorch after sending him a picture of Ghost Rider...

So the change needed here was pretty obvious. We moved on.

Some conceptual drawings of Winter Heat.

Pink Scorch, exactly how I imagined her to be. My favorite part about her design is that it's so simplistic in thought that it's easy to visualize her.

Next came Winter's demon companion, who I was having trouble coming up with original ideas for. I pictured her a lot like Fred from Them's Fightin' Herds, although the only aspect about that I wanted to keep was that she appeared as a floating wisp.

I told him neither design is bad, but I asked if he could draw a design where the demon is on fire.

In the meantime, he sent me ideas for Winter's cutie mark.

I told him I liked both I and E.

Next image he sent was of the new demon design.

I wanted the demon to have a relationship with Winter that'd feel close, and I felt the character having a harsh appearance would negate that. I asked for something softer in appearance.

At this point we had gotten all of the concept designs out of the way, so for fun, and because I asked, he drew this.

I hope to get it vectorized once the story is written. :)

Next, we continued finalizing the cutie mark.

Top row, cutie mark ideas for Winter. Bottom row, cutie mark ideas for Pink Scorch. During this period in the character's development, I was unsure if the character should even have a cutie mark since I always pictured her without one in my head. It was a thought I continued to play with though, and when I noticed that the design he created almost looked like a runic symbol (partly because that's what the marks were based on in the first place), I asked him to make a few changes.

Much better!

As for Winter's, I asked for E to be redesigned to look like a heart.

A few ideas for Winter's mane colors. Coat is grey is that is the opposite of charcoal black, which at the time was Pink Scorch's coat color.

Also, forgot to mention this earlier, but when I had him design Winter's mane, I described it as "opposite of how you think a fire would look," which I think he did a good job with.

First colored sketch of Pink Scorch.

He sent me several more sketches of Winter's mane color, and I liked this one the most.

Although I originally wanted her mane to be red, I didn't want it to have the stereotypical red and black OC look, so I asked it to be changed to hot pink.

He asked for the information I'd like to be present on the reference sheets. Around this time, I came up with a name for the demon: Claire. Don't know where it came from, I just thought it made for a cute name. Her full name became Feuerrosa. The name is a combination of two German words. "Feuer" and "rosa." Flip them around and you get "Pink Fire."

I asked him to make the color look pinker.

Butt.

This was originally going to be on the reference sheet, but I could only fit so many character models on there before it got too expensive.

The selected models.

I decided that Claire should be pink so that there's a correlation between her and the flames.

I thought Claire needed a little bit of a redesign. In my eyes, it looked like she on fire. I wanted it to imply that she is the fire.

I asked for a mix of 2 and 3.

Pink's original look. I asked for her coat to be darker. In hindsight, I kind of regret it because the color balance was a lot better in this first image.

The color change would go on to be my only regret with the character, and thankfully it wasn't too distracting.

Pink was almost ready, a few minor alternations to be made. Since her cutie mark is essentially a rune, I asked for it to have a glowing effect.

I asked him to ease up on the brightness.

At this stage, I was starting to notice something wrong with Pink's mane and tail.

I imagined it to have more of a flowing, magical look. Here, it just looked more like a standard fire. I brought it up with the artist and was prepared to leave it be since I new he had other commissions, but he was nice enough to redraw the mane and tail.

Tail is too long.

Cutie mark proved to be too bright because I could barley make it out.

And that's that!

So, what are my plans for this character?

I hope to write two stories. One SFW, the other NSFW. Both of these will be their own separate adventures and not just "Same adventure but with/without the porn." They will have fully fleshed out plots and fully fleshed out villains.

Both stories are meant to be a sort of "proof of concept." What do I mean? By writing both of these I hope to start a new approach with my writing by introducing a character that's malleable. A character that doesn't belong to just one story, but multiple.

The way I have it planned, the SFW fic will be a comedy. However, the character doesn't belong to a strictly comedy setting. If I wanted to, I could throw her into a horror setting. Perhaps even Slice of Life.

In some ways, I hope to write a longform fic about this character. The fic wouldn't have a definitive end, and will only end when I can't come up with any more ideas. Since the character doesn't belong to a specific genre, it's a good way to exercise my writing. It'd be like a long-running anime serious, where the whole point of the story is to follow the character through their various adventures.

That's if I can work through my mental health problems. I've been having a lot of trouble at work. I never feel like I have time to do the things I want anymore, and when I do my anxiety takes over. That's where Winter Heat's character comes in.

Winter Heat is, essentially, me. This wasn't the original idea. I wanted her to be relatable to the reader, mostly in the aspect that she struggles to get her personal life in order. So much to the point that it sometimes feels like she spends the majority of her day-to-day life at work, and this translates into unspeakable anxiety. Once I realized that I was basically writing myself, I said, "Fuck it! Make her autistic."

So this is where I'm at in life. I'm at a weird stage where I'm still caught in my youth, but I feel old. I have a long life ahead of me, but it never feels like I have enough time. I want to have good cleaning habits, but I get overwhelmed and find it easier to play video games. I don't feel nearly as sharp as I use to be, and that's probably because I keep neglecting myself. This is what I want to explore with Pink Scorch.

I also want to explore relationships. I want Winter's and Claire's friendship to pulsate by the time I release that first story. This will be a consistent theme across most of the stories that involve her. I want to explore how important it is to build bridges with the people closest to you and other wholesome stuff.

I don't know how exactly to end this blog, but I started playing Cyberpunk recently and it's a lot of fun. And because I was playing Cyberpunk I decided to check out Edgerunners. Tears are the only language I speak now.

Have a bopper.

OH FUCK

btw the premise of the SFW fic is that a mare obsessed with juice goes on a rampage because not enough people in the world are drinking juice, and Pink is really annoyed because her motives for being a villain don't make any sense and here's the artwork of that character:

For the NSFW fic, a villain unleashes a sexy mist across Maretropolis, forcing the city into a sex craze, but Pink Scorch is a demon so she has an immunity. It'll also likely be a comedy.

Send your love to the wonderful SheraThoz!