EMI'S SUPER AWESOME AICE MEDIA BLOG!: HERE COMES THE BEST PART: CHARACTERS!!

HELLO ALL! WELCOME TO THE FINAL POST OF THE SUPER AWESOME 4TH WEEK!

If you couldn't tell, I'm very excited as today's blog post is a very special one to me because character creation has to be one of my favorite things that ever existed in the whole wide world! Here I'll be talking about our two main characters in our opener, Charlotte and Phillip! So sit back and relax and be prepared super awesome blog readers, because by the time you finish reading this post, you will know these characters better than your own self >:D!

PART 1: CREATING CHARLOTTE: OUR SUPER AWESOME PROTAGONIST!

HOW DID CHARLOTTE COME TO LIFE? CHOOSING THE LOOK:

I've already went over this before, but Charlotte came to life soon after I designed her costume! At first, the designs were a bit not too simple but due to my awesomeness, I simplified them so Renn can have a more enjoyable time sowing some parts. (update: we ended up not sowing anything due to lack of time. BUT WE STILL GOT THE COSTUME!) To be honest, I spent no time fully designing Charlotte because I'm acting as her so I literally just drew myself with way fluffier hair, droopier eyes, and a cowboy hat. YAY! Charlotte's outfit consists of a white blouse with a dark red vest, a dark brown long skirt (just got changed into dark brown pants instead), and boots. Her colors are going to be darker, with the main color palette being dark reds, blacks and browns as she's a very secretive and mysterious person, hiding the sweeter side of her personality.

Now I will proceed to show the said look of Charlotte that I have been talking about for the past however minutes long it took you to read the last paragraph! The drawings are going to be the same, except one is a colored version done digitally and an uncolored version which I have included because I really love the way it turned out!

THE LOOK! (Colored version)

THE LOOK! (uncolored version)

WE INTERUPPT THIS PROGRAM FOR A VERY IMPORTANT PSA: Our group has decided that Charlotte won't be wearing a long skirt anymore because we want her to hide the fact that she's woman throughout and having a skirt will sort of give it away.

SO WITH THAT I HAVE A NEW COLORED ONLY DRAWING OF CHARLOTTE WITH PANTS!

THE LOOK! (new and improved version)

HOW DID CHARLOTTE COME TO LIFE? CHOOSING THE NAME:

I'll be honest, this one took a while to figure out as my group didn't actually think about giving her a name until I brought it up the other day. After a while, Nico suggested that we name her Zimri after the king featured in the Bible who gave his life away, according to Wikipedia (2025), "[king] Omri laid siege to Tizrah. Finding his position untenable, Zimri set the palace on fire, killing himself." I personally thought this choice was cool and added meaning to Charlottes character as she is willing to give her life away in compensation for killing Phillip's father, but Renn suggested that we instead give her a more historically accurate name instead as this opener does in fact take place in the 1800's and not the biblical era which I can totally agree with (but I still think Zimri is a really cool name, don't get me wrong)!

King Zimri! (credits go to Wikipedia)

To find Charlotte's potential name, I went on a website that listed popular names from the 1800's! After looking through the female section for some time, these names stood out to me the most: Charlotte, Lydia, Ethel, Clara, and Lucy. Out of these favorites, we eventually chose Charlotte as it was the one that stood out to us the most and to be honest, very much fits her!

THE CHARLOTTE DATABASE: HER PERSONALITY

Charlotte as said before, leans more on the quiet and introverted side, being more reserved, mysterious, and mostly keeping to herself around others. Charlotte can also be described as calm, smart, a hard worker, loyal, kind, organized, and tends to sometimes act on her emotion instead of logic. From this we can assume that Charlotte is an INFJ personality type with an enneagram of 6. I totally did not take an MBTI test in character and got INFJ as the result...nah who would do that??? (me) (I would)

INFJ INFO! (credit goes to 16personalites.com)

TYPE 6 ENNEAGRAM! (credit goes to enneagraminstitute.com)

Using all this personality info along with costuming and color choices, I've made a mood board for Charlotte that helped me envision her character and vibe a lot better! Here she is in a nutshell everyone!

CHARLOTTE MOODBOARD!

THE CHARLOTTE DATABASE: HER BACKSTORY AND DEVELOPMENT

I mentioned a bit of Charlotte's background in the plot blogpost a few days ago, but this time I'm going to add a bit more detail because this post is strictly about character development and I wanna embrace that :D!

Charlotte is a 25 year old woman who was born in the New England region in 1807, specifically in Vermont, and lived there for at least 3 years of her life before her family began to struggle financially as her father's job at the herding company there wasn't paying enough for them to stay a float. The family traveled all the way to New Mexico via train in 1811 for the father's new herding job at a new company, and stayed to live there since. Charlotte spent the rest of her childhood in the old west, and spent most of it in solitude as she was a very quiet kid who never really had friends at all. The only person Charlotte spent most of her time with was with her father, and he would usually teach her how to herd and shoot; both skills he has acquired from his current and ex job. As she got older, cowgirl got very acquainted with these skills that will eventually lead to her getting a job as a herder! At the age of 21 in 1828, Charlotte met a cowboy named Dallas at the town's local library that she usually went to during pass time. Dallas eventually became Charlotte's husband as they continuously got closer as time went on and the two got married in 1830 and happily lived together, until he unfortunately died due to lung fever (which was actually pneumonia but they didn't know that...it was the 1800's!)

After her husband's death, Charlotte decided to become a cowgirl and took the job of herding and tending to livestock! Since then, she has had to deal with her aggressive boss that always mistreated her mostly due to her gender. One day in 1832, his abuse was so bad, Charlotte shot him purely out of self defense, leading to immense guilt and a bajillion wanted posters with her face being plastered around town. After finding out the boss has a son, Phillip, Charlotte began to travel through the land to find him so he can decide what to do with her, and once she did, Phillip decided to refrain from killing her as he first decides to go on a journey to where his father was born because it feels like the right way to commemorate him. On the journey, the two face dangerous conflicts and become closer because of it, leading to them both realizing it isn't worth it to give up their lives.

PHEW! That was a lot to unpack! Hope you're still with us after reading all that. (you better have enjoyed and found it really cool too)

PART 2: CREATING PHILLIP: OUR SUPER AWESOME DEUTERAGONIST!

HOW DID PHILLIP COME TO LIFE? CHOOSING THE LOOK:

Phillip won't be explicitly featured in the opener because only a picture of him will be shown throughout but he's still a character! And this post is about characters! So I'm gonna talk about him! (there obviously won't be as much lore as there was with Charlotte)

Phillip came to life soon after Charlotte did! I'll be honest, I didn't actually design a costume for him before I drew him but SHHH, Nico already had a costume that we will definitely use to make our lives easier. Just like with Charlotte, drawing out Phillip wasn't too hard at all, as his appearance is literally just Nico with a cowboy hat. This fella's costume has a lighter color palette with beiges, light browns, and light blue, but also has very dark blue vest. As you have probably seen in the costume post, I decided that this dark blue would stand for the grief Phillip constantly carries for his father, similar to how Charlotte's black hat also represents her grief for her husband.

To conclude this section, I will now be showing the full look of Phillip! (only colored this time because it looks better than the uncolored version)

THE LOOK!

HOW DID PHILLIP COME TO LIFE? CHOOSING THE NAME:

For this, I referred to the same website I used for Charlotte that had a great amount of popular names from the 1800's to choose from! From all of the names listed for males, the ones that stood out to me the most were Charlie, Michael, Phillip, and Leroy. Out of these picked names, we eventually decided on Phillip because just look at him! That's a Phillip if I've ever seen one!

THE PHILLIP DATABASE: HIS PERSONALITY

Very much unlike Charlotte, Phillip leans on the loud and extroverted side! He is a lot less mysterious and intimidating and easily opens up to others. Phillip can be considered as kind, confident, energetic, fun loving and spontaneous, and also tends to follow his heart and intuition more often when making important decisions. Taking all these traits into consideration (and my totally not taken in character personality test results), Phillip can be categorized as an ESFP personality type with an overall enneagram of 8!

ESFP INFO! (credit goes to 16personalities.com)

TYPE 8 ENNEAGRAM! (credit goes to enneagraminstitute.com)

Using all of this personality info, costume design and colors, I've made a mood board all about Phillip! Here he is in a nutshell :)

THE PHILLIP DATABASE: HIS BACKSTORY AND DEVELOPMENT

Phillip is a 24 year old man who was born in New Mexico in the year of 1808 and lived there ever since. As a kid, he was a very talkative and energetic kid who had many friends and spent most of his time adventuring the great outdoors! As you may know, Phillip's father is the owner of the local herding company and accidentally got murdered by Charlotte in 1832. Phillip's relationship with his father was complicated; the two had frequent arguments but still loved each other and just didn't know to express it. After his dad died, Phillip of course became filled with grief and immediately wished he could have told his dad that he loved him before his death. Once Charlotte and Phillip came across each other, Phillip was very much mad at her and obviously expressed that (verbally). As said before, Phillip decides to not kill Charlotte yet and the two go on a journey to his father's hometown and realize on the way that there really isn't any need for either of them to die.

EMI'S SUPER AWESOME CONCLUSION AND THE CHARACTER ART GALLERY!

If you made it through this whole post in one piece, CONGRATULATIONS! You truly are a trooper, here's a gold star my friend. And with that, week 4 is over! This has truly been my favorite week out of all of them so far and had so much fun making all these awesome posts! I'm also very happy to say that my group and I have filmed today and got almost everything done, so stay tuned for next week's production posts!

Now to truly conclude this amazing week, (and totally not because I want an excuse to show my art) I made a collection of all the art I made inspired by this production! You may have seen some of these lying around in previous blogposts while there are others I haven't put here yet, so I thought gathering them in one big place for all to see would be pretty awesome! I hope you enjoy these drawings just as much as I enjoyed drawing them :D! I'll continue to add to this gallery until this project is fully done. YAY!

Charlotte shrugging it off!

Charlotte without the hat! She looks much friendlier right?!

Charlotte's wanted poster! Totally not made out of impulse.

First drawing of Phillip!

First drawing of Charlotte!

(As requested by Renn) Charlotte with Sylas from the music marketing project that was way back in December (refer to my music marketing blog post if you're curious ;D)! I love my alter egos!