Hey viewer 🫵

I kinda sorta decided to yap about one of my character’s design traits cuz I have nothing better to do✨

Who the Heck™︎ is Atsuko Shinki

(JP spelling: 辛鬼アツコ)

Firstly, I usually just call her Shinki, but that’s really her last name and there’s more than one Shinki so here I’m gonna call her Atsuko to make it less confusing.

Design Choices and how I Made Them

Atsuko is based on a mythical Japanese yōkai known as an Oni. Some of their defining traits are their horns, tiger print clothing, and a weapon known as a kanbo, all of which are put into Atsuko’s design.

One of the traits that I believe define her are the chili peppers in her hair that form a pigtail-like silhouette. Why’d I give her dems? Well, I was having a conversation with someone from Japan, and she brought up a holiday called Setsubun. I’m not a scholar on Japanese holidays, but one of the ways people celebrate Setsubun is by throwing beans at Oni to drive them away. In her family though, they would throw candy instead for whatever reason, and I thought it was kinda funny. I pondered on what kind of Oni would be afraid of candy, and thought that an Oni that only eats spices might not like sweets. Spice? Chili peppers. Where? The hair I guess. I drew my design in one of my notebooks here. I came up with the name Atsuko Shinki from the kanji

Shinki, 辛鬼 (spice and oni) and Atsuko, 熱子 (heat and child)

After a suggestion from my friend TheWackAttack360 to draw her with one of my scrapped characters (now named Esca), I decided working on how I’d draw them together. I had recently started attending art college again, and in my graphic design class, my prof was emphasizing creating many iterations and choosing the best one when making designs. I took that knowledge home and applied it to making Atsuko, drawing her hair and chilis until they looked good together. I came up with the design and lore for Esca as well (basically, she’s an angler fish). Because at the time I was getting into marker coloring, I was interested in making marker gradients, so as I was designing their color schemes, I thought that making her hair transition from yellow to red would not only be a good application for marker coloring but also a way to imply temperature through color. After a bunch of designing, I came up with an idea and eventually ended up with the Shinki and Esca Comic, which defined the general persona for Atsuko: playful, childish, mischievous.

3D Models

The next semester, I began learning blender again. I always wanted to do characters, but making my style of character in 3D is way beyond my skill level. I wanted something simple and cute, so who better than Atsuko?

I modeled her, rigged her, and give her a basic pose. Honestly it didn’t look that good at first:

But the next day I made her again, this time animating it; she pulls out a kanbō from her mouth and acts all cheeky about it, as if to say,

“yeah, I just did something wacky! Cool right〜★”

She expressed her personality through action and expression and I was very proud of it! This was actually her first appearance with her Kanbo, which now is pretty integral to her character!

Her final model, which I absolutely adore, was made the next day I believe. In contrast to the character centric animation, I wanted to make something more atmospheric. I spent a lot more time making the model and even a lot of time on the environment. I showed off her innocent, childish side more this time, with her resting on a rock next to a waterfall, a cave (probably her home) on the other side of the stream. Of course, she gives the viewer a smug side eye.

Here’s a few more 3D images featuring her!

So does Atsuko have any lore?

Yes, actually! Though it’s not very extensive!

Atsuko is part of the Shinki tribe. They’re a tribe of Oni, all red in color, who only eat spicy food. She’s lives alone, cuz parents be not around, but she’s not necessarily ostracized from her village. However, the tribe is very anti-outsider, so not only can outsiders not enter, most insiders cannot leave without becoming an outsider. Being a child, she’s very curious, especially on the outside world, and decides to flee the village on a raft. After setting sail and nearly drowning, she’s saved by Esca, a coastal angler fish girl who was out on a swim, and now they live together. Of course, she’s not without a pursuer. One of the tribes warriors, Sakki, wants to bring her back. Is it out of concern or tradition? Who knows. I haven’t thought that far lmao! By the way, Sakki’s kanji is 殺気, or “killing intent.”

but here’s Sakki’s one and only 3D model!

she has one horn, braids, and a strange cheetah print body suit.

I mostly wrote this for fun, but if you read all this yap, I really appreciate it! Atsuko is one of my favorite OC’s!!