Small Town Homecoming (5/5) (Patreon)

Isabella leaves her little town for the big city, and over a number of return visits home, her family watch her get more and more accustomed to the posh cosmopolitan lifestyle.

----

Ranting time!

I went back and forth a little bit at the beginning on how to depict this one. My initial instinct was to do full scene renders like Reversible or Cha-Chas, but that wasn’t really working conceptually with the original prompt. With a framing device of her visiting her family home, it was leading to repetitive background and scene setups. So, I figured it was best to cut that away to focus the sequence on the main character herself and her transformation.

Speaking of, I found Isabella a really interesting character to explore. Her arc from wide-eyed small town girl to a posh big city brat was something refreshingly different to the typical head-empty bimbo doll. I approached it by looking at the common tropes of people living particularly in large cosmopolitan cities like New York, London, Paris, etc. There’s often an air of elitism about people like that, especially those in upper circles. But it’s not to say elitism in a snobbish way, however there is a subconscious need to impress others. For work, I occasionally have to interact with people from those circles, and one behavior I notice is how often they will name drop in conversation. I didn’t think they’re aware they’re doing it most of the time, but they’ll frequently insert names of people, places, or events in a way that’s meant impress you.

Those behaviors are particularly prevalent in the art and design world (again speaking from experience). So, I gave Isabella a vague job in high fashion/modern art. I pulled inspiration from other media that did similar stories, and you can probably see some Devil Wears Prada in this series. There’s also a bit of Last Night in Soho as well.

The fashion angle was also helpful for depicting the visual change from Izzy to Isabella. After making the decision to strip out backgrounds, I had to rely more on her changing fashion and styles in addition to physique changes to convey her transformation. The phrase I had in my head to describe her look was “bimbo chic”. I also used body language in her changing behaviors; most clearly was the use of the left-to-right rule of composition. With the exception of the first stage, whenever Isabella is speaking to her family, she is looking to the left to indicate that they are behind her and that she is progressing beyond them. Conversely, she looks to the right in the forward direction of her progression whenever addressing city colleagues. More subtly, at first she will stand fully facing to the left and her family, but by the end she is more often standing right-oriented and looking back over her shoulder at her family – emphasizing that distance between them.

I really liked this character model used for Isabella as well. I don’t often reuse models in order to keep characters unique and identifiable in the Dynamoob pantheon, but I might make an exception for this one if the opportunity arises. For Isabella herself, I had a few additional stages that I thought of a little late in the process. For example, one where she’s wearing something ostentatious while paraphrasing the classic line, “It’s called fashion, mother.” Unfortunately I couldn’t find where to insert that into this particular sequence. Although, I did get ideas for how to take this character further and really amp up the physical transformations. Maybe there’s a chance for a possible sequel series some point in the distant future, and I can insert those stages then.