Nude Byte Extras: September 2023 (Patreon)

For this month, I want to focus on the very first NPC that became a reject later on:
Eastica.

Before a theme was made for Nude Byte's NPCs (which is "bootlegs with an altered trait"), I hadn't thought of who the NPCs should be. All I knew at the time was that I needed NPCs.

I made several sketches (which will be shown later below), but the first to be made into a proper NPC was Eastica

I'm sure you've seen her before. She was the tutorial girl back in Version 2.
But what I don't think I've shown before was that she had other clothing:

At the time, what I had in mind was to make an NPC have different clothing depending on the building she was assigned to.
For those who aren't familiar, Glitch City has buildings that each have a purpose to the gameplay. Glitch City also changes every day, and the NPCs inside them reshuffle as well. (A shop NPC today could become a bank NPC tomorrow)
But as development progressed, more and more buildings were needed in Glitch City. Things became impossible in the creation of all these assets, so I had to dump the idea to keep things a bit easier for me. (I still have to make lots of NPCs in the end, though...)

Now, instead of sharing artworks of fake ads, I want to share the early ideas of NPCs instead!

Before the bootlegs and even way earlier than Eastica: At first, I thought of using original characters.

1. Some random sketch to get a good body proportion I want. (Later reused as Eastica)
2. Attempt to draw Monnie from Splatoon Island.
3. The baker who never had a real name.
4. Some random bald girl. I later used her for coding and debugging. 

But I later dumped this idea. (They're not that catchy)

Next, I tried coming up with ideas that are related to "fanart".

1. Tired Nicole
2. Smug Nicole
3. Adult Ronnie Anne from the Loud House.
4. Frankie from Foster's Home, but with altered designs such as animal ears.

When I randomly drew those additional animal ears, that's when I tried making a theme of "Fanarts with animal ears".
From this, I made Eastica, an early fanart whose only altered trait was the animal ears and different clothes.

But after a while, that's when I finally realized a better idea: Bootlegs with an altered trait that can be interesting, funny, or ironic!

And that's when Mist was born:

Oops, wrong picture. I meant this sketch:

And the rest is history!

To be honest, there should have been plenty more sketches of NPCs. But as mentioned before, stupid me deleted those sketches by accident and lost them forever.
(I can still remember those sketches I made of L'apre and Ramina's biggest fans pretending to be their idols. One skinny-looking L'apre and one chubby-looking Ramina. They now only live in my brain and nowhere else. *sigh*)

Another sad news is that there might not be another Nude Byte Extras later this month. Or if there will be, it won't be a Pair fanart like in the past months.
I'm mostly focusing on making progress with Nude Byte. (Mostly rushing) I might not have enough time to make more Pair fanarts this month. (But I'll do my best to make one if I get the chance)

Thank you for reading!