A hairstyle by any other name... (BTS #14) (Patreon)

I've been neck deep in character design for Motherhood. Yet again, one of the most difficult aspects is deciding on a hairstyle for my characters. Daz has relatively limited options on that front. A significant portion of hairstyles available are fantasy, exotic, or nonviable for other reasons.

While I've mentioned all this before, this time I was thrown for a loop when I saw several recent adult games use a hairstyle I was intending on using. This is the original version of the athletic daughter of the Best Friend (was also recently shown in the previous update post):

You may have seen this hairstyle before in those other VN's. While no one dev can "claim" a hairstyle as their own, I still want to avoid having too similar of a look to other game's characters.

Just like with Zimmy, I needed to test a bunch of what was available and find the best match. I had to keep in mind that this young woman is on a track team. So the hairstyle has to be something that fits a more active lifestyle.

Close, but "too poofy".

Better, but I'm not sure about the bangs. Try another one.

Braids make sense, but the buns... I don't know. That's when I remembered I should throw characters into a realistic setting to better gauge any aesthetics. First test:

Nailed it in one.

In the end, was it really necessary that I change the hairstyle to a less common one? No, but in my efforts to create unique characters I feel it is important. Plus I honestly like this hairstyle far more than the original. In the future, I plan to just roll with it if another game uses something similar. But I am glad I made the change for this character as I feel it suits her far more than the other one did.