DESIGNING TOPAZ
May 2015 to June 2017
On this page, I expound on that initial spark that plunged me headfirst into what I prejudged as the shallow end of the pool but turned out to be the torrential ocean depths. That sounds melodramatic, but when I first laid that 0.7 lead mechanical pencil onto that first sheet of A4 copy paper I did not expect that one page ambition to explode into a 50+ page comic book, a 200+ page novel (divided into 2 parts), and a panoply of drawings, poetry, and other forms of inspiration that needed to break out from Ambition's prison. I still marvel at what it was exactly that had me so captivated with Topaz. I do know for sure that she is a part of my heart, not confined entirely to the pages on which she exists. She is here to stay, and I stay glad of it.
Sections within this page:
1. First Concepts and Character Traits
2. Shapes and Colors
3. Animation Preparation *includes spoilers*
4. Citrine
There's an overview in each section, and more details on each individual image should one click on or hover over them.
FIRST CONCEPTS AND CHARACTER TRAITS
I wasn't much into Steven Universe until the finale of season 1. The combination of the alien invasion, the surprise fusion, the singing and the fighting just blew my mind. It wasn't long after that my excitement manifested into the initial idea for Topaz. Most of these concepts were put to the page within a few days of each other, sometime in May or June of 2015.
SHAPES AND COLORS
This next batch of drawings was made a few months after the first concepts, during the fall semester of my junior year of college, during the production of "Shooting Star." The more I drew Topaz, the more necessary it became to give her a definite shape.
ANIMATION PREPARATION
Story time: in 2017, I had gotten it in my head to pursue animation or 2D art as a career path (while I still pursued writing as my long-term and ultimate goal). In 2018, I had also obstinately gotten it in my head that I should make a lengthy, action-based and story-driven animation about Topaz (there are more details about this found in the section "Additional Writing," linked from the "More Art and Writing" main page or from the top of this page). In preparation for this ludicrous undertaking, I thought to get good at drawing Topaz fast and accurately, and thus I set out to draw her at least a hundred times. I still don't know if the goal of 100 was laughable, but it was a goal I could start with. Needless to say, I never reached that goal, and I determined, not long into 2019, that animation (and this animation project) was not meant for me. However, I did get some good practice with drawing Topaz, defined her form, and even redesigned her hair. All of these drawings are from 2017, summer and early fall.
CITRINE
A design of Citrine made for fun. Summer 2015, before the episode "Catch and Release" aired (the episode in which viewers were introduced to pint-sized Peridot).
