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Description
Alright so immediate disclaimer for anyone whose never read a post of mine before, uh... This post is going to go over a lot of stuff that probably wont make sense without lots and lots of context so for anyone that has this as the first post of mine theyre reading... Don't worry the lore of this character is minimal. But to anyone who is familiar with my account strap in, cuz uh....

Okay right off the bat I'm gonna get into the main meat of this.
I will be starting a new channel at some point and it will use this version of Ica as the mascot.
"what? Genuinely what the fuck? What? Excuse m--pardon?" I explain the new channel part in this post read it if you want the context.
So in my last post I discussed the problem, here's how I want to solve it (also solves a few other problems, which I'll discuss)

First off. Why this bastard? Simple. I like him. Well--theres a few more reasons other than that. He matches exactly what I needed for a mascot. Stylized, recognizable, and... I like to think he's marketable. The art direction is it's own beast I'll discuss. But also... 2022 was just an amazing year for me, and I'm pretty nostalgic for it now being honest! Of course, I can't replicate that year--I don't want to, I've grown a lot since that point, but what I had there isn't impossible to replicate. Just that sense of community and wanting to have fun. I'll discuss naming ideas in a bit, but content-wise I want to start off sorta similar how my "ChemicalBakery" YouTube channel started. Fun stuff both on stream and with regular videos. (Though--livestreams will be a bit more sparce with a larger focus on art streams since those almost always have a higher amount of people watching it, and the content I'd produce would lend itself pretty nicely to the streams) a lot of animations at the start, I'm not the biggest animation meme guy. I think most animation memes are pretty cringey tbh. So I'll mostly do random songs I like/songs I think would make for a goofy animation. Nothing edgy, nothing serious, just sorta fun stuff. Longer animations with more stuff happening, and just... Actual animation instead of just a bunch of keyframes.

That's why the design is so much more streamlined, and simplified with lower amounts of detail and bold outlines. I want him to be expressive, and easy to animate. I have no plans to make animations of my various other oc's unless I find something really good for them that I don't find cringey. So, how else would I discuss my art? And allll my oc's? Well, I think making videos about how I make my action figures would be pretty cool. Just talking about my process (likely once I start getting better at this stuff of course--since I'm not the most confident with dedicated videos to those at the moment) and once the process of turning the character into an action figure-sculpture is complete I'd give a run down about some information with the character! unlikely to do timelapse videos for my standard illustrations--those never really performed that well, maybe as shorts? Idk. I might make some videos about challenges (like discussing my fourth post challenges, or trying a new challenge for myself) or talk about art projects I'm doing, such as talking about my my precure AU and dubbing it "turning my edgy oc's into magical girls" with a side by side of the Wooded Devil and Bloodstone for the thumbnail. What I will NOT be doing is one of those art commentary type videos. People only watch them for peoples how takes or news, they don't care as much for the content created, at least, that's how it seems to me.

How long I'll be doing art related content really does depend on their success. But the other thing I want to do is just... What I love doing the most. Talking about weird stuff! Things from the 2000's--2010's. Dumb toy lines, niche videogames, MMO's weird media relating to other franchises? Retrospectives of stuff no one cares about but still manage to make it interesting? That's my jam. And fortunately--its not as niche as it sounds! This aint no marketing pitch, but theres a lot of channels that talk about these types of weird things and actually got pretty popular! And, this may seem like the whole nostalgia bait stuff I feared in my last post.... But a lot of these channels have identities beyond just what they talk about. I specifically remember people in a server I'm in being excited at a new video from one of these creators, Izzzyzzz . I don't think I could ever replicate her level of success, but she's certainly pulled off talking about any topic no matter how mainstream or obscure and make great views off of it. And I'm sure lots of people who don't even know about these strange things watch anywyas because they know of the creator, or they think the topic and thumbnail just seem interesting. Either way, she succeeds in getting even the uninformed interested. And making content that holds up to the interesting thumbnail.

One thing of note is that, since these themes involve lots of childhood media for people, there are lots of content creators who are... "comfort channels" in the scene. Like, kids media people grew up with so of course it'd be something meant to be more calm and fun. Though not everyone is in that crowd of course, I'd consider Athena P to not be in that boat at all. Anyone who has watched any stream I have ever made knows this but I am no comfort creator, but I still understand that a lot of people would sorta expect that. (Example a video talking about a toy line they remember, well, they wont expect something as edgy as my humour) so I want to swear less in videos and use other things for comedy, still swear, just less. And still make lots of edgy/ronchy jokes. If anyone remembers my "Spike's Paradise" series they'd know of the types of jokes I made there. (A pretty edgy one was where I talked about how Skylanders: Spyros adventures air elements sucked and I say "and people only like whirlwind because she pretty and bash wants to fuck her" referring to how people used to ship whirlwind and bash) some people who watched Spike's paradise would also remember the occasional animatic that'd show up in the video, and I want to be able to include those, too. Also why I made the design easier to animate. But... I don't want to touch Skylanders content with a ten foot pole

Skylanders as content on YouTube is a parasite, a disease. It's the internet equivalent of the flood from halo imo. If you make a Skylanders video that pops off its most likely the same target audience as people being nostalgia baited, and mf's be so desperate for new skylanders content they'll suck you dry. There are countless creators who want to become "skytubers" but just get so drained by the community, how depraved people are for skylanders content is a force more powerful than autism making people want to make skylanders content I swear. So many people only want to make Skylanders content every now and than--something on the side, but get roped into making it their only thing because no one watches anything else. It's pretty disgusting. I won't make any Skylanders content whatsoever unless my channel already has a decent following. Because if you focus on Skylanders and your channel pops off it will CANNIBALIZE everything else. Skylanders, and the Xbox kinect is something people make video essays on just to bank off it when they run out of ideas. If people dedicate their entire channel to either, run. (Well, I don't think there are any kinect-tubers sadly)

As for presentation and content, standard niche videoessayist stuff. Just a whole lot edgier. I love people who make videos about niche stuff but most of them have as much edge as a balloon. Basically, just that but with random jokes thrown in. I'm not the biggest fan of my voice in videos, so I'll have to work on that.

some other things in the content I want to discuss...

Music. It will be a strict rule that I cannot use music from ANY popular SEGA/Nintendo property unless the video is about that specifically. I know, that means I'm missing out on some banger ost's to put in videos like Billy Hatcher, Sonic forces, mario sunshine, Sonic Unleashed, the Mario Artist series, Kirby, Wii Sports. The list goes on. But music is a great way to set the mood in a video. And if I can use music that literally almost no one uses in video essays... Yeah it'd give me a unique feel. And if I frequently use a few obscure yet memorable tracks than that is music people will memorize and associate with the channel, thus, easy brand recognition. So yes, there's a bit of psychology behind this decision. An example I have of this is Sailor Guardian Hope who uses the Fossil Fighters hotel theme in a lot of videos, so although it's from a DS game from a long time ago I still hear this song and her content is one of the things that pop into mind--even though I've already heard the song many times. Music is powerful, and we can use that to our advantage with content. I've managed to get a pretty good selection of music that people wouldn't really think to use in a video, much less even discover the song to begin with. But that's the thing about obscure things, theyre hard to find. Wasn't easy getting a song selection, but I'm happy with what I've been able to get. Fossil fighters is actually a good example of the types of games I'd want to cover. I don't have any interest covering Fossil Fighters SPECIFICALLY, but it's a niche game on the Nintendo DS with--and an RPG I think? Fuck yea. Or another example any of the various weird Tamagotchi media there is out there. (Do note some of the more incredibly INCREDIBLY obscure nintendo OST's are included, but I don't mean obscure as in "Oh did you know gaming made a video about this awhile back" I mean actually, legitimately obscure games people don't talk about)

What about the channel name? I have a few ideas...

Cafe of Ica- (Yes all of these names need "Ica" somewhere in there") fits with ChemicalBakery with the whole cafe thing, and who knows maybe a cafe could be a backdrop for videos/animations.

Maple_Magica- Wouldn't really make that much sense unless I made lots of magical girl content. Don't get me wrong I want to make a couple videos about PreCure. But like, nowhere NEAR a focus or vocal point, and I have no idea what other magical girl series I'd cover. (Watched some sailor moon crystal--I think its pretty good but I have no interest making videos about it as an example) Maple... BECAUSE CANADA???? And Magica because Mag-Ica. Doesn't have the L in it which is awfully convenient, and carries a naming convention most similar to the current name. But has a similar issue of people probably nicknaming me "Maple" and not "Ica". But let me tell you right now alliteration is a SUPER POWER in brand recognition, so it's definitely being considered for that alone.

Icatchi_Corner- This is also pulled from Tamagotchi's lol. Several years ago I played the game "Tamagotchi corner shop 3" and when you type in the name it atomically adds a "tchi" at the end. And corner, because corner shop. Referencing a game I probably won't talk about much if ever, but eh, ChemicalBakery as a name is from a Crash Bandicoot OC I never posted, soooooo....

That's all the major stuff I want to discuss with the channel, so I'll talk a bit about Chem-Ica here.

he might become ragol-Ica idk.

So I've been considering revisiting the premise of making Ica's species the branch of another species. Specifically, making him a branch of my other OC Thorn's species. No, he is not a part of that world. Just a part of the species. Makes him a little connected to that work. I wouldn't do that much interesting with making him a branch of the Ragolinian Species, but I think it could be cool.

Oh, and the lore... My first idea for bringing back this character was to make him a Zombie/Frankenstiens monster, named either Franken-Ica, or Zomb-Ica. Since he was killed off when the Raptor made his debut, I thought it'd be fun to detail his return. And give him a debut video where he has clearly gone a little psycho from being replaced for so long. This comedic idea didn't get very far when I realized all the stitching would be too hard to draw consistently and make him a bitch to animate. Here's some concept art tho

I had a couple ideas to give this lore. But I think this guy works when there's no lore. And it's just.... him. As for the art, there's a couple remakes in there. The bottom right pic references the "demon scepter" a fictional weapon I made when I was fourteen, it was used by my "snow imp" species but my self portrait sona at the time used it a lot, sorta like Amy Rose's Piko Piko hammer. Just a goofy comically large weapon. Idk if I'll ever use it in vids I just thought it'd be a cool reference. Next to him is a remake of this gem and--it's just a reference to a meme in 2022 where I was constantly simping over the Skylander Stormblade. Semi-ironically making her an official "waifu" XD as I said I aint touchin Skylanders so Stormblade will stay outta this, but I thought it'd be fun to reference the post. Another reference is in the form of Ica going "He just like me fr!!" at a picture of Mumble the penguin from happy feet. Of course referencing the meme, but also a vent post I did that used the meme format, also of Ica hugging a screen of Mumble the penguin (No I'm not joking that was an actual vent post I did when I was 16. Its so goofy that I parody it any chance I get. But because its a vent post I won't link it here)

the rest are just generic expression test.

WHOOOOO

I had to do a lot of writing here jesus.

Anyways, thanks for reading all this insanity, and if you have any critique for this design be sure to tell me! This is all in relatively early stages so expect the design to go through a few gradual stages. I've done some research for videos and a bit of work on animations (very little) but other than that... uh... hope you enjoy!

Description
Alright so immediate disclaimer for anyone whose never read a post of mine before, uh... This post is going to go over a lot of stuff that probably wont make sense without lots and lots of context so for anyone that has this as the first post of mine theyre reading... Don't worry the lore of this character is minimal. But to anyone who is familiar with my account strap in, cuz uh....

Okay right off the bat I'm gonna get into the main meat of this.
I will be starting a new channel at some point and it will use this version of Ica as the mascot.
"what? Genuinely what the fuck? What? Excuse m--pardon?" I explain the new channel part in this post read it if you want the context.
So in my last post I discussed the problem, here's how I want to solve it (also solves a few other problems, which I'll discuss)

First off. Why this bastard? Simple. I like him. Well--theres a few more reasons other than that. He matches exactly what I needed for a mascot. Stylized, recognizable, and... I like to think he's marketable. The art direction is it's own beast I'll discuss. But also... 2022 was just an amazing year for me, and I'm pretty nostalgic for it now being honest! Of course, I can't replicate that year--I don't want to, I've grown a lot since that point, but what I had there isn't impossible to replicate. Just that sense of community and wanting to have fun. I'll discuss naming ideas in a bit, but content-wise I want to start off sorta similar how my "ChemicalBakery" YouTube channel started. Fun stuff both on stream and with regular videos. (Though--livestreams will be a bit more sparce with a larger focus on art streams since those almost always have a higher amount of people watching it, and the content I'd produce would lend itself pretty nicely to the streams) a lot of animations at the start, I'm not the biggest animation meme guy. I think most animation memes are pretty cringey tbh. So I'll mostly do random songs I like/songs I think would make for a goofy animation. Nothing edgy, nothing serious, just sorta fun stuff. Longer animations with more stuff happening, and just... Actual animation instead of just a bunch of keyframes.

That's why the design is so much more streamlined, and simplified with lower amounts of detail and bold outlines. I want him to be expressive, and easy to animate. I have no plans to make animations of my various other oc's unless I find something really good for them that I don't find cringey. So, how else would I discuss my art? And allll my oc's? Well, I think making videos about how I make my action figures would be pretty cool. Just talking about my process (likely once I start getting better at this stuff of course--since I'm not the most confident with dedicated videos to those at the moment) and once the process of turning the character into an action figure-sculpture is complete I'd give a run down about some information with the character! unlikely to do timelapse videos for my standard illustrations--those never really performed that well, maybe as shorts? Idk. I might make some videos about challenges (like discussing my fourth post challenges, or trying a new challenge for myself) or talk about art projects I'm doing, such as talking about my my precure AU and dubbing it "turning my edgy oc's into magical girls" with a side by side of the Wooded Devil and Bloodstone for the thumbnail. What I will NOT be doing is one of those art commentary type videos. People only watch them for peoples how takes or news, they don't care as much for the content created, at least, that's how it seems to me.

How long I'll be doing art related content really does depend on their success. But the other thing I want to do is just... What I love doing the most. Talking about weird stuff! Things from the 2000's--2010's. Dumb toy lines, niche videogames, MMO's weird media relating to other franchises? Retrospectives of stuff no one cares about but still manage to make it interesting? That's my jam. And fortunately--its not as niche as it sounds! This aint no marketing pitch, but theres a lot of channels that talk about these types of weird things and actually got pretty popular! And, this may seem like the whole nostalgia bait stuff I feared in my last post.... But a lot of these channels have identities beyond just what they talk about. I specifically remember people in a server I'm in being excited at a new video from one of these creators, Izzzyzzz . I don't think I could ever replicate her level of success, but she's certainly pulled off talking about any topic no matter how mainstream or obscure and make great views off of it. And I'm sure lots of people who don't even know about these strange things watch anywyas because they know of the creator, or they think the topic and thumbnail just seem interesting. Either way, she succeeds in getting even the uninformed interested. And making content that holds up to the interesting thumbnail.

One thing of note is that, since these themes involve lots of childhood media for people, there are lots of content creators who are... "comfort channels" in the scene. Like, kids media people grew up with so of course it'd be something meant to be more calm and fun. Though not everyone is in that crowd of course, I'd consider Athena P to not be in that boat at all. Anyone who has watched any stream I have ever made knows this but I am no comfort creator, but I still understand that a lot of people would sorta expect that. (Example a video talking about a toy line they remember, well, they wont expect something as edgy as my humour) so I want to swear less in videos and use other things for comedy, still swear, just less. And still make lots of edgy/ronchy jokes. If anyone remembers my "Spike's Paradise" series they'd know of the types of jokes I made there. (A pretty edgy one was where I talked about how Skylanders: Spyros adventures air elements sucked and I say "and people only like whirlwind because she pretty and bash wants to fuck her" referring to how people used to ship whirlwind and bash) some people who watched Spike's paradise would also remember the occasional animatic that'd show up in the video, and I want to be able to include those, too. Also why I made the design easier to animate. But... I don't want to touch Skylanders content with a ten foot pole

Skylanders as content on YouTube is a parasite, a disease. It's the internet equivalent of the flood from halo imo. If you make a Skylanders video that pops off its most likely the same target audience as people being nostalgia baited, and mf's be so desperate for new skylanders content they'll suck you dry. There are countless creators who want to become "skytubers" but just get so drained by the community, how depraved people are for skylanders content is a force more powerful than autism making people want to make skylanders content I swear. So many people only want to make Skylanders content every now and than--something on the side, but get roped into making it their only thing because no one watches anything else. It's pretty disgusting. I won't make any Skylanders content whatsoever unless my channel already has a decent following. Because if you focus on Skylanders and your channel pops off it will CANNIBALIZE everything else. Skylanders, and the Xbox kinect is something people make video essays on just to bank off it when they run out of ideas. If people dedicate their entire channel to either, run. (Well, I don't think there are any kinect-tubers sadly)

As for presentation and content, standard niche videoessayist stuff. Just a whole lot edgier. I love people who make videos about niche stuff but most of them have as much edge as a balloon. Basically, just that but with random jokes thrown in. I'm not the biggest fan of my voice in videos, so I'll have to work on that.

some other things in the content I want to discuss...

Music. It will be a strict rule that I cannot use music from ANY popular SEGA/Nintendo property unless the video is about that specifically. I know, that means I'm missing out on some banger ost's to put in videos like Billy Hatcher, Sonic forces, mario sunshine, Sonic Unleashed, the Mario Artist series, Kirby, Wii Sports. The list goes on. But music is a great way to set the mood in a video. And if I can use music that literally almost no one uses in video essays... Yeah it'd give me a unique feel. And if I frequently use a few obscure yet memorable tracks than that is music people will memorize and associate with the channel, thus, easy brand recognition. So yes, there's a bit of psychology behind this decision. An example I have of this is Sailor Guardian Hope who uses the Fossil Fighters hotel theme in a lot of videos, so although it's from a DS game from a long time ago I still hear this song and her content is one of the things that pop into mind--even though I've already heard the song many times. Music is powerful, and we can use that to our advantage with content. I've managed to get a pretty good selection of music that people wouldn't really think to use in a video, much less even discover the song to begin with. But that's the thing about obscure things, theyre hard to find. Wasn't easy getting a song selection, but I'm happy with what I've been able to get. Fossil fighters is actually a good example of the types of games I'd want to cover. I don't have any interest covering Fossil Fighters SPECIFICALLY, but it's a niche game on the Nintendo DS with--and an RPG I think? Fuck yea. Or another example any of the various weird Tamagotchi media there is out there. (Do note some of the more incredibly INCREDIBLY obscure nintendo OST's are included, but I don't mean obscure as in "Oh did you know gaming made a video about this awhile back" I mean actually, legitimately obscure games people don't talk about)

What about the channel name? I have a few ideas...

Cafe of Ica- (Yes all of these names need "Ica" somewhere in there") fits with ChemicalBakery with the whole cafe thing, and who knows maybe a cafe could be a backdrop for videos/animations.

Maple_Magica- Wouldn't really make that much sense unless I made lots of magical girl content. Don't get me wrong I want to make a couple videos about PreCure. But like, nowhere NEAR a focus or vocal point, and I have no idea what other magical girl series I'd cover. (Watched some sailor moon crystal--I think its pretty good but I have no interest making videos about it as an example) Maple... BECAUSE CANADA???? And Magica because Mag-Ica. Doesn't have the L in it which is awfully convenient, and carries a naming convention most similar to the current name. But has a similar issue of people probably nicknaming me "Maple" and not "Ica". But let me tell you right now alliteration is a SUPER POWER in brand recognition, so it's definitely being considered for that alone.

Icatchi_Corner- This is also pulled from Tamagotchi's lol. Several years ago I played the game "Tamagotchi corner shop 3" and when you type in the name it atomically adds a "tchi" at the end. And corner, because corner shop. Referencing a game I probably won't talk about much if ever, but eh, ChemicalBakery as a name is from a Crash Bandicoot OC I never posted, soooooo....

That's all the major stuff I want to discuss with the channel, so I'll talk a bit about Chem-Ica here.

he might become ragol-Ica idk.

So I've been considering revisiting the premise of making Ica's species the branch of another species. Specifically, making him a branch of my other OC Thorn's species. No, he is not a part of that world. Just a part of the species. Makes him a little connected to that work. I wouldn't do that much interesting with making him a branch of the Ragolinian Species, but I think it could be cool.

Oh, and the lore... My first idea for bringing back this character was to make him a Zombie/Frankenstiens monster, named either Franken-Ica, or Zomb-Ica. Since he was killed off when the Raptor made his debut, I thought it'd be fun to detail his return. And give him a debut video where he has clearly gone a little psycho from being replaced for so long. This comedic idea didn't get very far when I realized all the stitching would be too hard to draw consistently and make him a bitch to animate. Here's some concept art tho

I had a couple ideas to give this lore. But I think this guy works when there's no lore. And it's just.... him. As for the art, there's a couple remakes in there. The bottom right pic references the "demon scepter" a fictional weapon I made when I was fourteen, it was used by my "snow imp" species but my self portrait sona at the time used it a lot, sorta like Amy Rose's Piko Piko hammer. Just a goofy comically large weapon. Idk if I'll ever use it in vids I just thought it'd be a cool reference. Next to him is a remake of this gem and--it's just a reference to a meme in 2022 where I was constantly simping over the Skylander Stormblade. Semi-ironically making her an official "waifu" XD as I said I aint touchin Skylanders so Stormblade will stay outta this, but I thought it'd be fun to reference the post. Another reference is in the form of Ica going "He just like me fr!!" at a picture of Mumble the penguin from happy feet. Of course referencing the meme, but also a vent post I did that used the meme format, also of Ica hugging a screen of Mumble the penguin (No I'm not joking that was an actual vent post I did when I was 16. Its so goofy that I parody it any chance I get. But because its a vent post I won't link it here)

the rest are just generic expression test.

WHOOOOO

I had to do a lot of writing here jesus.

Anyways, thanks for reading all this insanity, and if you have any critique for this design be sure to tell me! This is all in relatively early stages so expect the design to go through a few gradual stages. I've done some research for videos and a bit of work on animations (very little) but other than that... uh... hope you enjoy!