The Doki Doki Members

Before I get started on this, it has come to my attention and goodness knows how I didn't notice but this is my 200th blog post! I would have posted something a little more special if I had known but I found out at the eleventh hour, anyway what I've got for you today is a piece I am delighted with so I'm cool with that. I'll try to make a special effort for post 300! Thank you everyone who has stuck around and continues to follow the blog, this journey is obviously far from over and probably still taking it's baby steps. The rest of this year's looking to be great on the blog, so here's to a future of art!

Almost a year ago a new game came out. I'm not a gamer and there's little game paraphernalia that interests me, especially these days. While I don't intend to play the game, I have taken an interest in the concept that is Doki Doki Literature Club. If you want to see a kid friendly version of this game, watch the Gravity Falls episode 'Soos and the real girl', it's nearly the same thing.

SPOILER WARNING

If you are intending to play the game or you just don't want spoilers, now is a good time to stop reading the text!

What starts out as a light hearted dating simulator becomes a psychological horror when each of the members is killed until you are left with just Monika. She is aware that you are playing the game and has eliminated the competition by tampering with the game itself just so she can be with you. It is this fourth wall breaking feature that has me hooked and while it may not be the most famous horror out there, I consider this to be a good horror.

So what do I do when I get into something? Obviously it's time to get creative! I was looking for some anime characters to redesign in a western style, inspired by some videos done by Lavendertowne. Although it wasn't until after I started that I realised she already did this for Doki Doki, I had decided these anime girls would get the redesigns.

I was going to make full body designs and I do have some in mind but for the sake of making something that looked good, I decided to stick of head and shoulder shots of them. I then came to the conclusion of making what could be a piece of promotional material if these girls had their own cartoon.

For the most part, these designs remain unchanged but I had make a few minor tweaks, some with reason and some just to make the designs stand out from their original counterparts. Two definite differences were Natsuki's shirt becoming a tank top and Sayori gaining an ascot to break up the lots of pink and red in her design... yes it is a reference to something in the game, there's no way the cartoon would get away with the original 'neckwear'.

In the game, despite all having different bodies they are still incredibly similar so I took things a little further since western cartoons can get crazily diverse body types. Monika remains the closest to her original design, even keeping the uniform. Natsuki is given a lot of sharp edges and a body type close to the daughter from the Incredibles. Yuri has a squarer head up top and a pointed chin while Sayori is more rounded.

I can picture this being a fun cartoon concept if there was a great deal of episodic material written for these characters. They'd be able to fit the five mane band trope, minus the Muscle member. Monika would be the fourth wall breaking character for obvious reasons, Sauori would be the heart of the group while Yuri and Natsuki could the sparring partners creating conflict for a number of their sketches. I've never played the game nor do I intend to so I'm probably not the guy to trust with this idea, but what do you think, should Doki Doki get adapted to become a family friendly cartoon or even just a cartoon for older audiences?