Botan Shishiro (Hololive)

No need to pay as these cards are free so save that money for superchats.  

BoTAN can be found here. 

https://mega.nz/file/pwhW1K5S#houUUJpQBRHBwLZI8XZ2piacaOgMT6TvwQCeKm_K0pY

(Vanilla)

https://mega.nz/file/It5wzaII#I3CCqUh6tEVcPRZ88ytqL50fpxMMyT6PGfmeLCKlpFs

(Tan)

(Backup link just in case. Be sure to copy paste the ENTIRE link otherwise you'll get an error. Don't just click on it it doesn't work trust me.)

So, I know my output can be rather scatterbrained with no rhyme or reason to it. ('Cept Fire Emblem I'spose.) I don't usually do themes, but for this month, I'm going to try something new. I missed out on doing a Halloween theme last month due to poor scheduling n' whatnot, but now with better planning and things being a lot more stable on my end, I am proud to announce this month's theme! And you can probably guess from the thumbnail just what it is.  

That's right: Thanksgiving! 

...

Okay in the more abstract sense as not everyone celebrates it or even have an idea what the hell it is. So I'm not going to do anything "traditionally" considered Thanksgiving related. There is going to be some talk about football, but other than that don't expect anything like turkeys, or pilgrims, etc.  Instead it's going to be centered around what I'm thankful for this year and one of those things happen to be Hololive. Thanks for adding some spice to my usual routine and giving me something new to look forward to each day. 

(Don't know what a Hololive is? Well Ctrl+F "primer) or just scroll all the way down and I'll try my best to explain what it is and why it may appeal to you.)

So to show my appreciation of sorts, I decided to make Botan. (Slide 1) A lion girl who suffers from a particularly bad case of resting bitch face as she's nowhere near mean or grouchy as she looks in her profile. Instead, she's a calm, chill n' friendly with bit of a mischievous side to her. Y'know those kind of characters that seem super lazy with no real sense of urgency to them, making them feel seemingly incapable of doing much? Then it turns out the reason why they're so sluggish is because they can afford to do so as secretly, they're turbo badasses that could totally end the story right here and now if they felt like it? Yeah, that's pretty much Botan in a nutshell. 

Being an actual competitive gamer who participated and won in several FPS tournaments as part of a professional team, (Which is actually true of the actress. This isn't backstory for the character.) she stands out as one of the best gamers in Hololive. She doesn't get a whole lot of chances to show it, but when she does, well, there's a reason why she's called the Apex Predator and it's not because it's a Titanfall reference. 

Her skill is only matched by her sportmanship as she doesn't boast about it nor does she get toxic while playing. She's respectful of her opponents and overall just has fun while playing. Definitely not someone who considers "It's just a game" as a weak mindset. 

In a way, I consider her to be like TF2-era STAR_/Niichts as they're both terrifyingly competent when playing seriously but opt not to. Even then they're nothing to be trifled with as they can still beat you doing dumb jank shit. Except that STAR_'s a lot more wackier and more than happy to troll his team while Botan's lot more considerate of her's. Either way both of them are mellow fellows so if you're leery of screaming ragetubers, give Botan a shot.   

Well that's enough about her character, let's talk design! So, as you can see in S7, this is an edit of ao's Botan card. https://www.pixiv.net/en/artworks/84010299 which can be found here. I used their outfit (With some slight adjustments.) and their iris, but the upper/lower eyeline, the face, bod, and hair, was all done by me. I also changed a number of accessories, the biggest being her ears. Unfortunately there was no Lion Ear accessory so I had to make do. Oh and I replaced the fluff on her jacket. 

The general shape of her front hair looked a bit similar to Jalter's, so I used her as a base. And then had to get rid of most if not all of it as it wasn't close enough. Still, I think you can see her influence on this card. Or not. 

I did some minor things that I haven't done for my other cards, such as making her neck longer. That's a first for me as I'm rather leery of doing something like that lest it fucks up the animations. But a lot of the ladies of Hololive have pretty skinny necks so I opted for this time around. Hopefully it doesn't cause too many issues. 

I finally figured out a way to edit the Custom Maid 3D 2 hair without the use of UV overlays by using the Detail Mask instead. And then I just magic wanded the strands of hair I wanted. That was a lot easier than I had expected. 

I used Acc State Sync for her Gura outfit (S4) which made it so that I don't have to pick between cutting her hair or making her hood overly large to avoid clipping. So now when you remove her underwear, all of her hair will come back. (And if you're wondering why she has Gura's clothes, it's a reference to when she and Gura got paired up as Imposters in Among Us.) 

Gawr Gura's outfit was done by Marimo.  https://www.pixiv.net/en/artworks/84454141 

The reason why she has various Adidas clothing (S3+5) is because her default outfit white stripes looked similar to the brand's. Which got her the moniker "Adidas Lion" hence the outfits. 

Some folks have commented on how she looks like Silverash and Siege's (Arknights) lovechild, so I figured, why not give her Siege's outfit? (S6) This outfit was done by Alvarna, who has made and continues to make some stellar overlays so give 'em a look see here! https://www.patreon.com/user?u=32705220 

Last but not least, in S2, is tan Botan. I split Botan into two versions as a result, even though I could've used load overlays by coordinate to avoid doing so. But I've had too many times where I forgot to apply overlays to each outfit and I don't want to deal with that, hence the split. I've never done tanlines before, and boy does it show as it's kind of sloppy I'll admit, sorry. Maybe I'll get better at it by the time Botan MK. II rolls around.

Anyways, before I head off, there's one more group I'd like to thank and it's the translators/fan subbers. These unsung heroes is why a large number of folk got into this whole mess. Without them, I don't think Hololive would've been as successful and on a more personal note, I would've never given it a chance. So if you appreciate their work, let'em know and if you're able to, toss a coin their way. 

I'm thankful for all the translators, but I'm especially thankful towards Pekosubs. This dude is the one who really sold me on Hololive with their translation of Pekora's MGS3 stream. That stream was what made me go from being leery of Pekora, (Seeing her as just some anime flavored ragetuber) to being my absolute favorite. I'd go into detail, but I yabbered on long enough. Just know that they put out high quality work and do some stellar editing. Despite the name, they're not entirely focused on Pekora so if you're not sold on her, there's plenty of other videos they have featuring different members. 

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCCaooRutmsPSKdSJS8D1W0w 

Give 'em a look see here. And if you happen to like their stuff and want to support them, you can do so through their Ko-Fi.  

I am not a paid shill or sponsored by them, but if I were, I would gladly accept more videos over cash. 

That's all for now. I'd drop a hint on who's next, but given there's an actual theme this time around, I think y'all can figure it out pretty easily. Well, til' then, see ya! 

•  A Primer On Hololive

Now just what is this Hololive? Well, on paper it's just a group of streamers/"vtubers" who use a virtual avatar instead of just recording themselves. While there's a number of things that makes them appealing,  (Design, skillset, aesthetic, quality standards, etc.) what made them stick out for me is that they got lore and I don't mean it in the usual sense. Regular youtuber lore, whether true or "entertaining lies based on facts", doesn't really affect the person in question.

For example, the lore for Woolie (From Super Best Friends Play) started off as a simple anecdote about how back in high school football, he tackled a guy pretty hard. He didn't see him get back up before he left the field but it can be safely assumed the guy was fine afterwards. Then the other members of SBFP added onto the story, starting from Woolie accidentally killing the guy, then doing it on purpose. Right up until the story was that Woolie, as an adult, went back to his old high school and ran onto the field during football practice. He then performed a Raging Demon on some poor quarterback and ran off with the kid's now bloodied jersey.

As amusing as that is, it didn't change anything about Woolie nor did he act differently after the fact. Whether or not he saved more Christmases than he had ruined ultimately doesn't matter because it has no bearing on anything.

But in Hololive's case, while the characters are played by actual people, they're still characters at the end of the day. Since the streamers are given a ton of leeway to go in whatever direction they want to take the character, they can and usually do end up changing dramatically from what they originally were like.

Like one of the vtubers, Matsuri, started off as this pure innocent high pitched character. Then the actress got tired of that and shifted into being crass n' playful using a deeper tone. While it does creates some visual inconsistency, overall I prefer this organic approach.

In a way, you can see Hololive like an ongoing story being made on the spot. Sure, it results in a buttload of contradictions and inconsistencies to previously established lore, but in the end the characters feels a lot more natural. Because of this, quite a number of folks have described it as wrestling, just replace wrestling with gaming and give it an anime aesthetic.

It may be a bit odd wondering how a certain character is going to develop since it's centered around an actual person. But that's the magic of it to me, the fact that I can think "Hm, I don't really like this youtuber now, but I'm gonna wait n' see how they develop first before making any kind of judgement." is what makes it special. Again, it's like a story unfolding in real time which makes it pretty exciting to wake up each day to find what happens next. And just  like in those stories, characters that you didn't like much at first can end up being your favorite later.

P.S.

Who's your favorite vtuber and why?