Memory's Meme Hour

🎨👔 Art: Illusion/Reality reference sheet

Here's Illusion/Reality Steve, aka the one Steve Saga character that I can't stop drawing.

I was gonna write down design notes, but a lot just came up in my personal life, so I'm rushing to get this posted. So I'll write it in the future once I'm able to. Thank you for your patience. I hope you like the art.

Edit (1/16/2021): Design notes have been added!

Design notes:

Illusion Steve

---When Illusion first showed up in the Steve Saga, he revealed that he knew a lot about Sabre despite barely interacting with him. Because of that, he reminded me of websites like Facebook and Google: websites that know more about you than you are comfortable with. So then I thought about stereotypical anthropomorphized designs of websites that artists draw (usually as a white person in a business suit or sci-fi outfit). I got a lot of inspiration from that, hence why I decided to make Illusion wear a suit.

---Illusion also reminded me of a detective: trying to figure stuff out for Galaxy. I wanted to incorporate detective-like cues into his design, like a detective coat and even a smoking pipe (that would emit 0s and 1s instead of smoke). But those didn't make it into my current design of him. Long story short: I wanted my design of Illusion to look smort, so I decided to give him glasses. Because he's a smort boi who spends a lot of time learning.

---After figuring out the vibe I wanted to give Illusion, I went to figure out how to combine that vibe with his Minecraft skin, creating the design you see above. I came up with this grayscale suit and coat, where his coat has colorful inside lining with a puzzle-like pattern, to make it like his MC skin. Also, I thought the puzzle motif fit his character well: he's trying to figure out how to make sense of the world, or "put the pieces together."

---After figuring out his outfit, I added and made tweaks to make him more like his MC skin and personality. Colorful hair and accessories to contrast his monochrome outfit and deep voice. Dark skin to contrast the white coat. Heterochromia because why not. Pink glasses because they're FABULOUS (though in my first drawings of him, I drew him with red glasses, lol).

---Made him short and scrawny to emphasize that his greatest strengths are from his mind and to optimize his salty gremlin energy.

---"Stress, why did you give him a ponytail?" It's because of a very specific, random headcanon that I love so much. But before I explain the headcanon, I need to give context: I feel like Illusion developed a bad rep for copying other characters' aesthetics. He stole the Rainbow Town look and created the Illusion Town to insult Sabre and Rainbow Steve. He absorbed Galaxy Steve AND made himself look like a galaxy. And there's a reason why some fans call him a Hypno Steve knock-off; they have similar powers, similar salty levels, and the same voice actor.

------So with that context in mind, I thought it would be funny to headcanon that "stealing other people's aesthetics" is an actual personality trait he has.

------Thus, I started headcanoning that Illusion "stole" Alex's ponytail-over-shoulder hairstyle because he secretly thinks her hairstyle's cool. But being the anxious disaster he is, he grew paranoid that Steves would accuse him of stealing Alex's hairstyle. So, when he stole Alex's powers, created the illusion, and brainwashed Alex into becoming his minion, he decided to block Alex's memories about her hair. He decided to make Alex think that HE was the one who invented the ponytail-over-shoulder look, and SHE was copying HIM, instead of the other way around. It's random, insulting, and petty, but I love this headcanon so much.

---Also, Illusion probably grew his hair that long because he works so hard and never learned that barbers are a thing that exist, and there were no barbers in Galaxy Steve's mind/out of the timeline.

Reality Steve

---As for Reality Steve....he was pretty hard for me to figure out. I didn't have a calculated design process for him.

---I wanted him to have a wilder style than Illusion since he's all like "I WANT FREEDOM. I WANT TO DO WHATEVER I WANT, INCLUDING BEING A WILD VILLAIN." So basically, not a suit and no ponytail. Hair must be too wild to be put into a ponytail. I originally wanted him to be in a glam rock kind of outfit with a galaxy cape but then I thought nah.

---So what did I do next? I just brainstormed a bunch of casual outfits I wanted to draw Reality in, imagined what they would look like in my head, and see what would fit the best. After a few months of thinking, I eventually decided on the outfit I wanted him to have: flannel, jeans, hoodie, and sneakers. Instead of a cape, the hoodie will have the galaxy pattern inside.

---Unfortunately, no puzzle motif for this design, but I guess that's kinda fitting since Reality Steve has more stuff figured out than Illusion Steve (even though he's more on edge than Illusion, heh). Plus, the flannel pattern and the jeans texture already help pay homage to that checkered-pattern Reality's MC skin has.

---I debated on if Reality would wear glasses or not. I was so close to deciding he wouldn't wear glasses, but then after seeing so much people adoring Illusion's glasses in RRFF, I decided "Both? Both. Both Both is good." So he sometimes wears glasses, but can't wear them all the time or else he'll get a headache.