my artwork

Alma Fama

Here is Alma Fama ( when I was writing Persona 3 Red and Blue she was known as Alma Craftsman ) . Now the problem with Alma is that she is a Kuudere , as in she is hardcoded to be one ... because plot . I don't remember how much I elaborated on that in Persona 3 Red And Blue , but just know that she's always wearing that facial expression even as she watches Bambi's mom dies . She has ... other ways to communicate her feelings... but at the same time I can't rely on the usual format of drawing her facial expressions since she's always showing the same one .

To make up for that , Alma has the most unique arsenal of weapons and items dedicated to her and only her , and she's the only one who can use them . The emote cards are used by her to express her feelings, but only to people she absolutely trusts . I based off the choices of emotes on the emoji keyboard in my tablet , but there should be more that I couldn't include due to space limitations . There is also the sentimental item from a loved one , which is a plain old key , my thought process was that we don't have to make our sentimental items something too unique like a star-shaped charm made of seashells, sometimes an old key is all it takes for someone like Alma to feel reminiscent. Though the key holds more value in its sentimentality than its appearance as it's tied to Alma's past . The revolvers are used to dispatch weak enemies that are easily killed with a bullet, where Alma would hold them Tomb Raider-style and blast enemies with flawless precision.

Finally , there is the Big Freaking Gun of my headcanon , the one I had the most fun drawing, and I think it made me fall in love with drawing mechanical contraptions, maybe I'll do more of that later . Most of what I want to say about the gun was already included in the drawing , but I still have a few things to say here . Now I usually draw other aspects of my characters after drawing the full body , but I had to do the gun first because I hadn't a clear idea of how it looked like . The tip of the gun is based on Iria Zeiram's gun in appearance only , and also magnified like two times . Then there's also the energy cells , which as you can see it's its own box of secrets. These energy cells are vital for Alma to fight with the gun, that's why she has four more ( two on each side ) taped on her gun . At the top , there's a plain and small aiming reticle positioned on what I described as a ' handle ' to use the weapon as ' a blunt object ' ... huh ...

Okay , let's talk functionality : the gun is one of the strongest weapons in my headcanon that can be used by a human , it can easily decommission an elephant in one shot . However , there are certain instances when it's unusable . First , without energy cells , the gun is useless . If you zoom in on the picture , you can see the equipped cell has two gauges : Arcána ( Anima ) levels , which decrease when firing shots gradually , and Pressure which increases as Alma's gun is damaged gradually. Alma doesn't have to keep tabs on the gauges all the time , she could tell the pressure is rising when the cell becomes increasingly hot to touch , and she could tell the Arcána level is decreasing as the shots become weaker and with softer recoil . The real danger is the pressure level , because if she lets it mount up , it can damage the energy condenser ( the tip of the gun ) . Eventually she will have to get rid of the cell and replace it with one of the other cells taped on her weapon ( the cells are perfectly rechargeable and reusable so even if she had to discard one during battle , she can pick it up after the battle and stash it to be recharged later ) .Secondly , the energy condenser , if something happens to this thing , it can affect everything in the gun , conversely , the gun can still function no matter how damaged it is so long as the condenser is intact . The condenser is damaged by mounting pressure in a damaged cell , or by an obstruction that prevents firing the shot , or by receiving direct hits from the enemies .

So basically the jaws of the monster are its only weakness , attack it and you risk getting killed in an instant.

And if the gun ends up breaking down , she will have to resort to the weaker revolvers to fend for herself and the handle to hold the gun as a rod with which she can block and tackle , at least buying herself enough time until support arrives or she finds an escape route . It was originally meant to be on the bottom of the gun , but then I realized that made removing the cells harder , so I moved it to the top . Yeah , as you can see , Alma is equipped to fight with great firepower, and yet is also fragile to be attacked , a glass-cannon if you may ( pun not intended ) , but she's also versatile enough to continue fending back the enemy even as her arsenal becomes more limited.

Phew ... that was a lot of writing ... hope you weren't overwhelmed by all of this . Seriously though , this was very fun to draw . Alma is not the first character I drew with unique belongings , that would be Jenna . However , at the time I was just barely skilled enough to get the body and facial expressions right , and I was out of space . This time , I had enough space to let my mind go creative, and boy did it go all out ! Maybe I'll try to draw another mechanical device from my original drafts , but I also want to draw another character ... I suppose we'll see how it turns out .

So what do you think ? Do you like Alma ? Do you like her weapon more , kinda like how people like Kobeni's car more than her ? Let me know in the comments. I hope you liked my drawing and enjoyed  me ... rambling about it , and stay safe.