i’ve kind of be meaning to do this so i don’t need to sift through every picture i’ve ever drawn to get the blotches right, but i’ve been too lazy. this is a good a time as any! i am always surprised when people say they recognise that the patterns are all different, or that they notice them at all really.

i’m not sure how i’d do this with makeup? it might be really weird irl. i’m really kind of curious of how it’d look because even though coloured noses are everywhere in fanart i’ve never seen any cosplayers try colour or markings (beyond dark undereye). i wanted to myself  back in october as terezi, but i didn’t end up going to c4, so it is still a mystery.

ok i did a mannequin that cycles through everyone’s pattern. i guess it is questionably nsfw although it’s a generic androgynous thing without any parts (or a head for that matter)?? i don’t know. i don’t know how to tag things

skin fax not relevant 2 costumes but might as well put down anyway while i’m here because it has been too long: it’s leathery and a lot more waterproof than human skin is. a baby’s skin is more permeable and also completely transparent, they only gain colour after pupation. the original purpose of the dark patches was to cover thinner skin and obscure the blood colour in ancestral forms, and since they were basically swamp monsters and spent a lot of time floating around in water and pulling themselves around in it by grabbing sticks and stuff they also had a bit of a countershading effect going on. neither of those are relevant to modern people at all but the blotches are still there. hairlines used to extend all the way down the spine, and they don’t anymore (or at least, they shouldn’t, some people might be unfortunate) but most people still have a dark line from the head to the tailbone. i guess they’d also have dark scalps too? the darkest area is the lumbar region where the skin is a lot thinner with a ton of blood vessels close to the surface; it is a big rough, ridged patch that is a site of gas exchange/iono- & osmoregulation/blood filtering, acting kind of like a kidney and/or the skin of an amphibian and [possibly] wings of a bat. it is one reason why they sleep in that slime. karkat does have a blackish patch there like everyone else but it is kind of broken up and does not cover the whole area, so the colour shows through a bit.

if you are terrestrial you also probably have six dots on your neck. those are where your gills would have been if you’d been blessed with a good blood colour, which you weren’t. the beginnings of the vessel loops are still there though, they are just not developed, so their colour is hidden under dark grey too.

Sure! I can draw a costume reference if you want.

Az/tumblr user Mediarama has also cosplayed her! With Chai as her acompanying Eridan. I THOUGHT THIS WAS ON MY BLOG BUT I COULDN’T FIND IT……… I HAD TO FISH THROUGH MONTHS OF POSTS TO FIND IT ON HERS?? Where did it goooooo. (They’re the reason Feferi has a rapier, in any case.) I don’t know how she managed to do it with such poor references? Some kind of miracle worker.

There has also been a Nepeta and a mysterious Sollux that I have been told exists, but I have never seen pictures of him nor know who he is exactly. (Fitting I guess? I: )