So, I drew my second original character (OC) using Uchinoko-Karte.
Compared to the first time, this one was an absolute struggle, so I’m writing this down mainly as a note to my future self.
The struggle is real, man…
The Courier 📦
Here’s the girl I drew. I think she turned out pretty cute, ngl.
I generated a prompt with Uchinoko-Karte and went with it.
| Hairstyle | Long straight |
| Physical Trait | Beauty mark (near the eye) |
| Occupation | Courier (Delivery worker) |
These were the mandatory items, and for the supplementary details, I got these conditions and belongings:
I had a vague image pop into my head, so I was like, “Yeah, I can draw this.” I miss that naive version of myself.
I ended up spending over 16 hours just on her.
What Went Wrong 💀
First off, let’s look back at what I struggled with.
I always run into some kind of trouble, but this time? It was a lot. Like, a whole lot.
The Clothes 👕
As always, the clothes were a massive pain.
I can’t even confidently say I’ve mastered drawing a base body yet, but clothing always beats me up.
When I try to put clothes on a base, they either look stiff as a board or super flat and lifeless.
This time, the prompt required her clothes to be wet, so my smooth brain thought, “Might as well make it look see-through.”
I didn’t realize how hard it would be to draw wet, translucent fabric when I’m already terrible at making dry fabric look soft.
In my previous post, I mentioned a rough draft of a shirt—this is the first version I drew.
It’s stiff and completely flat. I could excuse it by calling it a “draft,” but even for a rough sketch, the quality is embarrassing.
I somehow managed to salvage it into this:
The shape of the shirt was totally off to begin with, so I fixed that. Then I placed some large wrinkles around the front sleeve and back. To give the illusion of wet clothes clinging to the skin, I increased the brightness where it wasn’t sticking, and used a darker, skin-toned color where it was pressing against her.
Looking at it now, the chest area and the arm in the back feel a bit messy…
Still, it mostly looks wet and painted the way I intended, so I was pretty satisfied.
For the pants, I wanted to give them a less fabric-like texture—something almost like vinyl or rubber. To make the material look smooth and slightly stiff, I added long, large folds and placed highlights along those wrinkles.
I’m generally happy with how this part turned out too.
So the coloring was fine, but getting to that point… I literally hadn’t thought about what kind of clothes would make someone look like a courier. After looking at delivery company uniforms and Uber Eats vibes, I decided on a shirt and pants with a delivery company logo.
Hence, “UK DELIVERS.”
Uchinoko-Karte Delivers. I’ve officially adopted them as my personal delivery service. I drew the logo to be kinda cute, but tbh, I just brute-forced the “courier” look because the outfit alone didn’t scream delivery worker.
Yeah, trying to express the “courier” occupation was the root of all my suffering here.
The Courier Occupation 🚲
If you just think about how to portray a courier in an illustration, there are tons of ways to do it.
In hindsight, of course.
For example, standing next to a bike or motorcycle and checking a smartphone.
Or holding a package under one arm while looking at a map.
Or driving a large delivery truck.
Or reaching out of an open door to hand a package to the viewer.
I can think of so many ideas now.
But my mistake was that I finalized the composition and outfit without thinking about the courier occupation or situation at all.
I wish I had turned back halfway through, but I really wanted to draw a girl crouching down, and I was in too deep to stop.
As a result, I had to cop out by printing a logo on her shirt to force some context.
Who knew it would be this hard to slap a “courier” label onto a drenched girl crouching on the ground as an afterthought…
I threw a cap on her for good measure too.
I spent more time agonizing over this than actually drawing.
Tbh, looking at this piece, I still don’t think it reads as a courier illustration at first glance.
Major fail on my part.
The Background 🌧️
I also went back and forth a ton on the background.
At first, I placed a few cardboard boxes in the foreground and background, but then I realized it made zero sense with the “drenched” situation.
Why would she be sitting in the pouring rain surrounded by cardboard boxes?
I considered having her take shelter by the back entrance of a building, but after a lot of trial and error, I decided to keep her fully outdoors. That was just too hard for me.
In the end, I made it look like she’s crouching on the side of the road and painted a faint silhouette of a bicycle.
Since she’s wearing a backpack, I decided she’s a bike messenger.
What Even is “Shivering”? 🥶
I totally overlooked this at the beginning, but the prompt included the keyword “shivering.”
The only thing that came to my mind was making her look cold.
But how do you draw someone looking cold? I changed her pose so she’s hugging her arms, hoping that would do the trick.
Spoiler: It didn’t look like she was shivering, and I basically gave up on clearly expressing it.
I thought about using comic-style effects (like little jagged lines), but I couldn’t get it to look right, so I reluctantly looked the other way.
I admit defeat.
I still don’t really get how to draw “shivering.” Someone teach me…
Lessons Learned 📝
This probably applies to more than just OCs, but I really jumped the gun this time.
Both in trying to build an illustration solely off the prompt, and in starting to draw without nailing down the finer details of the OC.
Fleshing Out Character Details 🗂️
As I mentioned earlier, my biggest mistake was starting to draw without deciding anything, despite OCs having zero official reference art to rely on.
I was finally drawing one of my own OCs, and I just feel so apologetic to her.
I think I vented about this on Bluesky while I was drawing, but when you draw an OC, you absolutely need to make a proper character sheet before you even pick up the pen.
At least, that’s how it is for me.
Up until now, I’ve mostly drawn fanart. For existing characters, the creators have already provided the outfits, accessories, and items, so once you decide on the pose and composition, you just reference the materials and go.
With an OC, if you don’t think it up yourself, nothing exists. Obviously.
Yet, I just blindly moved forward knowing her occupation was in the prompt, and ended up getting totally stuck at the clothing stage thinking, “How do I make an outfit look like a courier?”
Luckily, I love creating settings and lore, so next time I’ll make sure to flesh out the details before I start.
The Meaning of Prompts 🎯
When it comes to building a piece based on a prompt, I really should have laid out the situation, composition, and character all on the table, and thought about how it would come together as a whole.
I don’t have the skill to just wing it and make it work. Looking back, I spent so much time just stopping mid-drawing to figure out what the hell I was even doing.
I built Uchinoko-Karte and totally failed to realize this.
How do you take the generated prompts and combine them into a single, cohesive illustration idea?
Having a prompt actually made things harder in some ways. E.g., a drenched, shivering courier.
Note to self: Actually think (and plan) before you draw…
Drafting a Character Sheet 📋
To learn from this disaster, I’m going to outline a basic character sheet template.
I want to keep expanding the Uchinoko-Karte gallery until it’s an actual, robust gallery, and I want to give each character some depth.
That being said, I think the mandatory fields from Uchinoko-Karte can serve as the base.
Namely:
- Hairstyle
- Physical Traits
- Occupation
On top of that, here’s what I want to add:
- Outfit (tailored to their occupation)
- Personality
- Hair Color
- Eye Color
- Likes
- Dislikes
I also want to draw a simple SD (chibi) version of them if possible.
It’d be best to finalize the outfit design at this stage too.
This is good enough for now—I can always update it as I go.
I want to design the actual sheet and post it here on the blog eventually.
And so, the pile of “things I want to do” continues to grow.
What should I do next? Honestly, who knows.
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