Help me redesign this magical girl.

I would post it in the project's defacto thread (Dreams & Daydreams, blah blah etc.) but that thread is bloated, slow, and full of Old Shame.

So anyway:

I spend a year planning (and practicing for) a webcomic about a teenage girl who escapes from her crappy life into a Rule of Cool-powered escapist fantasy in which her Parody Sue Author Avatar fights Aliens And Monsters  ^*

When Sucker Punch happens.

There are enough differences to make my version salvageable, but I'm going to need to rework a lot of shit.

First of all, said Author Avatar was originally a sailor-suited, Zettai Ryouiki-ed Hot Chick with a Sword. But yeah.◊ Turns out she was basically this with brown hair, a cape, and a bow.

I'm not disappointed, though. This is a chance to make her much more interesting.

I think I want to make her (a parody of) a more traditional Magical Girl Warrior. Here's what I have so far:

• As for her appearances: I think I want to keep the bow and maybe the cape. But after that (and the possiblility of giving her knee-kigh white boots), I'm drawing a blank.
• As for attacks: I have no idea. I was thinking of making her an Improbable Weapon User, or maybe having her weild a BFS that would be the subject of a lot of lampshade hanging, but it might be more interesting to stick to magic attacks - maybe Grotesque Cute parodies of regular Magical Girl Warrior attacks  ^*
  ^{I was considering giving her some kind of sparkly, pink attack that reduces its targets to Ludicrous Gibs like a Gantz gun, but I can't find any way to plausibly work that into a Story Within a Story written by a 12 year-old girl.}
  . I've never written a story with any form of magic involved, though, so this is totally alien territory for me. Any ideas?

Also, while there are definite elements of Stylistic Suck, it's not really supposed to be over-the-top stupid and cheesy (although the Self-Deprecation-prone protagonist does make fun of it later on). More like those wierd-but-fun fantasies kids make up over their action figures.

I'll post concept sketches as the topic goes on and I come up with stuff.

edited 4th Mar '11 2:44:01 PM by Wheezy

Maybe you could merge the bow and the cape? Making it tie up around her neck?

also, with all magic systems, make sure the internal rules are consistant, even in a magical girl show. You don't nessiarly have to follow our laws of physics, but the magic must follow laws all the same.

As for weaponary, Improable Weapon User/magic user sounds just right. Is their any item or group of items the heroine is obsessed with?

Also, I like the idea of the pink HEARTS AND LUV beam being the equivilent to a Wave-Motion Gun.

edited 4th Mar '11 3:14:08 PM by doorhandle

Since Babydoll's outfit is Steampunk-style, try either a bright color scheme or a goth-black color scheme.

On another note, I might watch Sucker Punch if it's PG-13. It looks so cool.

EDIT: Also, stay away from the sailor suit. Sailor Moon already did it, so try something farther from the norm.

...This gives me an idea. :3

edited 4th Mar '11 3:46:28 PM by chihuahua0

I am really curios about this. Please show us your prototypes. When could work from there.

Better yet, don't alter the character so much as alter the world in which she lives. It's what I like about my main story: Even if my character doesn't turn out as original as I thought, there's Galaday which is totally me.

All I have are unfinished headshots. See the four on the left.◊

edited 11th Mar '11 2:46:02 PM by Wheezy

Anyone?

Going on your saying that it starts off as being quite a generic magical girl fantasy but then starts to change (it gets darker, grittier, more realistic?), perhaps you could start out as a magical girl stereotype, then slowly change her as the world around her changes.

The movie girl pretty much has got a generic magical girl look, albeit in an American movie, not an anime.

It sounds like a pretty interesting idea, I hope you can make it work.

It Gets Weirder would be a much more accurate Pot Hole, but since it doesn't exist, I had to go with It Gets Worse.

And it does get kind of worse too (the whole series takes a turn for the Surreal Horror), so I guess it's accurate.

That's a good idea. I was considering starting In Medias Res, but I think , especially since I hate when shows do that. And I was actually considering having her powers get more random as the series goes on, but I still have no idea what said powers could actually be (I think I want to debut the attack that makes people explode later on in the series, maybe.)

edited 11th Mar '11 7:59:01 PM by Wheezy

So her powers maybe get mixed up? Like, at the beginning, when she uses a sparkle-zap or whatever, it's played straight. But later she shoots it at someone later on and they explode, possibly?

Perhaps, later on, you could keep changing things about her appearance around at random, then, as if she can't decide what she wants to look like?