Hello everyone! Today, I'm here to talk about the characters of By Your Hands, mostly the character designs because there's a lot to unpack here. There are several things that make By Your Hands unique and the character designs are one of them. From the offset, this VN was made to represent less appreciated species in the furry fandom. While the species that are represented in the game aren't all lacking exposure to other furry VNs, I made sure the typical felines and canines would remain as side characters at most. I also made sure to vary up the body types compared to Barachoda Bloom and to draw them slightly differently than how a typical furry artist would (Hopefully that didn't sound pretentious as there are plenty of furry artists who are great). With that in mind, let's take a look at the characters.

The first is Rex, the protagonist. I decided that the protagonist should be a dinosaur because it would be interesting for a pre-historic animal to exist in a modern setting. When I was reading the script, I was concerned that people would find him too boring or lacking in character. The most important character in a story would probably be the protagonist, so I didn't want an unlikable protagonist for the VN. I'm glad to see most people's reactions toward Rex are positive. You'll definitely see more of his character in future builds. Being a dinosaur and stuck in a case study environment also means he's not too familiar with our world, which means he's learning about the world at the same rate we're learning it. He was originally a Tyrannosaurus Rex, hence his default name being Rex. I changed him to be an Allosaurus because I wanted to use a slightly lesser-known dinosaur. One thing I'll mention is that his size is basically the same as the other animals despite allosaurus being a rather large animal according to research. I don't have an exact explanation for this, but I do have a few explanations. One explanation would be that allosaurus vary in size by quite a bit and he turns out to be one of the smaller ones. This reasoning has a few issues so I'll leave it alone for now. The last thing I'll mention is that his body type is muscular. There's no particular reason why he has this body type other than that I wanted to have some fun drawing him during sex scenes. That said, he does have a little soft belly. I don't know why but I usually avoid drawing abs.

Next is Connor. Connor was a character I made in direct response to the world I made for the game. A character born in a world where his own kind gets turned into fast food after they die. How would a character deal with that? I chose a chicken specifically because I feel like there are interesting designs you can do with a chicken. Like I like the little mohawk they have. Choosing a chicken led to a lot of jokes though. He also used to wear a jacket, but I wanted to make him look more friendly looking so I instead gave him a T-Shirt with funny text on it. It was fun drawing him, to say the least, since chickens have that red part that can be used as a substitute for hair, eyebrows, and beards, and they have a bunch of colors to pick from. I did have a dilemma about his arms and whether to give him talons or not. Thing is, if you compare the skeletons of birds to the skeletons of humans, you'd see that wings are equivalent to human arms. And our hands aren't our feet. They both have five digits and nails and that's about where the similarities end. So no talons, but I did attempt to make his arms look like wings a little. For his body type, I just gave him a muscular body for no other reason other than it's fun to draw.

Next is Tucker. For Tucker, Liam, and Wyatt, the idea was that the popular students in the college would be species that are popular in the furry fandom, so they're all felines and canines. For Tucker, he's a tiger. Tigers were a species I didn't know was popular until a year ago, but they're almost everywhere in both the furry fandom and furry visual novels. If they're not a love interest, it's almost guaranteed that they'll show up as side characters as long as the VN isn't focusing on a particular species. This is in stark contrast to mainstream furry media, where besides Tiggers, Hobbes, and Tony the Tiger, they're almost always villains or pretty irrelevant. I can't tell you why tigers are popular in the furry fandom and not really anywhere else, but I guess their stripes and colors make them pretty unique compared to other big cats. For Tucker, his main inspiration was Lin Hu from Nekojishi as he's the first tiger I thought of when I thought of a "popular tiger furry character". That's where his body type came from. I was considering basing him off Torahiko from Morenatsu, but his design doesn't really look like a real-world tiger, and I wanted the characters to look like the animals they're supposed to be, and he's not that muscular compared to your typical bara furry (this was Samoji before his prime hit). Funny thing about Lin Hu is that his favorite food is fried chicken which makes Tucker's interactions with Connor interesting, to say the least (real-life tigers also eat fowl so it makes sense for both of these characters). Now when you draw a tiger, you realize that they're actually kind of cute when they're not showing their huge teeth. They're like cats! Except…bigger. And when you stylize a drawing of a tiger, you're inevitably going to make them look cuter. So there was an effort to make him look intimidating so that his personality is quite apparent. He's also almost always showing his teeth at all times. Of course, from a certain perspective, I failed to make him look threatening because I saw people call him cute anyways. But it doesn't matter since his introduction scene makes it obvious what kind of character he is. Him being tall and muscular also makes him intimidating, albeit in a way that makes him desirable, which was intentional. His letterman jacket being red indicates that this guy's not only different from the other members of the football team, but someone you shouldn't mess with (you know, unless he's dead). I also made the whites of his eyes…not white. They're yellow. The same goes for Liam and Wyatt. Tigers, wolves, and lions probably don't have yellow sclera, but they typically have yellow eyes. This is mostly artistic license on my part, but it's also inspired by how nanoff colored the eyes of his characters in BMZ. Finally, I made sure that he looks like an actual tiger, which means that I made the stripes more organic looking instead of the cute markings some furries give their OCs, not naming any names.

Next is Wyatt. He was supposed to be a leopard cat, then a jaguar because I wanted him, Tucker, and Liam to form a trio of big cats. It would be like Nekojishi except they're all assholes. Thing is, neither leopard cats nor jaguars are as popular as lions or tigers and that would go against the point of these characters if the species isn't all that popular. So I changed him into a wolf since that's arguably the most popular species in the furry fandom (Why do you think Blaidd got literally hundreds of erotic fanart shortly after Elden Ring came out?) and the three of them would still revolve around a theme as they're all apex predators. Continuing the trend of basing characters off popular characters in the furry fandom, he's based on Amicus from Adastra alongside a few elements of Leo from Echo. For some reason, a lot of wolves tend to be portrayed as domestic dogs but cooler. Now initially he was like this dumb himbo character who'd be jolly and cute. This was because I thought that the popular archetype in the furry fandom was "himbo wolf" because of Amicus. But then I read the first draft as it was being written and he doesn't really act like a himbo. he acts like an asshole. Then I realized that the popular archetype isn't "himbo wolf" but "dominant wolf". Wyatt is pretty dumb, but he doesn't fit the other qualifications in being a himbo (namely being nice). As someone who likes to take control and finds comfort in more submissive characters, I find it hard to see such a character appealing, but some people still do like him. I made him too hot is the problem, but if he was ugly then it wouldn't make sense why he's hanging out with a guy like Tucker. I like winter wolves so I was more than willing to give him that sort of coloration. His face is of a cute dog, but he's got huge tits that his muscle shirt leaves little to the imagination, making it obvious that he was supposed to be a himbo, and he's got a confident pose to strike. Someone complained I made the tits look too round looking but I think they look good. Also, unlike Amicus and Leo, he's got defined abs. I think the toned abs fit his huge pecs more than a tummy, so that's why I gave him that. I made his nose too big, so that will definitely be something I'll change in the future. Drawing his expressions was hard because I'm not good at drawing teeth and his faces prominently feature them. The final thing I'll note is that the one thing both Amicus and Leo have in common, other than being dominant wolves with a tummy, is that they have blue jeans and a belt and Wyatt has neither of those things.

Onto Liam, lions are essentially the opposite of tigers. They're all over mainstream media (Lion King, Thundercats, The Madgascar films, The Wizard of Oz…) but are more downplayed within the furry fandom. They're common in furry art and OCs, but I've seen that they're not as common as wolves or tigers, and whenever they appear in furry visual novels they're often overshadowed by a canine or tiger character (unless the VN is Socially Awkward but that VN is on hiatus). This is unfortunate because I actually think lions are beautiful looking and they're pretty appealing as anthros. Because of this, Liam was intentionally designed to look plainer than either Tucker or Wyatt. His body type is muscular, but his body is nothing special compared to the other muscular characters in the game. He's attractive but not in an intriguing way. I actually really like his design, which is why I'm a little sad that he's just a side character. But I told myself that there would be no feline or canine love interest in this game. Hopefully one day I'll make a game where a lion character gets to shine, but not this game. One last thing to note is that I originally planned to make his eyebrows the same color as his face. I thought it looked weird, however, so I made his eyebrows the color of his mane, and canonically he dyed his eyebrows that way. I'd also like to mention that the Reddit post introducing him got a good amount fewer upvotes than most of the other By Your Hands characters, which is fitting for his character I'd say.

Moving back to the actual love interests, we have Kamil. Kamil was a character I felt was too similar to another one of my characters whose face hogs the cover image, that being Ahmed from Barachoda Bloom. After reading the script for his first day and writing the outline for his route, however, I can see that he is different from Ahmed in several ways to the point where I think his existence helps me make Ahmed a better character. I hope that sentence made sense. But anyways, he was intended to be a character palatable to the tastes of most of the target audience, being a friendly and attractive childhood friend. His route is intended to be the first one the player picks. I chose a Karkadann because I wanted a mythical creature that's not commonly represented in media. I was considering an Al-Mi'raj before deciding on a karkadann since I found rhinos to be attractive. I also considered making him into a panda, a boar, or a komodo dragon. Initially, his design was based on the Pokemon Rhydon, but I scrapped that when I based the design more on descriptions of the karkadann. I decided that mythical characters had human-esque elements like body hair, human eyebrows, head hair, and human facial hair. This gave me a lot of freedom with his design as I wasn't limited to the appearance of one animal. Essentially he's a combination of an Indian rhino and a unicorn (Does this mean he's attracted to virgins? Lucky Rex). I gave him a really exaggerated body because I let myself be indulgent with his body. Huge and hairy tits, arms, and ass were things I wanted to see the most in a male character design, and I didn't let myself hold back on drawing those things. In contrast, his clothes aren't very revealing, with the only exposure of skin we get being the top of his pecs and his letterman jacket hiding the silhouette of his torso. Both his huge body and his concealing outfit will be given explanations later in his route. Someone you'd love to see just bare it all yet holds a certain distance from you. Other than that, I had some difficulty drawing his horn and making sure it didn't block any features of his face and I was going to add a cowlick (rhinolick? karkadannlick?) to his hair but I decided that it would just make his head cluttered. He's overall kind of intimidating, but his eyes let you know that he's a friendly guy.

Next is Mr. Baker. I'll be honest with you guys, I did not expect him to be so popular. Like I knew that he was attractive and I knew that the audience liked older guys, but I didn't expect so much thirst towards him. To give you guys an idea of how popular he is, currently, 67% of respondents for the NSFW survey picked him as a character that wanted to see NSFW content for. I can't exactly tell you why he's so popular, but I have a feeling he'll get less popular as more builds come out and we learn more about the characters. But anyways, for his design, I picked a bison because I believed they would make into some attractive furries but I didn't see much of them. I liked bovines, so I didn't mind drawing someone like him. I think bison have a lot of unique features that they can make for some interesting character designs. For instance, their faces are a good mix of ugly animal features (for lack of a better word) and human-like features which give you several options to work with. Now if you have played Barachoda Bloom, you'd know that I'm quite attracted to older men, so I had to include a datable character that was middle-aged. I wanted to include a middle-aged character where the relationship he has with the protagonist is played more realistically than most age-gap/power-gap relationships. There's still a fantasy with the relationship, but I wanted the fantasy of it to be founded by something more grounded. Originally Brendan's personality was a bit wooden. He was the basic older teacher mentor archetype with the added twist that he likes to jerk off in his office during office hours. I found that a little boring, especially considering that he has an entire route dedicated to him. I decided to make his personality a little more dorky and clumsy, someone who enjoys watching shows from the 80s on loop while recalling how actors started their careers in films during that time. Ultimately, his route received the most changes from me and I really enjoy how his character and his route came out to be. Unfortunately, I have a feeling that a lot of people didn't get to see the part of him that I enjoy the most. Either way, I'm definitely looking forward to seeing more content of him. Going back to his design, the parts of Bison made it really easy to indicate that this character was older (eyes that look baggy, disheveled fur, and chin fur that resembles a beard). Because of my fondness for bovines and older men, I was really indulgent when it came to his body type. It might not be apparent to you, but I love muscle chubs and I can't get enough of them. For both Kamil and Mr. Baker, I based their body types on the work of ZoroJ and Dsharp, as I believed that the bodies they drew were both attractive while still being exaggerated. I drew him with a body that would turn me on the instant I looked at him and all I could think of is having sex with him. At least initially. Nowadays I'm just kind of used to it. His outfit used to be more formal, similar to what Mr. Parker from After Class wears. I changed his outfit to something that would emphasize his body more, if only so that he wouldn't be compared to Mr. Parker. His appearance is contradictory in a way. His neat hair and dress shirt would have you believe that he's a well-spoken and polite person. But his open shirt, non-friendly face, open shirt, messily put-on tie, and tight clothes suggest that he's more disorganized and hectic than you'd expect at first glance. Coloring him was kind of a pain, as I couldn't have his body just be one color but bison have odd colorations. Hopefully, his color palette doesn't look too odd.

Coming near the end is Owen. Owen is a bit of a cathartic character for me. This was a character I was uncomfortable writing, but wanted to make a project featuring such a character. I'm really excited to see this character be realized. Anyways, he's easily the hardest character to design as there weren't a lot of references on drawing orca anthros and I wasn't used to drawing non-muscular chubs. His color palette is all neutral colors, which is supposed to indicate that he's someone to be ignored. I also had some artistic license with where his back fin was supposed to be. In real-world orca whales, it's supposed to be lower on their bodies, but he looks a little weird without the fin appearing from behind his back, so I moved it up. I gave him a hoodie because hoodies are nice, it's hard to look bad in a hoodie. But it's also a good way to indicate that he's closed off (why is he wearing a hoodie in daylight?). His posture is also intentionally awkward. Most characters stand up straight, but he doesn't. Once again it's to show how awkward he is. It was easy to figure out what pose he'd do considering I wasn't concerned with him looking cool. I like his body type, it's very guy next door to me, but there's a bunch of people who seem to disagree with me. Finally, one thing to note is that he's usually looking away. He only looks directly at Rex during certain moments. This will be important later.

And finally, there's Vlad. Vlad was another character type I wanted to include in one of my projects but I didn't feel like putting him in my projects until now due to how unorthodox he is. Right now he's the least popular character from the main cast, but I still like his character a lot. As a black vulture, his design was sure to turn a few heads. The head of a black vulture is actually very ugly when looked at up close, so I had to make sure I drew his head appealing while still being close to a black vulture. The rest of his design I really enjoy. He dresses like Rahmir if Rahmir wasn't a horny top. Both of his outfits use black as the dominant color, and he wears a necklace that marks him as an outsider. His drag outfit was something I really enjoyed drawing. I love drawing bara men, but sometimes I just want to draw feminine clothes. I based his outfit on Elvira and the Wicked Witch from Wicked. I really enjoy the dynamic of this guy he's closed off during college becoming his wild witch at the club.

And that's every character worth mentioning. There are some characters I missed, but they can be summed up as characters I had fun drawing, especially Mama Belle. By Your Hands is a game that heavily revolves around its characters, so I and Nemo make sure that they're strong characters. Glad to see many of you guys enjoyed these characters and put in a lot of hard work of making them the way they are now.

Thank you for reading all of this. If you want to read more of my stuff, please consider reading my blog over here. So far it only has the stuff I posted on itch.io, but eventually, it will have its own stuff. Also if you enjoy reading about the behind-the-scenes of By Your Hands, please consider becoming a patron. When you become a patron, you get access to the commentary of the script, which reveals extra bits of information about the stuff that went into making the VN. Here's a little preview of what it's like:

You can become a patron here.

Anyways, thank you guys for your time. I hope you all have a good day. See you later!