Socially Introverted: Pon and Zi Character Design and Artist's Notes

Pon and Zi has been a great inspiration for me ever since I discovered it during high school. The character design and illustrations were simple, but it brings out very emotional messages through texts and visuals or visuals alone.

After stumbling upon Pon and Zi's website while looking for character design references (as posted in the previous post) I found some images and the artist's notes which is relavent to my concept about genderless character design for my project.

Quoted from the artist/creator of Pon and Zi, Jeff Thomas:

"I first started drawing Pon and Zi in 2004. I was an angsty, antisocial junior in high school, and the violent themes of the first comics reflected my disconnect from people.

I started dating in December of that year, and as I became less bitter and more cuddly, so did the comics. Originally gray and nameless, Pon and Zi were named and given colors along with different personalities. Pon, colored yellow, is usually the optimistic instigator, and Zi, colored blue, retains some of the disconnect and apathy found in the first comics. Neither is assigned a gender because I think that each of their personalities could be identified by either male or female readers, depending on the comic and dynamics of the relationship the reader is involved in."

From the artist's statement when he mentioned the comics reflected his disconnection from people, one can assume he is an introvert. By assuming, it doesn't mean this assumption is 100% true, as the reason might be due by personal reasons or some other incidents. It is because that statement is similar to a characteristic of introverts - they do not like being around large crowds of people and prefer doing solitary activities alone. Such example is: "Introverts tend to be those who are more energized when alone ith themselves. They are the ones who have to be dragged to parties, who are the first ones ready to leave after a short period of time, and who generally enjoy solitary activities such as reading, writing, and daydreaming." (Source: http://briankim.net/blog/2007/10/top-5-things-every-extrovert-should-know-about-introverts/)

As for the character design, it is similar to what I want to portray in my project's character design. The character is designed without a gender so that the user can identify with the character or give it a gender based on the user's personal preferences or comfort with the character design. The difference it applies in my project is that the character's personality will be based on introverts and extrovert's characteristics. Hence, there will be two (2) sets of characters which will be designed in different forms based on those personalities.

Some images of Pon and Zi: