I've been having a lot of trouble with character rewrites and something just hit me about maybe why that is.
A lot of my characters weren't made because I had an idea for a character. Instead I had an idea for a relationship dynamic I wanted to explore and I made the characters to fill the roles in those dynamics. That works pretty well when they're first made, but over time as I rewrite bits and pieces of the lore and world they suddenly don't make sense anymore and they end up getting changed along with everything else.
They started off being defined by a relationship to another character, and then that got broken off for lore reasons and since that relationship was their only real characteristic, I don't know anything about the character anymore. I still have their design and general vibe but any depth is lost and that completely kills my motivation to draw them.
I only figured that out after looking at the exception: Ash. There's been a lot of lore changes that involved him, but the core of his character hasn't really been altered at all since I first wrote him. He's always been my anxious bean, and I don't see that changing. That's why it's so easy for me to draw him. Because he's familiar and I know he's not likely to be rewritten.
And I think trying to mimic that in the rewrite is what's stopping me. I'm trying to make other characters that I really like and won't change, but that's just not how I write. I mess with lore and characters all the time to see what feels right and if what feels right changes then so does the lore and characters. I never draw those constantly changing things because they feel so temporary, but maybe that's what I need to do.
Kinda ironic based on how cartoony my usual style is that I've been so dead set on being consistent lol
But I think I want to change that. I wanna draw and do more stuff of characters just... being characters, and not care as much if I retcon it later. I don't make it a big secret that my life has been kinda a mess lately so expect plenty more Ash for now, but when everything settles down a bit maybe I'll have a chance to get into other characters too