User blog:Yterbium/The Stories of Real-Life BFB: Alternate takes

(Return to the yearbook here.)

Alternate hello to alternate visitors!

Real-Life BFB

Main info • Production info Yearly overview • Show timelines (Timeline of RLBFDI • RLBFDIA • RLIDFB • RLBFB before and after the split • RLTPOT • Extra scouting) • General timelines (pre- and post-1950) Differences from Pencil 2.O • Aesthetics • Methodology (Names • Nationalities • Heights • Ages • Colours • Accessories • Team portraits) • Beyond the 64 TL;DR: Info • Timeline of the final project (part 1 • part 2 • part 3) The (slightly un)official RLBFB yearbook! (Alternate takes)

Intro to alternates

You know, "alternate" isn't such a dirty word. Sure, Pencil used it almost derisively to refer to her (more pleasant in personality, yet less pleasant in her opinion) fellow competitors Book and Ice Cube, but sometimes the alternate version of something can be just as or even more interesting than the original. To be honest, I hope that's not the case here, because many of the alternate versions on this page are actually just older versions of the final photos that I've saved, in case I wanted to go back and edit them some more.

Spoiler alert: I hardly ever did.

Anyway, I'm posting them here because they may be of interest and shed some light (which has never before been shred) on my creative process. I couldn't put it on the TIMELINE pages because that would ruin the fun of avoiding spoilers, but right here, right now are the alternative versions of the yearbook portraits of the contestants of ^RLBFB!

Editor's note: This page is best viewed with the page with the final yearbook photos open on another tab. I'll be talking frequently about the differences between these and those.

Gallery of alternate portraits

(Note: This isn't the page yet! They're just potential captions to be added to the images when they're uploaded after the main yearbook.)

Accessory over/underload

Different clothes/accessories

1. G.P. ^v6: An actual alternate look (as opposed to an older one). He's wearing all blue instead of white—blue was my first choice for the colour he should wear until I saw on DeviantArt earlier this year that, in his 擬人化 form, he's more often depicted in white, just as Match is more likely to be seen in beige than dark red.
2. Thomas ^v1: His April portrait. I realized that as an older-type guy in the groovy early seventies, T.B. with his particular glasses would look a bit misplaced, so in May I swapped his glasses for a sleeker pair of browlines—the same as the ones Khaled's got on, only recoloured.
3. Paula: With yarn in her hair. This was scrapped because the ribbons seemed a little out of place for her loopy personality and they didn't really look that realistic. Not as though the other accessories in the main yearbook look more realistic (maybe from a distance, but that's it), but I kept it anyway, just in case I wanted to modify her portrait further.
4. Ruby ^v2: With a headband. This was scrapped because I thought she would look like she's trying to dress like Maja.

Without glasses

1. Eugenia ^v2: In one of the '71 yearbooks I looked at, the majority of the kitchen staff and front desk people (most of whom were older women) wore cat-eye glasses, just a few years after they went out of style for high school girls. To be fair, Eugenia wanted to resemble Mamie Eisenhower until ^RLBFDIA, 1964.
2. Thomas ^v3: How often do you find couples in which both are bespectacled? With today's population staring at screens all day, it should be pretty common, but in the 1970s it must have been a rarity. Now I've said it before, but T.B. has major daddy vibes in this state.
3. Astrid ^v3: I'd written earlier that her eyes were hazel. In her May portrait, they are a bright green.
4. Terry: Same thing with the green eyes. Look closer and you might spot one of the many Easter eggs in this year book (which I'll reveal below)! The only thing I don't like is that the frames are so thick that they cover his eyebrows, which gives the illusion that he's got either nothing above his eyes or a large black unibrow.
5. Khaled ^v3: But with the moustache and the suit. The reason he looks so serious (which is even more evident without the glasses) is that this picture was taken right after he was recovered in August 1971. He was not in the mood for photographs!
6. Renata: Of course, with T.B. getting the same kind of glasses from someone else, that meant I had a pair just lying around in the virtual world, so I decided to give them to Renata (she previously wasn't wearing any, which I didn't think suited her as one of the more strongly mechanically-minded individuals).
7. Violette: Her glasses also changed from a totally extra green cat-eye pair (or whatever they're called in French), to a more ordinary one to fit her ordinary personality. I thought about swapping her pair for Astrid's but decided against it after looking at a few yearbooks, like this one. Her hairstyle and even her face have also changed. (See below for the full evolution!)
8. Joaquin: This portrait, along with Flora's, was the first final (or near-final) portrait that I leaked to this wiki, albeit intentionally, as it was a gift to readers as a part of the BFB 30 review package. The only difference is that he's smiling big here.

Without other stuff

1. Flora: Without her flower crown. Since I had hardly changed anything compared to her May portrait, she should look almost exactly the same here as on the BFB 30 review.
2. Lela ^v2: Without her "plant crown" (or whatever it's called). I felt it necessary to change the shape of the top of her hair a bit. As you can imagine, she doesn't wear that thing all the time.
3. Jake: Without the big hair clip. Most 擬人化 versions of Cake still include the toppings as hair ornaments to accentuate his "feminine" personality. I really can't argue with something like that—especially if it's on the Other Wiki—so I set about incorporating that aspect into his final portrait. It was going to be a full-blown diagonal headband (from mouth to the eye) but I decided it would be too extra and just stuck with the clip. You would see this in bohemian circles, particularly in New York.
4. Jessie: Without the string and the obligatory price tag to which the string is connected. Another anachronism (perhaps?)—if you look closer on the final photo, you can see that the hair ribbon has the same colours as the non-binary flag 42 years early!

Colours (not quite) nailed onto the mast

1. Woody ^{light version}: An example. As one can imagine, getting the lighting to be consistent across all portraits is not an easy task. If you get the shirt too light, the hair gets lighter...
   • ^{dark version} ... and vice versa for too dark. I've chosen to use the dark photo for the final portrait, with (mostly) only the original shirt colour as evidence that it doesn't come from the same photo.
2. Astrid ^{v1, light version}: She has hardly changed since April—that's a good thing. The main difference is the colouring of her shirt, the introduction of boundaries between her clothes and her hair, and the improvement in the lighting of her glasses. They're rose-tinted...
   • ^{dark version} ... For some reason, however, her face changes when I modified her shirt colour. Not in expression or anything, just the aesthetic. Again, I went with the darker version (for most portraits, it was a combination: dark version with 100% transparency, light version as a layer on top of it at 20%).
3. Simon ^{v1, light version}: With the shadow away from him, used for a lighter shirt colour in the final image. Somehow this makes him look a thousand years older...
   • ^{dark version} ... Now here's him with darker blonde hair. Elements of this picture were combined with parts of the older one.
4. Thomas ^v2: With lighter blonde hair brought by the shirt colour also becoming lighter. Not everything is lightened; his small beard looks darker. His eyes are also blue here and not green.
5. Eugenia ^v1: With darker grey hair, almost brown. Unlike what I'd done for T.B., I opted to use the lighter variant… but only for the hair. She'd had a significant amount of grey hair since the late 1930s.

Hair

1. Frederic ^v1: His April portrait. It's one of the more dramatic changes among the contestants' appearances over the months, as this included a change in the direction of his hair part, which unintentionally changed a bunch of stuff, like his facial expression, his features in general (why are his eyes bulging?), even how thick his neck was. But not all is lost. His androgynous haircut just happens to be the same one that Venera has.
2. Frederic ^v2: Here's a later change: the very tiny fringe-ish formation above his right eye was actually taken from Frederic's May portrait. It has not appeared on AB since because I didn't want him to have a fringe too obvious (lest he should look like Terry, coiffure-wise).
3. Columbus: His part-fringe isn't diagonal after post-AB editing. If you notice further, his face is a little different in this one; the final portrait combines a tiny bit of his May portrait. (See below for the full evolution!)
4. Lela ^v1: With longer hair. The grinning face that that it complements was combined with the shorter one to make the final portrait. It's funny that the length of her hair goes from long to short every month.
5. Thérèse: With longer hair. (See below for the full evolution!)
6. Toni ^{shorter version}: It was easier to get braids on Toni than it was on Thérèse, as I combined her short-hair background with her long-hair everything else, after which I modified the shapes with shameless use of the paintbrush tool...
   • ^{longer version} ... It's fine because her hair is black, so you can't tell that much of it is drawn (especially when coupled with the other drawn stuff in her final portrait), but this would only last a while in-universe. In early 1972, she'd actually cut her hair short.
7. Barbara ^{shorter version}: As with Toni, I saved a long-haired and a short-haired variant. These were combined with those colourful hair bands that form braids (like in this video) to create a distinctly early seventies look...
   • ^{longer version} ... which AB cannot process. It's all very reminiscent of Native American activist and Barbara's idol Sacheen Littlefeather (from whom I drew inspiration not only in creating an look based on hers for an ^RLBFB contestant, but also in her beliefs—this is her famous speech from 1973).
8. Leo: Really a continuation of the edits I'd been making to Leo's portraits over the months. It was only when I imported that I realized that his March portrait looks quite unrecognizable and I wanted to return to its origins with a more undeniably '70s cut. Also, his eyes are bluer (which I had definitely not written originally). (See below for the full evolution!)
9. Naily: Her April portrait, with a totally different hairstyle (and face). Here was a question for the fringe: the half-filled style (à la K-pop) was simply not contemporary enough! If the yearbook photos were ^RLTPOT-themed and had been taken in 1980, now the answer would be a definite "yes".
10. Belle: Mentioned this on the timeline pages, but another fringe-question was posed: I was deciding whether she should have one or not. This appearance was a compromise, along with the obligatory bell-flip. (See below for the full evolution!)
11. Kathy: As with Belle's photo, this one took a lot of time to edit. As you might expect from an artificial intelligence website (I think it's called that) from the 2020s, there's not as much exposure for the "flip" haircut as there was in the late 1960s and early 1970s. No doubt women wore their hair like this, though.
12. Lina: Whatever I said about Kathy also applies here...
13. Ruby ^v1: ... and here. But instead of a flip, it's one of the more popular Black American hairstyles from around 1966 to 1970. Ruby's hair suddenly became natural after Two teleported the ^RLBFB-ers away to Afghanistan in December 1971.
14. G.P. ^v4: With short hair, but with a fake moustache. This is how he looked in the first twelve ^RLBFB episodes, from 1969 to summer 1970.

Of the face

Clean-shaven dudes

1. G.P. ^v1: Before the goofy smile and all the other attachments. I'm not 100% sure, but I think this is how he looked in late 1965, after ^RLBFDI and before his amateur video thanking the viewers.
2. G.P. ^v2: A long-haired look that I used only to get the part-mullet. He never looked like this in our universe, although he might have in an alternate reality where his hair wasn't so curly.
3. G.P. ^v5: The look you see in the final portrait, just without the baffi finti. This is how he looked outside the competition for much of 1971—the great perm takeover happened sometime between episodes 15 and 16.
4. Khaled ^v1: He looks good like this, and I think it suits his personality more. Yet according to my informal image survey, Clock is the contestant most likely to have hwiskers when 擬人化-passed... which means I had to give him one. It's fine, though—we do need someone who's only got a moustache (and no beard) besides our boi... even though the sixties ended two years ago and much of the hippie fashion is still lingering, it's still the 1970s.

A hairy situation

1. G.P. ^v3: His 1968 look: short hair, but excessive hirsuteness. Yep, G.P. was bearded in 1968, but he voluntarily shaved everything under his eyes by the time "Paper Towel" was shot. To get the lone "'stache" look on AB (not only for him, but for Khaled), I used a combination of two images, both with different moustache gene settings in use.
2. Khaled ^v2: I think there was some study about it, but they found that men with square faces look better without facial hair. The precedent for this is SpongeBob, whose looks range from comically adorable to gosh-awful... I suppose with any kind of hair, though, not just facial. Khaled never had a beard in ^RLBFB, but he had grown one out during the month he was stuck in the Tiny Loser Chamber for ^RLIDFB.

Other photos

1. Alelsatan: Her April portrait, which looks completely different from her final portrait (she doesn't have a May portrait because only ^RLBFB and ^RLTPOT contestants are included on the back page). Sometime in April or May—can't remember the month—I discovered a gene that somehow transports a face downwards so that half of the face is visible from the bottom of the image. I still have no idea how this process works... but I thought it was creepy, so I used it for Alelsatan.

Where to find more

There are actually infinitely more alternate versions of the contestants' portraits, if we're being technical. But you can only find them or (even better) create them yourself by following the links to the AB URLs after each contestant's name on the previous page.

Or, type in the particular variant of a character you want to see on this wiki and I will provide the image in the comments section (as soon as the yearbook is published), along with some of my commentary. On the image, not the contestant. Now the March portraits are pretty low-quality compared to the others and were not processed through AB, so I won't upload them here—they only exist for historical reasons. But if you feel there aren't enough pictures on either this or the last page, just ask ^/s and I shall deliver. Don't go overboard with requesting things, though.

Your options are:

April portraits (which I think are unattractive by today's standards): All contestants in the main yearbook except those shown above or on other pages. The ones you can choose from are Abbie, Ady, Arbutus, Barbara, Bethel, Bilal, Blaine, Bomby, Briselda, Claude, Donald, Eddie, Eugenia, Fannie, Frankie, Freddy, Gabriel, Honorata, Iris, Jake, Jessie, Joe, Kathy, Khaled, Lela, Lina, Lothar, Lulu, Marc, Naily, Nathalia, Nick, Pat, Paula, Peggy, Phuong, Renata, Rocky, Sana, Simon, Spongy, Stefan, Terry, Toni, T.V., Venera, Woody, Yitzhak May portraits: All contestants in the main yearbook except those shown above or on other pages. The ones you can choose from are Abbie, Ady, Arbutus, Astrid, Barbara, Bethel, Bilal, Blaine, Bomby, Briselda, Claude, Donald, Eddie, Eugenia, Fannie, Frankie, Freddy, Frederic, Gabriel, Honorata, Iris, Jake, Jessie, Joe, Kathy, Katja, Khaled, Lela, Lill, Lina, Lothar, Lulu, Marc, Naily, Nathalia, Nick, Pat, Paula, Peggy, Phuong, Renata, Rocky, Sana, Simon, Spongy, Stefan, Terry, Thomas, Toni, T.V., Venera, Woody, Yitzhak June alternate takes: Without certain accessories (which have been split into layers on PS): Belle (two separate string layers), Bethel (hair clip l.), Briselda (string l.), G.P. (white shirt/blue shirt; see below for other options), Honorata (bow l., music note l.), Iris (string l.), Jake (hair clip l.; potential badly drawn browband l., see above), Kathy (bow l., earrings l.), Katja (double clips l., earrings l.), Lill (earrings l.; can't remove headband), Lina (headband l., bow l.), Lulu (headband l.), Maja (headband l.), Naily (hair ornament l.), Nathalia (hair needle l.), Peggy (string l.), Penelope (earrings l.), Phuong (headband l., earrings l.), Renata (earrings l.), Ruby (earrings l.; potential headband l., see above), Sana (bow/string l.), Thérèse (string l.), Thomas (potential old glasses l., see above), Toni (headband l., earrings l.), Violette (hair clip l.; potential old glasses l., see above) Lighting variations Lighter versions: Abbie, Ady, Blaine, Claude, Donald, Eddie, Eugenia, Fannie, Frankie, Freddy, Gabriel, G.P., Honorata, Iris, Jake, Jessie, Joaquin, Joe, Khaled, Lela, Lothar, Lulu, Marc, Nathalia, Pat, Paula, Peggy, Penelope, Renata, Rocky, Spongy, Stefan, Terry, Venera, Violette, Yitzhak Darker versions: Abbie, Ady, Blaine, Claude, Donald, Eddie, Fannie, Frankie, Freddy, Gabriel, Honorata, Iris, Jake, Jessie, Joaquin, Joe, Khaled, Lela, Lothar, Lulu, Marc, Nathalia, Pat, Paula, Peggy, Penelope, Renata, Rocky, Spongy, Stefan, Terry, Thomas, Venera, Violette, Yitzhak Facial variations (in different layers on PS): G.P.: moustache on/off, part-mullet on/off, stubble on/off, 10% hair over the ears on/off; alternates for the alternates: facial expressions with the long-haired variant [i.e. smiling slightly, shorter face] on/off, thin (natural-looking) moustache on/off, thick (ridiculous-looking) moustache on/off, untamed mullet from the long-haired variant on/off; shirt colour can also be changed (see above) Colour variations of final portraits: e.g. Penelope in green, Terry in light blue, Astrid in rainbow etc.

Notes

In the words of Golf Ball, "I think we're done [with this stew]!"