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Real-Life BFB
Main infoProduction info

Yearly overviewShow timelines (Timeline of RLBFDIRLBFDIA • RLIDFBRLBFB before and after the split • RLTPOTExtra scouting) • General timelines (pre- and post-1950)

Differences from Pencil 2.OAestheticsMethodology (NamesNationalitiesHeightsAgesColours • AccessoriesTeam portraits) • Beyond the 64

TL;DR: InfoTimeline of the final project (part 1part 2part 3)

The (slightly un)official RLBFB yearbook! (Alternate takes)

Heavy development stage, post-AI[]

14 March: Working day, part 1[]

  • And the project uploads begin! Today, I've sent the website the pictures of Frederic, Columbus, Lela and Kathy. Since they are extremely popular in the fandom, they'll be the ones to start the parade of contestants.[1]
  • 16:16: Oh crap, they're blurrier than I thought. To be fair, it does say "Uploads are approximations of the original", and since the faces themselves are already approximations (having been made of quite low-quality composites), it makes sense that they look so defocused.
  • 20:00 to 21:00: Uploaded a few more batches of contestants. They're arriving in group of five so it's less inconvenient on the already beleaguered server (this is why I'm paying for this). After Kathy comes Phuong—they had their moment in RLBFDIA 5a—who is friends with Nathalia, who is friends with Peggy, who is friends with Thérèse and Lulu. In case you haven't guessed yet, this is also the order in which you'll be seeing in the finished product.
    • After them are Toni, Sana, Katja, Astrid and Ruby. Well, that's it for all the good girls in alliances, for next will come the meanies.

15 March: Working day, part 2[]

  • Daylight-savin- exterior-lightin- boi

    Not a toupee: Posed photos aren't usually taken outside, except in the sport section (which this guy looks like he'd dominate).

    1:00. Okay, fine, this is the last time you'll see a version of G.P. before the final thing is released. I couldn't resist not telling you that there's an aesthetic that I saw on his updated look (in the "Children" tab) that I wanted to apply to all of the contestants: amazingly realistic outdoor lighting. But no matter how many times I went through everyone else's, er, children, I couldn't get the same effect.[2]
    • He will appear—in his indoor-lighting form—after his girlfriend Penelope (who comes after Maja) and before his brother Joe (after whom comes Ady).
    • Speaking of those two, beards and long hair on guys are ridiculously hard to control. Each time I move a slider, either one or the other disappears as if it's not possible for long-haired bearded men to exist in this universe.
  • 10:00. I woke up and saw that Simon, Leo, Flora, Joaquin and Donald had already been processed. Just before I went to bed, I sent them in. The only reason #3 and #4 are together in that order is that (spoiler alert) they're the final two contestants in RLBFB.[3] At the moment, I'm about to process Barbara and the start of the death-preventing alliance: Paula, Abbie, Bilal and Bethel.
  • 11:00: Uploaded the rest of the Death PACT-ers: Terry and Renata.[4] Fannie is next—she's got no friends in her team except the ever-so-popular Kathy, but she and Renata have had a battery-operated bond since RLTPOT 1. In the same episode, her leadership was complimented by Frankie, who is friends with Honorata.
    • Just realized that I might be able to finish by tonight. There are six more sets to go, and I've already done seven of them.
  • 12:30: And the rest of Free Food follow: Marc, Yitzhak, Belle, and best friends Violette and Stefan.
  • Winner!!

    One of many examples: A design of Venera's, to be combined with other, more similar designs to make a true composite.

    14:00: Next come the miscellaneous contestants, the ones that transcend the original eight teams: Stefan's friend/ex-enemy Lill, who has spent time in EXIT with Briselda, who is obsessed with Iris, who is in a truce with Khaled, who simps for Venera...
  • 15:00: ... who was once Lothar's partner in crime, followed by the cute Just Not members, Jake, Jessie, Naily and Bomby...
  • 18:00: ... who was on the same team as Freddy and Spongy. From here on, Team Ice Cube's portions of the yearbook end, so we have to go even older: in the first season, Spongy was friends with Rocky, whose guardian was formerly T.B., and about him you know how he and Eugenia get on.
  • 20:30: And just like a queue of schoolchildren under Eugenia's command, the sequence of A Better Name Than That members is finished: Eddie, Lina, Arbutus, T.V. and Gabriel.
  • 21:30: It is well known that the Beepers aren't so popular in the challenges, not even among the crew. Why else do you think two of them couldn't survive three eliminations? Fortunately, the ones that stayed are still popular in fan circles. The rest of the team to be AB-passed are Nick, Blaine, Claude and Woody.
  • 086 DORA

    Unused, but not forgotten: Her hair has been extracted (and distorted) from a yearbook from about 1968. That's the year her hairstyle, such as it was, was also the most popular!

    22:45: After Woody would come Dora (followed by the special cases of David, Roboty, Pat [Profily] and Alelsatan [Evil Leafy], whose source images won't be sent to AB). I had originally planned to send Dora through the machine, but since she turned into a human being in July 1971 and not earlier in the year, it would make no sense for me to include such an anachronism.[5] Nevertheless, her 擬人化-passed form exists in a source image, which I'm happy to provide here.
    • This means I'm essentially done importing and the minor retouching process can begin.

16 March[]

  • 0:30: The pictures of David and Roboty were already done back in January and I plan to put them in the yearbook, along with the one of Dora. I'd work on the Alelsatan portrait by just taking Lela's picture and applying the most outrageous effects to it, but since it's past midnight I shall spare myself the nightmares.
    • That leaves one more to go: Pat. Since each contestant will contribute to their look, I had to wait until all the photos were ready. Then I divided them into teams and used AB's photo-mixing feature to create composites of each of the original RLBFB teams. From there I combined the team pictures to make Pat.
    • RLBFB team composites - all for Profily

      There's no I in team: But there is in iance.

      In the picture on your right, you can rightly assume that there are only contestants here who existed in 1969. Since Beep had six members in their composite, I added Jessie and Venera—debuters in RLTPOT—to that particular mix.
      • Team Usuaosaudomajdasmjoamdosadas are a bit overpowering, with 114% for each team member. I must like them so much (no, it's because Dora is missing).
      • You'll notice that they look very similar, minus a few minor details (the long hair of the all-female team, the big eyebrows on Free Food, The Losers' chamaeprosopy [having a broad face]). Just proves the old adage that the differences within a team are greater than the differences between teams.[6]
      • They've all got the same basic expression on their faces. This is intentional; the smiles and scowls will be added on later, based on the formulae I'd earlier mentioned.
    • I won't post the final product, i.e. what Pat looks like, here; you'll have to wait until the yearbook comes out! But I think you've probably got a general idea.
  • Later updates:
    1. T.B. has a moustache and a small beard now. The reason given in the canon is that he heard Eugenia saying in passing that he'd look quite nice if he was all fuzzy for a change—she finally had something to say about him after all her attention had been diverted from Eddie's being eliminated.[7] Not to mention that what separates him from her is his ability to adapt to the trends of young people—although if Thomas were alive now, he'd more likely than not be called "daddy".[8]
    2. I feel like i'm at the dentist

      Smiling faces sometimes: ... make people look better. But not always.

      So smiles are almost off the table now. I'd assumed that everyone would grin the same way (you know, perfect teeth, no sign of evil at all), but that's only true for some of the pictures. Even if you set it to get the same expression as someone in the real world, some of them end up showing their computer-generatedness pretty easily.

Small changes and second rounds[]

17 March[]

  • Last night, I watched Cary's video about impatient people, something that surprisingly resonated with me, a non-YouTube content creator. I think I shall write a post about it.
    • Later update: Published.
  • Ugggggh, I now have nine pictures left in my quota: just reuploaded Frederic's picture,[9] but I think that it's only fair. He was the first contestant whose portrait was worked on and his look has deviated the most from the original.
    • I'm watching a "Best of Firey" compilation to absolve myself of the lip-pursing guilt. He's actually a good character.

18 March[]

For most of this morning, I worked on the second round of edits. They look much better now than the last time I saw them, which is good. Penelope and G.P. are still coloured differently from the others, and I'm trying to make them match the iance/Death PACT colour schemes without turning their skin too pink. Later today, I found out that I only have eight pictures left because I re-uploaded something by accident.

19 March[]

I'm a bit concerned about editing my second round in the same order as the one on the INFO page (AB puts the last edited picture at the top). I don't like how Khaled looks, for example (why the hell does he resemble the Hulk?), and if I edit his portrait in particular, that will separate him from the rest of the Losers.[10]

Screenshot from Random

That's so random!: I'm using an online random number generator the way that many object show people do.

Of course, no one will notice because today I'm starting the third round of edits. I'm doing it randomly so I don't feel icky about changing someone's appearance "out of order". They're getting closer to their yearbook forms, I can tell you that. Just have to get a few things done:

  • Further adjustment of the poses; they can't all be staring directly at the camera.
  • Addition of contemporary makeup and other accessories to some contestants.
  • Changing their expressions so that they're smiling/angry/whatever.

Also, I've got seven uploads left. Gotta stop accidentally putting random images in.

20 March[]

Things that make you go "hmmmmm": Jacknjellify should change their name to J+J Music Factory. There's a new video I watched right when I woke up, and it's a recap of the entire fourth season... in song mode. It's one of the greatest musical creations of this year and it even features the Seven's voice from the holiday special, who sang and wrote it all by himself (with some musical help from Cepukka)! I couldn't help but smile as I took a trip down nostalgia lane as an upbeat little "We Didn't Start the Fire"-inspired ditty played.

Who says RLBFB wouldn't survive the disco age?

On a note that's a tiny bit more relevant for this timeline, we now have a release date for episode 30: it comes out on 9th April 2021. Since the RLBFB yearbook will contain spoilers, that's about the date I plan to release it, as a parting gift, so to speak, for such a complex season.

21 March[]

After midnight, I faced my fears and worked on Evil Leafy's portrait. She's a combination of Lela and everything that appears when I type the words "chaos" and "creepypasta". Oh, and she's scary.

Pin on a Bè

Keeps on rollin' along: Columbus is going to convince her that he was a soldier fighting for her love, just wait.

Before I went to sleep, I had the realization that the box Pin is floating in at the end of the recap song is an ominous foreshadowing that Phuong will have to flee Vietnam in a few years. Remember, it's still 1973. She's wearing headphones and her eyes are closed because she is oblivious to the bloodshed in her own country, having been safe in Kenya since the early sixties.[11]

As for the yearbook, I'm on round four. Kind of. Slowly and steadily, the contestants are starting to show their emotions—Fannie is frowning more, Bethel is smiling more. I've also discovered some new lighting functions that I want to apply to everyone.

And now I have six more photos left.

22 March[]

More cosmetic edits. Some of the interesting things I found.

  • 22 March: I didn't think "handsome Snowball/Simon" would be a phrase that could ever be uttered, especially with the way he looks at the moment. But I suppose anything is possible with custom genes!

Layout work[]

Final page blank

They're not there: This is the real size, by the way. Correct me if wrong, but isn't that the size the team icons were in the episodes?

23 March[]

Worked on the last page of the yearbook. It will show everyone in their team uniforms and backgrounds (as opposed to the colourful shirts they normally wear), but they have been squarely cropped to fit in one image. It's a bit like the club photos in modern yearbooks. That way you can take what you want from it for, I don't know, the most useless tier list ever.[12]

24 March[]

Speaking of tier lists, I'm working on my own. It will have little to do with the RLBFB project, but I spent today ranking my top 67 contestants in the series. To make things fair, I divided them into six groups of 11 or 12, ranked the smaller lists and finally combined them into one larger list. Then I re-divided and ranked them.

25 March[]

Time to add to the COLOURS page. I really don't want to, as it seems like the last time I edited there was ages ago, but I need to include something. I'll just put a link to this day's post to show how I worked on that part overdue.

Anyway, the theme of the day is the shirt colours. As mentioned earlier, I thought it a good idea to have each contestant wear the same colour as the rest of their team, but AB skewed it a bit (for example, Joe's in white now for some reason and can't tell if iance are wearing pink or purple). I've decided to keep the team uniforms for the "clubs" section on the final page, but it wouldn't make as much sense to do it for the main entries.

When I did my DeviantArt quest all those months ago, it seemed like every 擬人化-passed contestant, in the eyes of every artist, had a certain colour scheme to them. In many cases, the hair colour matched that of the eyes and thus also that of the clothes. Since this is 1971 and less-than-natural hair colours were not as common as they are today, I think it would be a great idea to match the colour of what they are wearing to match the colour of the object they are represented by. But it's so easy to duplicate the hair colour or the average RGB code of each asset, because again I want to go by the wisdom of the crowd.

So I went back to DA (with the same search queries as before) and this is what I found:

  • This time, I'm only searching DeviantArt, not Google or Reddit—that should be a big enough sample size, right? And besides, it means I don't have to spend an entire day on this or go through [shudders] Tumblr.[13]
    • I'm also not taking specific data points from this because I am a lazy person. I'll just give a summary because that seems like that's what more people would ask for.
Observations of upper clothing worn by 擬人化-passed BFB contestants
Name Most common colour(s) Other observations[14]
8-Ball Black T-shirt
Balloony Green, sometimes very light green T-shirt with a tie
Barf Bag Dark beige, two distinct shades Skirt
Basketball Orange with a black zipper Jacket or sleeveless shirt
Bell Dark beige with a blue belt Dress
Black Hole Black Suit, cape or jacket
Blocky Red Sleeveless shirt or varsity jacket
Bomby Dark grey Long shirt
Book Green and blue, sometimes with white Skirt combined with a jacket
Bottle White or very light blue Skirt or jacket
Bracelety Cyan Dress
Bubble Cyan Dress, more likely without sleeves than with
Cake Dark brown, sometimes with lighter brown and beige Mother Hubbard dress with a bowtie
Clock Blue T-shirt or sleeveless shirt
Cloudy White Long shirt or jacket with a scarf
Coiny Orange or brown T-shirt
David White T-shirt
Donut Light beige Long shirt
Dora White or pink Skirt
Eggy White and yellow Dress
Eraser Pink Jacket or hoodie
Fanny Blue T-shirt, skirt or jacket
Firey Orange, less commonly brown T-shirt, sometimes without sleeves
Firey Jr. Orange T-shirt
Flower Yellow or pink Regular skirts, hobble skirts, dresses, sarongs, fringe jackets, straightjackets, flourishes, crop tops, clothing outlines etc.
Foldy Cyan, rarely white Dress
Fries Dark red with yellow Long shirt or varsity jacket
Gaty Light periwinkle, rarely with yellow Skirt or jacket
Gelatin Light green T-shirt or jacket
Golf Ball Grey, various shades Skirt
Grassy Green T-shirt
Ice Cube Cyan, less commonly white T-shirt or skirt
Leafy Green T-shirt or jacket
Lightning Yellow Sleeveless shirt
Liy Blue or white Dress
Lollipop Purple or white Skirt, long shirt or jacket
Loser Yellow or light beige Suit, sometimes sleeveless shirt with a tie
Marker White with purple T-shirt, rarely jacket
Match Beige Sleeveless dress
Naily Light grey T-shirt
Needle Light grey Skirt
Nickel Grey Sleeveless shirt or jacket
Pen White, less commonly blue Jacket or T-shirt
Pencil Orange Skirt or jacket
Pie White, blue or light beige Sleeveless shirt or skirt
Pillow White Long dress
Pin Red Skirt
Puffball Pink with rainbow colours Skirt, less commonly jacket
Remote Dark grey Sleeveless shirt or skirt
Robot Flower Yellow Dress
Roboty Red and silver Robot suit (I don't know the technical name for this)
Rocky Dark grey Regular shirt or T-shirt
Ruby Red, less commonly pink Skirt or dress
Saw Brown or pink with white T-shirt or long shirt
Snowball White or very light blue Jacket
Spongy Yellow Jacket
Stapy Red-pink Long shirt, less commonly jacket
Taco Beige, less commonly red and green Sleeveless dress, sometimes T-shirt
Teardrop Blue, sometimes cyan Skirt or dress
Tennis Ball Light green with white Jacket or T-shirt
Tree Light brown, sometimes green T-shirt, sometimes jacket
TV Black, less commonly blue T-shirt or suit
Woody Brown, various shades Long shirt
Yellow Face Yellow Suit or t-shirt

Unrelated, but later today I changed Naily's middle name from Shiori (which remains her name in the 21st century and in other languages) to Eiko. Symbolic is this one: 鋭 ("sharp") can be read as ei, toshi or toki, depending on the name.[15] The spelling of her unabbreviated first name was corrected from Cornailia to Cornelia.

26 March[]

BFB 30 comes out in exactly two weeks, which means… fourth round! For many of them, this will be the last one before the only modifications I've made are to their facial expressions.

The first one I'm starting is Pat, who will be redone with the teams' new composites, like I did before. Some of the things I noticed:

  • Due to the second and third rounds of editing, eye makeup shows up in greater intensity, especially in teams with more female contestants.
  • It's the fault of the lighting, but the team composites' skin seems to glow a little.
  • Iance part 2

    iance (1969–1972): They're not all hairballs, it's just Simon. Scary how much influence he and the similarly square-jawed Leo have on the team's collective face shape.

    iance's personification has much shorter hair. I don't really know why—for example, Fannie's hair is a little longer since the first time I imported her. Their team composite also has a very discreet beard.
  • I gave Team Jajsidajidajdsa less influence in Pat's final composite.

27 March[]

It's after midnight and I'm just noticing that G.P.'s portrait stands out from those of the other boys, and not in a good way: his face is too long, his eyes are too big, and I can't adjust the "Hue" slider up so that his hair stays dark brown and not regular brown, resulting in a strange icy tinge that makes his eyes—just as predicted—unnaturally blue. He also looks more like Joaquin than his own brother.

The other pictures have those traits (Columbus also has a huge chin, but that's made up for by the fact that his head is quite broad; meanwhile, Gabriel and Freddy have big eyes, but that's okay because they're still young), though not in such a combination that one can call them immutably unsightly beings that look like Phineas turned a hundred degrees. Just know that this wouldn't be a problem if Jeep's current description didn't portray him as this big sporty man-child whose smirk can conquer the hearts of even she-beasts like Penelope.

I should also like to make a separate info page for those who are outside the 64—not just for Winner, Price Tag, Profily and Evil Leafy, but for the TPOT debuters. I just haven't come up with names, heights etc. for them yet, and it's much harder because we don't have the full picture yet. None of their genders have been confirmed and the amount of screentime they've been given isn't sufficient to get a glimpse of their true personality.

Maybe this will be April's project when all the yearbook pages have been published.

28 March[]

Oh, wonderful. Woke up to a controversy on Twitter about BFB's finale. Not that I have an account—I heard it on Reddit and was amazed at the American-centric uproar that was there.

I have prepared a lengthy response to the situation, but I'm not going to post it here because I know that, just like the Tunisian people's requests that BFDI 13 not be released during their revolution or the madness that BFB 4 should ever come out on the same day as the United Nations' updated sanctions on North Korea, this outrage is going to vanish as quickly as it appeared.

On a brighter note, I've a few more images left in my AB uploading quota! It turns out that it increases with time. A good lesson for patience were there one.

Balancing deadlines[]

29 March[]

School's back in session, which means that I will be editing much less frequently than I intended. I wouldn't consider that my fault, as there are a lot of other factors at play here, but you should know that the publication date of this yearbook has been delayed to be a bit longer after the release of BFB 30. And that's perfectly fine.

31 March–1 April[]

I spent most of last night watching TPOT predictions on YouTube, Reddit and the Other Wiki. Has nothing to do with what's going on right now, but it's just another BFDI-related project. Still on my fourth round of editing, though, in which I make further modifications, for example, Belle's portrait lighting comes from the top. Iris' hair is 10% curlier. Nick doesn't look like he's got eyeliner (but the lashes stay).

Oh yeah, and according to Twitter all of the objects in BFB have come out as transgender on Trans* Visibility Day. Duly noted.

2 April[]

Spent the day changing many descriptions—G.P.'s stint as "once [being] a lofty baseball star" is dropped in favour of his sudden change in attitude over the course of the series.

3 April[]

Apart from a few small change, I think I'm done with the general look of the faces! Of course, I still need to change the colours and adjust the emotions for the main pages, but as of today you should be able to recognize each contestant by how they look on AB.

I'll spend the day watching the first episode of the third season of Inanimate Insanity (it's real), and then I'll attempt to change the lighting for a more uniform appearance among the cast.

Later update: Holy crap, that was a really funny episode I think my favourite character has got to be [redacted], although [redacted] is cool too.

4 April[]

Added accent marks to Phuong's name, while still making little adjustments to the character descriptions. I'd make a reference to Stefan discovering the idea of "muscular Judaism" whilst in Paris, but the moment's passed already and besides, that reference will go over everyone's heads.

5 April[]

G.P. gets a slightly wider head and not as bulgy eyes. Works with his early-seventies-himbo persona, if I do say so myself.

6 April[]

The first and most likely the last batch of name changes before publication. I give a number of contestants middle names, adjust the first names of some people and also a surname.

Finished-ish?[]

7 April[]

BFB 30 is coming out in two days—that's a big deal. Unfortunately, I don't think I'm done with the lighting stuff yet, so I'm trying to get that done as quickly as possible.

Also, I'm just starting to think up names, gender headcanons, nationalities and other stuff for the TPOT debuters. Other people have been paying a lot of attention to them in things like tier lists and even tribute videos, and I've a hunch they're going to play a big part in future episodes.[16][17]

Also also, I want to share with you my scrapped cover page for the yearbook! I actually did this back in February with all the poses that would later be used for the "they look like this in our universe" section but then decided not to use it and replace it with a boring word-filled page in its stead. Hey, you've got to be authentic to 1971 in some way!

BFB intro - NOT

Makes for a cool wallpaper, though: This would not have been possible had I not used a tier list myself to determine who gets too much screen-time.

Fun things to know:

  • For every character that debuted after BFDIA, I traced their asset from that size comparison picture I used for reference for calculating the HEIGHTS. This is the reason that people like Clock look comparatively weird.
  • For the other contestants whose assets changed afterwards (i.e. Tennis Ball, Eraser), I left them as they were as of 2012 when I first got a hold of Flash 8 and the BFDI assets.
  • I use a mix of BFDI(A) and BFB-styled assets here. It seems so strange for me, who has been using them for years for the still images on this wiki, to make a sudden switch to the hand-drawn style so typical of the post-2017 period, although I don't dislike it at all.
    • All eyes remain black or white ovals, as in the older seasons.
    • Most of the eyebrows are hand-drawn, as are the majority of the mouths and virtually all the limbs.
  • The placement of characters is similar to the ones found in the BFDI(A) intros: seemingly relevant characters in the foreground and meh-ers in the back. Everyone knows who Leafy is, but how many people have Bell as their favourite character? Also, Gelatin (my profile picture as of today) and Flower are standing next to each other. I don't know why.

Later update: Crap, somehow the final page just disappeared from Flash. Time to remake it...

8 April[]

Oh hey, it's back! It was in a different folder the whole time.

Last night, I exported all the AB image and variants (with/without facial hair, different shirt colours) that I intend to use on the final page. Then I made made a few changes to them, including changing the shirt and background colours so that they are consistent for their teams.

At the moment I am adding their assets in the corner of the image for easy reference. It won't be necessary, really, but I'm doing it just in case anyone wants to [whispers] extract them from their source for tier lists and other junk.[18]

The main problem is that none of them—well, the ones that need them, anyway—are wearing glasses. That's partly because I'm lazy today, and also because I know that between the final-page photos and the main photos, I'll forget what kind of spectacles their eyes will be shielded by, and I'm not keen on wasting the consistency. And besides, unlike AB, I think glasses are not an essential part, similar to hair ribbons or other articles of Fashion For Your Face! (feat. Boyinaband).

Later edit: Oh, who am I kidding? Put them on! Also, it's not the asset that I'm adding to the corner (you can't paste from the Wiki to Photoshop without the black background), but their voting icon. Thank you, page!

9 April[]

Part of an early RLBFB face reveal

I didn't say partial version: "Watch me give one of my favourite contestants the worst haircut of the late 20th century!" / "KEWL"

After midnight: It was a decision that I debated with myself for about ten seconds, but I've chosen to give G.P. the beginnings of a mullet. There's some precedent for that—Paul McCartney had one in the early seventies, and in terms of wanting to look as trendy as possible, Jeep is all but a nicer Flora.[19] Besides, he would stand out from his long-haired buddies if I left his hair in the shorter (i.e. sixties) style.

With the moustache and the long hair, there was so much going on in the picture and I don't want people to think I'm playing favourites with the contestants' appearances. So I also removed the little blonde streak above his eye, but only for this canon, not for that of P2O. Explanation? G.P.'s dumb-ack self heard "Black is beautiful" and dyed his hair so he wouldn't get called ugly.[20] Freakin' moron.

Ah, what the hell, BFB 30's coming out today; better do something I probably won't regret in the long term.

Also, credit to this website for the old paper background. Now, the final page is done!

10–12 April[]

Time to take a tiny break, as these days will be dedicated to a certain something else.

12 April[]

For the first part of the day, I worked on my headcanons for all the TPOT debutants. The process was unlike that for most people, as it was a pleasant, laid-back affair with no controversies whatsoever. What came out of it is that I now know their dates of birth, nationalities and even their heights—that's always fun to calculate.

For the second part of the day, worked on the line analysis for BFB 30. An episode review should be coming as soon as possible, people! I don't think I can post the yearbook until that's all done, which is good because I haven't even started on the main-page portraits yet.

13 April[]

Starting the fifth (and hopefully final) round of edits today. In this one, I'll be making the images that will become the main-page portraits through (MPPs) further edits. But there are a few things to keep in mind:

  1. Doing something strange: I usually delete older versions of portraits to keep my Artbreeder "portfolio" neat and tidy, but this time I'll save both the BPPs and the MPPs so you can see two of each character, depending on whether you type "BFDI" or "BFB".
  2. Yes, the BPPs and MPPs will come from different links on the website, and they themselves will also differ in appearance and not just be clones of each other. In facial expressions, sure (as I had said earlier), but also in their poses. There's a little bit of thought behind this.
    • In some of the old yearbooks, the pictures they use for the clubs are exactly the same as the official photos. Maybe they couldn't come together to take a picture of themselves because one of their members was holding the camera. Anyway, I thought about doing the same thing here, but having a contestant wear a different colour or stand in front of another background (but have the same exact pose in both photos) would tick all the boxes of this book being unrealistic.
    • Molybdenum Example

      Let it grow: The lighting's a bit darker, and the sample used to represent the element is turned more on its side. Do expect to see something similar on the main pages.

      You know how my profile photo a few years ago was literally a square-cropped image of the element ytterbium? That actually came from the photographic periodic table, a website that uses pictures in little squares to catch people's visual attention and hopefully raise awareness of chemistry. If you hovered over one of the squares in the table on the main page, you got a larger version of the picture with more detailed chemical information.
      • I noticed that for some squares, the image was either changed a tiny bit or replaced completely. Of course, I can't do the replacement with "actual" people, so I decided to take the first example of this website and do the same for the contestants.[21] The larger version (MPP) will be the example everyone will remember (it showcases the contestants as individuals), not the smaller one (BPP), which is meant for easy reference and shows the satisfying colour-coding of the RLBFB teams.
  3. I promise I'll make all the images public when the yearbook is published. But until then, they will remain in private mode... don't want to spoil any surprises.

Later update: No, there will be six updates. Posing, then emotions. Plus, I've got to find out the colour changes that magically occur when you adjust happiness, anger etc. I've it written down since February, but it's not as accurate.

Savin' It Twice[]

14 April[]

And the sixth set of updates actually starts today, along with some other things I have to do. The results will be a bit more jarring than I had expected: for example, in his new picture, Simon's got hair all over, but on the back page, he's basically balding. Don't worry, you can still tell who he is from a mile away. He's the only one who looks like he's about to beat up the camera guy.

G.P. gets a squarer jaw too, but not so much that he leaves the realm of "stupid cute" for "unintentionally hot". Stupidly cute is kind of what all the contestants are supposed to look like.

15 April[]

I was never really a fan of Naily having those "see-through bangs" that you often find in K-pop. Yes, they are somewhat evocative of the seventies style, but they're more 1979 than 1971.[22] Like many women during this era, her hair is parted in the middle.

16 April[]

Uploading the original pictures of Joe, Khaled, Naily, Belle and Leo back onto the website. Not that I don't like their current portraits—I do, really—but I think I've done something wrong the first time I worked on them. Besides, I'm back to about seventy pictures in my quota! Who would have thought it would go up after a month or so?

Teams as of 2021

Weird-tac-toe: You'd think it would be the case for all of them, but Just Not is the only team without at least one token blonde.

And here's another surprise! Composites of the rest of the (not to mention most current) team configurations! In my opinion, they look virtually indistinguishable from each other aside from the hairstyles… although The Strongest Team on Earth looks amazingly more feminine when Simon is taken away from the mix. After all, the rest of the team aren't balding.

17 April[]

And the rest of them! This phase of modifications is done as I make my analyses for the colour changes that come with mood adjustments.

18 April[]

I found out what you have to change in addition when you change the emotion. For some reason, it involved much more hair length change than one would have expected.

19 April[]

LLELL

A question of rhetoric: Is this a look that warrants bangs? Talking about the one on the right, of course.

Other minor adjustments. Lill loses her fringe (at the expense of looking like a, er, less massive Bethel), while Katja gains one. It just fits her, I don't know. Still deciding whether Belle or Kathy should be the one with a fringe, too—they both have the "flip" haircut and are of Eastern Mediterranean origin, so I don't want them look too similar.

20 April[]

And now for some new updates on the former Better Namers:

  1. Lina's "BFDI" (earlier round) design was accidentally deleted, so I doubled the hashtags on her newer-round design. Hopefully nobody will notice.
  2. T.B. has a slightly new look, though not one so different you couldn't tell it's the same guy. He's got shorter hair now, as befits men his age, and I also played with the "caveman" gene to give him a strong jaw and non-existent lips. Rather that than the silly little fluff of hair that so many on DA give him.[23] Besides, T.B. and Eugenia don't do that passionate kissing stuff, headcanonically. They tried it once and only because of social mores.
    • Still, he looks like a thin-legged tuba player from one of those polka bands. Or the goofy father from a low-budget 2010s TV movie who sleeps in a nightgown.

Hypothetical format complete![]

21 April[]

Working on descriptions. Extra ones. I know this sounds weird, but I've completely planned out the format for the yearbook page. Originally I was going to put it in a gallery form, like on the front page of this wiki, but now it's different.

Yeah.

22 April[]

The reason I'm doing this whole part is to reference the character guide. I found our talk page out of the blue when I was looking up the "BFDI Official Character Guide". Each character's section ends with a "Did you know?" part that's got very little to do with whatever goes on in the show. This is the RLBFB version, which will also be full of barely relevant facts.

Here are a few alternate takes I decided not to use:

Lulu is one of the first South African women to make a name for herself in entrepreneurship. She would love to expand her business to every country in the world, but she has noticed that forks are not as popular as they used to be.

You know how they say “so cute you could eat him up”? That’s actually what happened to Nick… twice. On both instances when he was the victim of cannibalism, he was in fact eaten by fellow contestants Thérèse and Rocky.

Blaine doesn’t mind being called “Jamie”—in fact, he likes it. It’s just a coincidence that he was called “Blaine” as a young man and he decided to change it in RLBFB. Being an airhead, he put his surname in the wrong box.

A return to regularity[]

28 April–1 May[]

Hey, I'm done with everything on my gender-rectifying task list! Back to editing… although I must admit that I've done a few edits on AB while I was in TPOT-reviewing mode: Leo's blonder, Frederic's not as grey, Penelope's not as caked with makeup.

Still haven't finished all the descriptions, and I need to change some of them so that I don't become too repetitive.

I should really get that done.

2–3 May[]

I wonder what this could be

"Rec doc": The document title should be a hint.

And now, a little sidetracking... I'm working on another project, the final result of which can be posted on this website if anyone is interested. All of this as a possible supplement to the yearbook descriptions—some are still in urgent need of revision.

Notes[]

  1. It's odd that I'm not going alphabetically here, but that's what the beginning graphic (the one that I pixelated) is for, and besides, many old-time yearbooks are in a seemingly random order.
  2. Later update: I found it on Jake! Sort of... somehow, the effect was upside down and the light shone from the floor instead.
  3. If it were anyone else in the final 2, Joaquin would be seen with the rest of Team Ice Cube, most likely with Naily.
  4. Lill comes later, as she mad more to do with Stefan and Violette than with her team. That's what happens when you get eliminated early.
  5. Besides, I've got ten images left until I use it all up. Do I really want to spend a tenth of my leisurely imports on someone whose sole purpose is to get grounded grounded grounded?
  6. Each team is rather diverse in terms of ethnicity; you can't really assess that from this perspective.
  7. An era roughly spanning episodes 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12.
  8. The out-of-universe reason is that I didn't want him to look too old on AB with the age slider (the way Eugenia's greyness reveals her age), but at the same time, he must look young enough to blend in with the other competitors.
  9. I didn't save it as recommended by the website because the just-imported forms of the characters are frequently, ahem, hideous.
  10. Something I think he'd like, but still bad for bookkeeping.
  11. It seems that Jnj are drawing a bit more attention to Pin in February and March (her cameo in BFB 30, the Silvery incident etc.), just as they'd done with Pen in December and January. Nothing wrong with that, of course; our boi doesn't deserve all the attention.
  12. I'm referring to the 擬人化-passed contestants, of course. Don't think the website allows those kinds of lists, though.
  13. Okay, okay, DeviantArt isn't much better than Tumblr in terms of WTF material, but I've been a watcher of the BFDI community there since 2012.
  14. Mostly the type of body covering they wear.
  15. "Shiori" is a newer name, more associated with young women in this era. At least with "Sponyé" it is so blatantly misplaced in time that you can see it from space, but with names from non-English languages most of us have to look a little bit closer.
  16. So to clarify, I think the eliminated contestants will be sent to be sent to Motel Two, where they can meet and maybe even befriend the failed debutants.
  17. They're based on the wisdom of the crowd, actually. Don't know if I should post the methodology of these findings in particular here, since you'll most likely first hear it from the to-be-made "beyond the 64" page.
  18. Just give Jacknjellify credit, although it would be nice to see my name thrown around as well. No pressure.
  19. The other precedent comes from the crowd's wisdom—Pen, when drawn as a human, is often portrayed with long hair, even with a hat on.
  20. In other words, he pulled a Jan Brady.
  21. For example, T.B.'s going to be wearing browline glasses in the big picture, while he's got the basic nerd ones on in the little one... they'll just be a different brand than the oversized ones Khaled's got on.
  22. More specifically, the transitional era between 1979 and 1983. Don't worry, that's when some episodes of RLTPOT are going to take place.
  23. And as an object! No real criticism here, because often the art looks good in the end anyway.

(Continue to the next page here.)

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