Saman

About

Saman was designed as a mascot character for personal blog "Pomogaev Totals". He was meant to represent the author of the blog on post cover images. As a basis for the character were used author's appearance and common visual features, such as green hat used as Redencon's profile image, hoodie (the color of which was shifted from red to green for color balance) and a small tablet, always present in Saman's hands. The initial pose also included a pointer stick, but in later crops it was never seen. Saman as cover mascot was used in all Totals posts ever since and grew to be strongly associated with the author.

Saman's initial species was a fire salamander, because of the author's love for amphibians, and a fire salamander's bright colors and patterns. Saman as salamander is used in most Telegram stickers and gifted art. The name was invented more than half a year after the character's debut as a mascot. Before naming the character "Saman", Redencon always used just the name "Salamander" in file names, as the character's name never appeared in blog posts. In the meantime, the work on Flenco was started, and was later often a subject of jokes, because the character which was never drawn already had a name, while the Totals mascot seen in blog posts every week didn't.

At some point Redencon acquired a VR headset, and then arose the question of making a VRChat avatar of Saman and/or Flenco. Salamander models are quite uncommon among bases Redencon knew of, so he chose a rather radical change: Saman's color palette and patterns were applied to Freakhound base, following a joke made in a blog post a year ago, where the Saman on cover was drawn as a wolf. The ease of use of Freakhound base and the quality of the custom texture applied to it made the Freakhound Saman more recognizable and widely used than the original salamander picture. Ever since, Saman is drawn as either salamander or Freakhound, basically splitting one character in two. The common features of a dog-Freakhound-Saman made it possible to start the process of making a fursuit for the character, which is still in progress.