Nicole (Ni)

“Bismuth Technetium Hydrogen”

Nicole is rude and irritating, but she does have the capacity to care. Harsh to everyone she meets, even her friends, and with a witty tongue, Nicole often drives people away. She’s stubborn and will respond to attempts to change her mind with snark. Yet despite this, Nicole is sociable, and tries to make friends, even if those friends rarely last. When trying to make friends, she puts on a charismatic face and lures people in with her magnetic charm, but that magnetism fades when she gets close to someone, because she’s intimidated by the charisma of others. She performs great under pressure, though she tends to exaggerate just how well she can handle stress. No matter how well she performs, she still loses her charm and will come across as blunt and brutally honest under stress. Nicole is analytical and logical, especially when it comes to finance, her area of expertise. While her math skills are average, her problem solving is unmatched, and she’s smart with savings. She collects coins, especially nickels, and she saves every nickel she acquires. She also collects meteorites on the side. She’s a part of Lucy’s “battery club”, or rather Lucy is part of her battery club; Nicole was the club’s leader until Lucy took over the position. Though she doesn’t spend as much time in the battery club as she used to, Nicole still attends to make her own small items. She drives an older electric car and envies Lucy’s newer model. She wears cheap jewelry, finding expensive jewelry to be a waste of money. Her favorite foods are beans, nuts, and seeds, and she has a weakness for chocolate. Among the friends she’s managed to make are Ferris and Colbie, the other members of the iron triad. She helps Ferris be resilient, and when she’s with Colbie the two of them are more magnetic than they are individually combined. However, she looks down upon Ferris and Colbie for spending too much time on their hobbies, and for being too emotional. Between the two she’s much closer to Ferris, the two having been born from the same supernova. She has a strained relationship with her group mates, being seen as too much of a commoner for them, even though Nicole tries to convince them that they are all stuck-up jerks so she fits right in. She was once close to Cassandra, but the two have drifted apart. Some suspect she has feelings for Cheryl: their alloy might not be the only thing heating up when they are together.

Physical Appearance

Average height, at 167 cm (5’6”). Average weight, with a moderate amount of muscle. Minimal curves, somewhat athletic inverted triangle figure. Square face with a pointed chin. Medium tan skin tone. Dark gray eyes with short eyelashes, wears black eyeliner. Wide round nose. Four lines of two green dots that touch each other, one vertical line on each ear, one diagonal line on each side of her neck. Wears dark green lipstick. Hip-length curly black hair with copper streaks. Usually wears a cyan long-sleeve shirt with a green “Ni” on the right sleeve and a green “28” on the left sleeve, a medium green jacket with light green circles, notched dark green lapels, pockets with gray zippers, metallic gray buttons, and a black “Ni” on the right sleeve and a black “28” on the left sleeve, tan pants with criss-crossing lines of various thicknesses and shades, a necklace with a silvery circular pendant with a simplified model atom on it, and gray leather boots with golden soles and laces. 

Design Notes

Nicole’s shapes are dominated by triangles and sharp edges, harsh, jagged lines that overpower the circles on her jacket. Nicole pushes her softness away, hides it behind a veil of rude remarks. The dominant color of her color scheme is green, which represents the green color of many nickel compounds, as well as money, as nickel is used in coins. Each green dot that forms one of her valence mark clusters uniquely touches the other dot in the cluster. There is disagreement on the ground state electron configuration of nickel. Most sources say [Ar] 3d8 4s2, but because of some complex relativistic quantum mechanical thing called fine structure, the average energy for all the split states of [Ar] 3d9 4s1 is actually lower. All of that is to say her valence marks touch each other so that the two dots in each cluster form one dot. Those clusters are on her earlobes and neck to represent earrings and necklaces, the dots almost like rashes. Her gray eyes come from nickel’s gray/colorless flame test. Her cyan shirt is the color of hydrated nickel(II) sulfate. The dots on her green coat represent coins, while its lapels resemble leaves, as nickel is essential for plants. The buttons on her coat also resemble coins. Her pants are the yellowish-brownish color of anhydrous nickel(II) chloride (much more brown than yellow simply because I thought yellow would be too bright). The pattern on her pants is based on Widmanstätten patterns found in iron-nickel meteorites. Her black hair is the color of nickel(III) oxide and nickel oxide hydroxide. The copper-colored streaks represent the mineral nickeline and nickel’s use in copper alloys. Her gray leather boots with their golden laces represent the color of nickel metal, silvery with a golden tint. The gray boots also represent nickel’s use in iron alloys. The reason she wears leather boots is to impress Cheryl. Finally, she wears a nickel-containing necklace with a coin-like pendant. She’s perhaps the exact opposite of being allergic to nickel, finding the metal on her skin invigorating. Go figure.

-Don't forget her valence marks, or the "Ni" and "28" on her jacket. The valence marks on her ears might be a bit hard to see, so consult her sketch. 

-She has four-fingered hands.

-Don't whitewash her!

-You can take liberties with the placement of the dots on her jacket and the exact pattern on her pants as long as it looks similar to the original.

-Her hair is curly. Don't draw it straight. Don't forget the streaks either.