Developing a boss part II
Above is my clean sketch for Matramara’s phase 1. However, I felt that something was off, so I sent this to my mentor for some feedback.
My mentor and I discussed design issues. He said that I was being too timid with the design and that I could push the shapes and be more bold since this is a fantasy character. We also talked about how the little hand charms were nice but that they’d get lost because they’re so small. Above is my mentor making quick notes on how I can incorporate my hands idea in different ways and what kinds of shapes I might want to experiment with.
I ended up revamping my idea and came up with this. I made the hand motif more subtle to hint at her 2nd form and I also added more southeas-asian inspired garments such as the headdress and chest piece. The headdress is called a Makuta, which symbolizes royalty and divinity – which I thought was perfect for a demon queen mimicking a human.
Above are some bits of research I did for this headdress.
After some cleanup, here was what I came up with for Matramara’s phase 2. I really liked the direction this was heading in and felt excitement for this character again. I then sent it to my mentor for feedback.
He agreed that this direction was quite strong and gave me some pointers to think about. He mentioned that I need to make the pregnant belly more round to make it more grotesque by making the proportions look unbalanced. He also told me that I need to consider a ground plane to make things look more 3D. Another thing was that she was just a lump of flesh, which would make her boring material-wise and said maybe to add a cloth to call back to the dress in her first form. Lastly, he suggested exaggerating the hunched back and the veil in the front.
At the end of the week, this was my response to my mentor’s feedback. I did agree that the lump of flesh wasn’t giving “queen of demons” vibes, so I gave her the flowing rags in the back, which would add a sense of ghost-like ethereal flow when she moves around. I also made her veil bigger because I remember in my other previous feedback sessions that I was too timid with my designs.
Overall, I was pretty satisfied with my work this week and can’t wait to see how far I can push my designs to be the best they can be (without dragging it on too long!).