Development & Iterations 2

After looking back over my current work, I thought that I needed to re-approach it from a different angle. In one of the group crit sessions I was informed that I was using too soft of a brush and that it was making it too defined when it didn't need to be. Considering this, I created my own brush which is based off of a square. It rotates depending on the direction that the brush is going and has a small amount of opacity and size change depending on the pressure of the brush. This is the result of trying it out.

 Even though it is a lot less defined than the last one, it feels a lot more seamless. Here I decided to see what it would be like if the character was in summer wear rather than winter wear. In summer, the outer kimono wouldn't be worn, showing the obi in full. Some women may have also had a fan as an adornment, which didn't make sense in my earlier painting since she was in winter wear. Instead, for the winter wear, she would be holding a thick piece of fabric which was designed to keep her hands warm. However, in the end, I didn't want to include this because I wanted to show the kimono design in full, as this is an integral part to the character.

During the group crit, it was also suggested to me to look at how Game of Thrones incorporates their character design into their clothes. This got me to thinking about folklore and, although I initially did not want to touch upon it, the ever-popular Kitsune. After a period of research (Will be shown in the next post) I decided to incorporate this and change the character a little.

Instead of the Queen, I decided to go with the Princess instead. I chose to do the Princess because, in the story, she is locked away by the King and Queen due to the saying that has been going around about the common soldier who is destined to marry the Princess. The Princess is actually a fox spirit who has possessed the Princess, who was found out by a priestess (The Witch). The priestess spread the rumor to keep the Kitsune trapped whilst she can find a way to exorcise her and return the Princess to normal. In folklore, Kitsune hate being trapped, so she devises a trick to fool the priestess, which involves the Tinderbox.

In folklore, Kitsune have these objects called Star Balls which are vitally important to them. The Princess convinces the priestess that the Tinderbox is her Star Ball in disguise, but she would need a person with an impure heart to get it else the 'dogs' will kill her. The priestess asks a passing Ronin to get the Tinderbox for her, but she is unaware that his own curiosity would be her undoing. The Ronin proceeds to abuse the power of the Tinderbox and eventually manages to free the Princess, thanks to the rumor that kept her trapped in the first place. As a reward, the Kitsune agrees to marry him.

As for the Kimono design, I wanted to incorporate the design of multiple fox tails, but in disguise as the character is in disguise. The leaf fronds you see are actually the tails, cleverly disguised to look like plants rather than foxtails. This also matches up with the fact that, in folklore, most Kitsune have telling features to those with sharp eyes. I also did a variant on the hairstyle, which is a mix of the two rightmost hairstyles on the previous iterations post. The hair, instead of rounding out, peaks like the tips of a fox's ears. It would be an interesting idea to incorporate these into the emotions of the characters, much like how a fox uses its ears to display emotion.