KING
Exploration of the idea of a renegade fighter. I wanted her to look like someone who physically did not seem like much of a threat, but you could gauge her strength by her attitude and attire. A lot of this stage of exploration was focused on pushing the shape language in elements like hair and in accessories like the jackets and capes. The character did not have access to a lot of clothing nor any time to develop a sense of fashion style so developing an outfit for that type of personality while still trying to make the design stand out was the main challenge.
This was the design settled on after more experimentation. Pushing the hair up with her headband into big horns and a big cowl creates an interesting and threatening silhouette. She has the air of apathy and danger I wanted the character to give off. But after some further exploration and developing the story further I decided the cape would be better saved for later in the story. So I reworked the design without the cape and hood.
This is the final design I landed on. The horn hair was cool in concept but doing the more intense action scenes made me realize that it didn't work as well in pseudo-motion. Overall more simple yet still exuding the kind of battle-tested, vagabond style I wanted King to ooze.
Some key pages