OC Project: Kihrae Redesign, part 1 (Patreon)

I managed to finish all of this month's planned artwork with several days left before the month was out, so I decided it was a perfect time to do a little brainstorming for future stuff, including officially starting on my OC comic project starring Kihrae.

So, first up is a redesign of our protagonist. I actually quite like her current design from my Final Fantasy XIV comic, The Things We Do For Love, but since my future comic project will take place in an original setting, I naturally need to ditch the FFXIV-specific elements. Over the course of working on that comic, I also realized parts of her really could do with some streamlining to make her easier to draw consistently from panel to panel.

I don't want to rush into things so my first goal was to focus on just her core hair and facial features. I can focus on the details later on. For now I just wanted to get a feel for the shapes and general concepts. One key element I wanted to retain from the other design was the red mop she calls her hair. Kihrae's the sort of person who totally has her own style. She'll go as far as to cut her own hair because she genuinely thinks nobody else can make it look as awesome as she can. I dunno if I quite nailed that look with the above design, but I think I'm not too far off 🤣

The first picture is a quick expression test I did to get a feel for how her new design would look in practice (and to see how easy it is to draw over and over). In the second picture I included every single iteration of her new look since I thought it'd be interesting to see how I got to the "final" look I used in the first picture. I have next to no experience with character design but I know regularly checking the silhouette is a good trick to make sure the shapes are dynamic and interesting, but still clear and readable.

While her design could definitely still use a bit more refinement, I'm pretty happy with with this first go.