Willi Romo
artwillichop@hotmail.com
https://williromo.artstation.com
Twitter: WilliRomo
Instagram: willi_romo
Darajhi Xinre is an elusive and mysterious hero, fighting righteous causes making use of a pocket dimension, rarely seen.
Jan 3, '19
Jan 14, '19
The world Darajhi lives in has been struck by a divine curse, causing illness and pain to humans and in the end turning them into mindless, rabid beasts. If someone gets exposed to sunlight long enough, the pact is sealed; the curse falls upon them. It's been like this for quite some time, so culture stopped growing and the sole purpose of mankind is to fight against this unfair, inhuman odds. Because of this, society has adapted to survive this supernatural plague: people move in groups where each member fulfill different roles, nursing and cooking took a really heavy shift into survival oriented disciplines, clothing and fashion morphed into much more functionality-oriented items, focused on making mobility and sun protection a priority... The Gods' will is strong, but humanity does still have a fair share of tools to fight against it. Of course, even in the darkest times there are people out there that takes advantage of chaotic scenarios; using magic and channeling solar rays, the Scahria scholars try to gain favor from the Gods, deeming non-worshippers as heretics and rightful sacrifices.
Darahji, a hidden child within the Xinre clan, was blessed with access to the Aeren, a pocket dimension from legends and myths, rumored to be a place of banishment for the ones who defied the Gods. Meanwhile, Darajhi takes advantage of this blessing by using the Aeren to store all kind of goodies that people might need, and weapons from the Xinre arsenal. This way, the Aeren, accessed via runic portals, can be used in three ways: 1.) to exile living beings, 2.) to tear limbs or whole living beings apart and 3.) to store stuff, even oneself, and have access to whatever the Aeren contains immediately from the standard dimension. This third use allows some sort of teleportation for Darajhi and everything that can be contained in Aeren.
I think that covers everything I've thought about my hero and the worldbuilding around them (Darajhi doesn't belong in a binary gender): a fantasy world with Japanese, Arabic and Slavic roots at risk because of this huge threat. Darajhi's superpower may be a little bit... overpowered? I don't know, I just wanted to develop teleportation and materialization stuff to goof around, these being my all-time favourite kind of superhuman abilities. Well, enough text, I'll be working with this ref board (male and female faces because the character will fall in the androgynous spectrum):
I hope to have Darajhi Xinre figured out by tomorrow or so, stay tuned!
Hi! Sorry for the lack of updates, life stuff got in the way 
But hey, here I am, with new stuff to post. This time I have a little photo bash that I left unfinished due to time running out lol, and some composition thumbnails:
Finally wrapping up the final design of Darajhi! Picking up from here and there from those refs and shapes, I think I'm pretty satisfied with how it's turning out. Stay tuned!
Hey! Willi here, and I finally have now the definitive design for Darajhi, with every pattern and power and stuff detailed:
I'm happy with how it turned out, to be honest. Besides, I picked up my 4 favourite thumbnails of the batch, here they are!
All of them have a good feel and storytelling elements, hmm, let's see which I end up picking out of them. See you later!
Looking good so far!
Phew! Barely made it. I didn't post this past days because two days of artblock and self doubt kicked in. I had to restart the final piece because I ended up hating the first idea that I went with, which had a bit of work done already. So, the final piece has like... not even two days of thought, work and polish, meaning that the result is not as good as I wanted it to be. But what's done it's done, or so they say. Here is the dropped piece:
And here the final illustration:
As you can see, two pretty different concepts and moods. Well, I did the best I could. Hope everyone else did too, and above all else I hope everyone had fun during this challenge! Good luck, fellow artists!
@anilduyalbaydir thanks a lot, pal! Best luck to you!
