rather than focusing first on silhouettes this time i decided to tackle the contest from a different angle: i felt that the strongest point from wich all shall be built upon is the choice of the power, so it has to be done carefully, later all the shape language should follow this first step
this are my initial ideas (after already making a cut between some):

if you step by i'd love to hear some of your thoughts!

Welcome back Zack !
Well...from my point of view, Zemerize, Maggotus and little under, Vetra Murana rise above others.
Although I really do enjoy all these stories.

And that's a good call...one distinctive power is extremly important for judges (apparently).

26 days later

Yeah I was afraid you wouldn't have time to continue the contest, glad to see you back dude! :smiley:
Keep up the great stuff! :smile:

For Zemerize I'd say B, C, E & M (E the most intriguing !).
King tooth and matriarch...and for Logos, D & G maybe ?

Good luck choosing !

faces!
so i think the idea that most convinces me is Logos, and his powers to animate each language, conjuring iron shurikens from japanese kanji and gothic chains from bible's passes, or even deadly scimitars from arabic corsives.
basically he makes letters and symbols follow his will , make them harder as iron, razor sharp and even making golems with loads of them.
the character is basically a monk who lived centuries so the outfit will have elements that combine scripture with martial arts having bits from the major cultures influenced by the writing: the middle and far east, as well as the gothic later on
drop any letter with a number if you got any favs! it is greatly appreciated!

B! Because we can already see your references, it's less obvious on the other designs. The fountain pen head is better on A & C, i feel you lost it on B.
:zap:

progresses and revisions
i'd love to hear your thoughts if you step by!
i wasn't satisfied with the silhouettes so i'm reworking them strongly even in this steps, i want the hero to be driven by concept first and by shapes second, and i'm figuring out a way to not have the letters create too much visive noise and maybe try to implement them in some bigger shapes while maintaining the idea it is the source of his powers, i wanted to have various languages to show the vastness of his knoweldge, but right now has still to be tuned, arranges some iterations of the heads i choose to go with, and kept experimenting on the costume design.

polished a bit the last set of thumbs, now i will chew them into the final and try to take the best from each one while balancing the types on the clothing

All the costumes designs are great ! ! I have a preference for the "F", "A", "I".

And this are my go to compositions for the final illustrations, wich one do you prefer?
the summoned creature is supposed to be a sort of dragon made of letters, logos from the surrounding advertisment

Really great progress on this, dude! :smiley:

I like the "Speechless" composition, feels like we're the target and that makes it very strong!

recordings of design choiches, tweaks and progresses, keeping track of the steps forward to make sure i'm not going too far from the initial recipe but weighing each element towards a working design, this character is shifting like a flag and gave me some difficulties to nail down something .."else"..

Hey! I really like your greyscale sketches and I personally think some of the value contrast got lost along the way behind the details. Maybe it is worth your time to swap your colour variants to b/w and check it on a smaller size to see where the contrast should be more prominent :blush:

thanks for the comment!, yeah i noticed that too, i'm restoring it the same meanwhile i paint the details more, some colour tests are just to see from afar to see if the scheme gets some good vibe

some layouts, i'm figuring out wich ground to give the character's feet, the lamp was my initial choice but i'm afraid to go too fancy about the pose, the other 2 should have more predictable pose behaviours, wich one would you go with?

showing some powers.. the arm with the letters in armor mode along with the weapons forming on the forearm and from the cape (the big one is carved on the back of the drape and the hero uses it as a chackram)