My fav is A2, as I said before I think this still has the strongest silhouette, A1 is also good but it's not ideal for showing design. I like the container idea that holds the babies, so maybe use that on A2?
I really like the incorporation of all the baby orangutans into the design - they are quite precious and do a great job of establishing your goal of this character being a forest defender. I am wondering how this character might interact with humans though - would they try to teach humans to respect nature or be more of a "nature's fury incarnate" that has no tolerance for humans exploiting the wilds.
Yea, how this character interacts with humans is something I've been thinking about. Since I want to do a very kind spirited character a "nature's fury incarnate"-type of thing is a bit too much maybe but respecting nature and home will be definitely included in the character description
I'm cooking up a story as I go along the design process, I think there can be interesting interaction-dynamics between Orang Utan, indonesian people and Dutch colonizers (since indonesia has been a dutch Colony for a long time having the Character be a protector from outside invador might also be interesting)
I'm pushing the design into a more finalized state so I started using some combination of the previous designs and doing a rough color sketch to see how it would look like. And following up with that design I did tidy lineart with flat colors. It is kinda weird settling with a single design after trying out many different stuff but at some points I have to stop 
The concept behind the 2 versions above is quite simple:
The War paint symbolizes that the character is in fighting-mode. Usually the little orangutans like to play around all over the body of the champion. But when the champion wants to fight it is quite inconvenient to have the little orangutans all around, so when the champion is in fighting-mode they all come together in that backpack thing so they don't get thrown off and are more safe.
I previously talked about how I wanted to have one design-element from each major indonesian Island in the final design and this is more or less how I tried to achieve this:
I covered every Island except Kalimantan maybe I will come up with something sometime soon but for now I want to further refine the current design.
The stuff I have to work on:
- the exact Batik (traditional Indonesian cloth dyeing) motif of the cloth (most probably will be some javanese motif)
- the engravings of the Wrist-Ring thing, Necklace and Backpack-thingy
- shield decorations
- War paint motif
The above stuff are largely independent on the thumbnail stage for the illustrations so I can work parallely on that.
and doing the turn-around of the character I should also do for the final concept sheet
I really like the way this is progressing some inspiring character progression
i appreciate how you took attributes from most of the islands, they fit very well, and the backpack idea is great makes it more humanoid! she looks great so far!
Dude. This is awesome so far! Really like t he combination of references for this design. This shield is neck part is absolutely YES!
Thank you so much!! Looking at the references really is quite interesting because I never really tried to do something indonesian before
I'm not really that comfortable rendering/designing detailed metal accessory stuff so if there's one thing for sure is that the illustration will not show too much of the gold stuff. I did 2 variations for the golden elements of the design and did some further variations for the war paint and shield design
(I forgot I had the mirror mode on when wrote the numbers)
So now I roughly have an idea how the war paint should look like in the end. For the backpack-thingy I will probably do the black one with golden embroidery because it contrasts really nicely with the grey/white fur and I assume it's easier to render (though the embroidery motif is subject to change, I really like the tree-branch motif of the upper one). It might be a bit too overcrowded/detailed with all the black, red, gold and white but then again the traditional Wayang dolls are very detailed and crowded with color
Going further I should probably add a weapon for the character . Sounds obvious but I initially thought that having no weapon and only shield sounds cool. But a shield like the Baluse shield really is designed to use with some long-range piercing weapon or similar. I started with some thumbnails but it is difficult to get the pose right without a spear because thats just how the Nias Tribe use that shield.
12 days later
Wouw you have put a lot of effort in the research and it really pays off. This is already starting to look very nice. Looking forward to your next steps!
wow this very awesomely great
So many interesting design choices, can't wait to see the final concept
I'm really looking forward to the final illustration
1 month later
I explored some thumbnails. I don't have much experience with painting a rain forest, so I'd like to try to maxximize the character in the illustration like in 1 and 2 . 1 and 2 are more about actively defending. In 2 the character defends from cannon shots and arrows and in 1 the character intimidates human invaders. 3 and 4 are more about the Character standing epicly in a forest scene but not really actively defending. Overall, I'm more of a fan of thumbnail 2, so I'll continue with that
Hi @rakagami really love the character. For the splash art I think either 2 or 3 is the most suitable!
