Zara redesign concept sketches! (Patreon)

The first picture is the one that I like the most and want to carry forward with!

After some thinking, I realized that I would inevitably want to give Zara a pallet change! When I first designed her, I liked it, but now something feels off. It’s fine, just not something I would want to stick to forever!

I decided to give her a makeover. I started with an older sketch I made and experimented with different values for it, carefully selecting shades that contrast one another enough visibly so they don’t clash. (You can see it in the last picture.) Then I attempted a variety of different pallets. After this, I decided to draw her again. I tried to simplify the design a little bit for animation. I separated parts of her body to create a clear silhouette. The short hair is nice because it makes her wings clearly visible, even with a silhouette. I also made her wings a bit smaller for this reason, and to keep them clearly distinguishable from her body, I made them different colors and values. For simplification, I tried taking away the lines along her stomach and neck but eventually found that those were important and chose to keep them.

I really almost went with the third picture, but I realized she looked a little bit too colorful and candy-like. I realized something that I liked about Zara is how feisty she looks, and the dark pallet really helps that. This is what I decided to change up the darker palette. (first picture) ultimately, that’s the one I like the most!

I also like how her new pallet contrasts from Knighty, who is more colorful in comparison! It better captures their personalities and dynamic and feels more aesthetically pleasing. 💜