Character Design - Vahaadi

 I recently (ish) listened to a really inspiring podcast from Paper Wings called PWP #9: Five Tips to Make Your Character More Dynamic & Believable.  Of the five tips, the one that really jumped out to me was #2, "A Strong Silhouette is Everything." The podcast recommends taking a collection of objects associated with the character design and tracing their shapes, thereby training yourself to translate those shapes into your character. I thought that was a fascinating idea and decided to try it out myself for my character Vahaadi.

These were all traced from images I found on google. (I'm not slick enough to draw all of these things freehand @_@ ) My compilation includes an example of Persian architecture, Arabic calligraphy, a hookah, a Savannah cat, a scimitar, a diamond-cut gem, stylized flame, a tracing of Jafar's lamp from Disney's Aladdin, stylized smoke lifted from a package of Capri cigarettes, and a bullwhip. Items I would have included but got bored of tracing: scroll, tassel, coins, draping and tattered cloth, sand dunes, needles, pouches, and a gross assortment of jewelry.

Personality and plot wise, I'm pretty satisfied with Vahaadi's development and identity as a unique character, but if he was judged by his silhouette alone he'd be nigh indistinguishable from any other Prince of Persia- or Aladdin- like character.  The only things that make his shape a little different from the others are his tail (which he only has sometimes in partial transformations), his whip, and occasionally I envision him with a magic carpet strapped to his back when he's not using it to travel. I really like that idea, but it's also not terribly practical.  Here's a recent drawing of him. I'm so classy, I drew it on lined notebook paper while I was supposed to be paying attention in church.

I actually drew this because I wanted to try incorporating a cowl into his outfit, and ended up finishing a full figure. I've always liked the idea of Vahaadi wearing some sort of cowl, but I never liked anything I came up with because (and call me a dork if you want) ears are my favorite part of the head, and I missed drawing them when they were hidden. I give full credit for the inspiration for his cowl design to Hunter Bonyun and specifically this drawing of hers. I think it's also worth mentioning that she's one of my favorite artists, and I'm almost positive that Vahaadi's design was inspired by her work long before I ever drew my first clumsy scribble of him years and years ago. Bask in her beautifully detailed work here!

And for your viewing pleasure, here's a really old pic of Vahaadi--this is the first time I tried out the idea of carrying a magic carpet for his travels. This used to be one of my favorite illustrations, but, looking at it now...yikes. The scene depicted is from a scrapped version of his back-story, so he's about 6 years younger than I usually draw him to be.

Here's a much newer and better doodle of his face in profile. It took me about way-too-many years to stop drawing all of my characters with the same nose.