Nays - Inspiring our self in the Amazonas

Creating a character inspired by the Amazons was a very short challenge, but really entertaining.

Among all the works I've done in illustration this is one of the projects I still keep among my favorites, next to the book; I remember it also because of the nightmare that took me the last part of this project .... Although I think the fault is more mine 😅.

For this short work we were tasked to create a character inspired by the state Amazonas, Venezuela; (... the idea was not taken so easily by the students... Venezuelan pride? Okay, we are teenagers, we love our country, but we do not have great appreciation for folkloric music and their relationships: ').

But once we started, we were surprised by the great variety of things that the Amazon hides among its towns, cities, tribes and tropical forests. From animals that could have their own horror movies, be real-life pokemon; to curious plants and rituals that exist around spirits or mythological beings.

Personally, it cost me to come up with a clear idea for my character. Among my ideas consider:

• A child turned into a spirit lost from the forest and whom embarks on an adventure to return to his tribe.

• The seven-headed serpent that was actually a mother who lost her family in a drought that her tribe suffered, and after long prayers and showing her love for her tribe the gods gave her the blessing of becoming the famous snake of 7 heads that brought water, and who now lives in it.

• A girl who after a great misunderstanding suffered a curse that made her have the characteristics of a Guacamaya; turning her into what would be a "fairy" of Venezuelan culture. And she would have to find a way to return to her normal life, while preventing humans from finding her out.

Did I also forget to tell you that these characters had to be addressed to children? Yeeeaahh ... maybe my stories are not the best for children ... xD

In the end they chose the last of my options (maybe because it had the least tragic story?). Her real name is Nays and for her design I didn’t just get inspired by the Guacamayos but also by the Pemones: A tribe from this state.

Pemones children

Okay, Time to work with her :D

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Nays, The Amazon Fairys

After being chosen, I had to make a Charater Sheet of this little girl. This included a 360 (different views of the character: front, back, profile and side), as well as the expressions she would have and with her dress clothes. When I said we were going to work on it, we're going to work on it.

The 360 from my character.

The expressions.

The project wasn’t just about doing the basic references, but also making a presentation of the character ... this included a poster. Lets make the second part and the nightmare begin >: D

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Creating a representative illustration

Since my friend was a girl inspired by the Guacamayos, we thought it would be a good idea to draw her surrounded by them. But before jumping to the last job, we first had to make a physical sample.

I think she looks adorable and representative enough for the Pemones. Unfortunately, I didn’t save the progress of the physical version ☹️.

From now on we enter an area that you will already know I love, work in digital. As a last step to end this work we had to make the full character sheet and the poster already with color and background.

And based on the draw we made in traditional we created the background. My area was a tropical forest where she would meet other Guacamayos while trying to interact with them.

Unfortunately, due to the time the progress wasn’t saved, I thought I have the finished phases of the work.

The part which was a nightmare was the fact that when I just arrived at the character and the birds I only had one night to finish everything ... That night I suffered, I suffered a lot; but still I could finish it on time and well enough to win a 19 :D.
One of the works of 3 weeks in with the greater note.

For reasons of time, the guacamayos themselves were not make from scratch, but based of some images cut and edited so they would seem like they were made like the rest of the painting. A trick I did to save a little more of time and which gave very good results 😉 (in the end when could I be able to make a job without the time I cutting the joy? xD.)

Well, now it’s having a lot more of life.

I really like the results, and creating a character inspired by the Venezuelan’s culture was a project that, although at first didn’t give much inspiration, became a better project for the class :D.

The descriptions of Nays.

The media used was graphite + Paint tool sai and Photoshop cs6 (thank Godness, something that does include digital in these works from school)

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