Kitab Charaka is my undergraduate thesis. It is a historical digital comic for Indonesian high school students that follows the story of two high school students, Raditya and Vania, as they’re magically thrown back decades into the past. In this section, I am highlighting the steps taken during the process of creating this story, starting from the environmental designs and character designs.
This is the first pass of my Chinese merfolk concept for a project with KG Ming. This started as a random conversation where we were saying that mermaids would look beautiful with flowy clothing like hanfu. Since there are many types of hanfu, I specifically chose the ones with looser robes and outerwear such as beizi, dui ji ruqun, and qixiong ruqun since I thought it would provide for better movement in the water. Her accessories are created from materials found in the water or sea like water lilies, pearls, shells, and abalones. Although they would mostly have long hair, it is typically done in a variety of tied or braided hairstyles for minimum tangling (the sea is full of rubbish).
The design I made for my, KG Ming, and CJ Hudson’s original character in Calamity at Calypso Creek, Deputy Jim Young. Deputy Jim Young is a stern but reasonable kind of person. KG Ming suggested to make the deputy half-Chinese here, which I tried to incorporate into the design
Helena is a character belonging to Drew Misemer who I had the honor of designing for an anthology pitch. The brief I received for her character was ‘evil’. An evil, dangerous, close to feral woman. Imagine someone who finally got to cast off the mask of propriety and show what they are behind it. Based on the brief I’ve gotten, I felt it was important for her to look callous and a bit savage. Someone who looks like she could care less about you except for your demise.
These character designs were created for Haley Rose-Lyon’s Bi-Card in Bi Visibility #1, with full creative freedom kindly given by Haley. I aimed for a diverse cast in terms of ethnicity, body type, and design. The brides wear unconventional yet wedding-inspired outfits in white and soft pastels, subtly reflecting the Bi flag colors. For the agents, I used classic agent attire but added a fun twist with bold Bi flag hues.
Unofficial Monster High Redesign
My two spidersonas, Hong Huiran (Hong Zhizhu) and Xu Xia (Zhizhu Dajun) are designed to be connected to one another. Hong Huiran received her powers from a soul-transferring spider bite which allowed her to share her body with the spirit of the ancient spider ‘god’, Zhizhu Dajun. Since her powers are taken from the past, essentially, I want to make sure that her design was a mix between past and present, which is why I chose to incorporate hanfu designs on her upper body and skirt but left most of the rest looking more modern and sleek.
Xu Xia is a xianxia-inspired former commoner turned spider deity. His design blends martial arts aesthetics with minimal armor, a shamanic spider mask, and an erhu to control spiders. His white color scheme symbolizes mourning, reflecting his grief. Despite cultural twists, he remains clearly a Spider-Man from his own world.