My project for course: Fantasy Character Design in Procreate

What a journey!
The big elements I wanted to capture were: the childlike poses of my reference images, the unique characteristics of mountain children, the cormorant, and the idea of gathering or sustaining oneself in the desert. This character (his name is Churpi) lives in a culture from my own design. I wanted to capture elements of my world-building without having to be too literal or add too much "setting" do get the design across.

As you can see, I was going to originally pose him with a cow, but I thought about all the elements of strong design that Nicholas talked about throughout this course, and asked the question, "What do I have to do to make him a strong enough design by himself?"

And I'm glad I did! I initially agonized over the cormorant cape, concerned about what it would do to silhouette, but then remembered the freedom to concentrate on message first. What is it that I'm trying to say? (In this case, that the cormorant is very important to this culture). Ultimately, I'm proud that I struggled with the cape, even though the design could definitely go a different direction.

Color is hard! And I really wanted to incorporate my lizard reference, but balancing the theme of the cormorant and lizard was too much. Ultimately, I stuck to the cormorant color theme, and I'm glad I did. If I weren't itching to get on to other projects, I might take the time to render the entire cape, but as it is, I'm happy with the result.
Fantastic course!