Manya and Syan

Whoo! New character designs!

Meet Manya and Syan, two new characters of mine that belong with a valley-dwelling tribe. I was tried of drawing "normal" sized people all the time, so thought I'd change it up in the body-shape department. Frankly, I'm quite happy with the outcome and am very fond of these designs.

Manya is one of the tribe's Gatherers and like the rest of her occupation, is mute. This is to protect the locations of their valuable herb gardens from outside intruders. All Gatherers have an operation that disables their vocal cords and the scars from that operation are hidden under necklaces like the one Manya is wearing here. Her knife, though it's hard to tell in this drawing, also has a rounded, shovel edge. Though it can be used for defense, it's primary uses are digging up roots or cutting vines.

Syan is part of the tribe's Shaman group. He works directly under the council that runs their society, so his clothing is a bit more neater than Manya's. He's highly trained in the tribe's ancient magics and history, but is a rather down to earth guy. He has recently been assigned Manya as his personal assistant, who's charged with finding the ingredients for his various potions and remedy mixes.

I had a story in the works for the two and it's kind of a game idea, though it's nothing too revolutionary. I was thinking of it following similar lines as Legend of Zelda and Okami, where Manya has to go on a quest to rescue her kidnapped young brother, Muyo (I have a sketch for him to scan in still). However, it's a party based game - so kind of RPG based - where Syan and another character accompany her.

Nothing's fleshed out, as I just doodled these up one night before bed. Still, it was a fun exercise playing with some different body types, as well as some different colour schemes. I was trying to keep the saturation levels up here, instead of numbing them down as I usually like to.