After all the research, I sketched out some concept designs. The two things I had in mind was 1) a humanoid character and 2) a Hexside student so I brainstormed a few general ideas of what the main role of the character would be.
I liked the idea of a healer because I only remember the show having one important character in the show in the healing coven. The concept of a cleric was stuck in my mind as well and I think that’s a great inspiration for the clothing elements and visually expressing her role and personality in the world of The Owl House.
Next, I gathered a couple references for the cleric character! While doing this, I thought it made a lot of sense for them to be in the healing coven as well.
I brainstormed a couple concepts for my character as shown below.
The first design didn’t really fit into the word but I really like the light blue and white combination. The overall personality it was expressing was what I had in mind as well, mature, soft and calm!
The second one I completely hated. I tried out a more masculine appearance and it just didn’t work out.
For the third design I loved the dress and boots a lot! The added yellow was also a nice touch but the hat was a little too much.
The last one looks too much like a scientist I would say, nothing about it stands out to me except the wavy hair and her dress.
These were some main notes I had in mind, some being design aspects I liked from the concepts and others are lore/world focused:
– A witch girl studying in Hexside
– In the healing coven
– Older than the main cast (older teen)
– Cleric elements in the design (heal, cleanse unholy things, helps people in need… very inspired by DND)
– Green-blue colour scheme (calming, herbs, health, renewal, trust)
– Maybe some yellow or gold in there??
– Line design in dresses
– Soft shape language (circles) with some triangles
– Symmetry (stability)
– Show that her personality is mature, kind-hearted
Using the notes I had, I came up with 4 designs. I really liked how yellow paired with green and blue so all my designs have that element. To give her a friendlier and softer appearance, I made her ears, eyebrows and eyes downturned. Design 2 really spoke to me compared to the other three, mainly the long, wavy blonde hair which kind of radiates an angelic vibe (the white clothing help with that as well). In design 2, the colours and dress also kind of look like a nurse’s uniform which shows her role in the story even more!
I will say I didn’t like how similar the boots are but also found it hard to design different ones that still complemented the other aspects of her design.
I chose to develop the second design and drew a turnaround sheet for her. There were some minor changes such as the colour of her tights and the colour + design of her boots. These were changed to add balance and contrast and I thought her old boots didn’t fit in the world.
Final Character Design
I’m really happy with the final design overall! The style is a bit tricky to intimate but I’m excited to see how this would look in 3D.
Next I moved on to design a prop! Because my character is a Hexside witch student, a staff makes a lot of sense so once again I went online and complied references.
There are two types of staffs in The Owl House; Palismen (animal) staffs and artificial staffs. I drew sketches for them both!
I designed them based of my character and picked animals that were associated with healing, herbs, caring etc. It was fun designing the animal staffs but because my character’s a coven member so it makes more sense that she has an artificial staff instead and that’s what I narrowed down into.
Staff 1,2 and 4 also stood out to me so I designed my final prop based off their elements!
Final Prop Design
(notes shown in figure below)
