Steps, references and sketches for one of my character’s armor design. Titan is a demon or demigod who wears a strange set of golden armor. I created this character in 2011 and often return to the drawing board for more versions of him, his outfits, story, and peers.
If you’re interested in my characters and stories, I have a worldbuilding tag, an original character corner, and Titan is in the Titan and Eden tag.
Cyberpunk concepts with futuristic costumes, including more designs for Titan.
Concepts and development
I also wanted to prepare a visual ‘guide’ on how much he is able to alter his size, at the point of becoming a giant.
As a size-shifting being, Titan may morph into different sizes according to his surroundings or even enemies. There’s a limit to the heights he is able to hit, though, and I haven’t yet decided if it’s something that he is able to do instantly, or if it takes a while.
The chest plates can be detached, so there is some flexibility for him to bend and move. The carvings tell a story about his life and role in guarding the Temple.
Titan’s garb heavily inspired by some historical ancient Rome designs. Especially the pteruges (the ‘skirt’), the sandals, and mantle.
His helmet is a romanticized, “fantasy”, and ceremonial version of an ancient Rome Galea. The “muscle armor”/plate has an equally ceremoneal and unpractical design, but the basic shapes are also seen in ancient Greek and Roman statues.
Drawing the same character multiple times
I love setting up those character sheets. ♥
I never finished a back-view of his armor, but ended up painting a scene of him as a giant, and showing his back. His armor’s back plates have wings, spirals, and leaves etched onto the metal.
With these armor concepts serving as guidelines, it became super easy to draw Titan again in other scenes, poses and environments.
Titan’s story
Titan is a simple man turned into a timeless caretaker god who is often ‘read’ as a war deity.
Sometimes, an old wound shows up from under his garb: A scar, circling around his neck, back from when he was young and had just started living and working in a temple as an apprentice. His tasks were to tend to the plants, animals, cook, meditate, study, care for the elder workers or entertain the visitors.
Back then, one day Titan was caught in the middle of a political coup. He woke up some time later (minutes? Days?), surrounded by corpses and noticing that he had turned into /something else/.
Centuries later, he is still getting used to his new form, roles and powers.
There is more about him and his world (a cyberpunk-meets-demons story) in the Titan and Eden tag.
This portrait has some years already, but I still use it as an example of how he looks like in the current fashion, at the time he and Eden are working for the Hunter’s faction. Titan can easily pass as a large, strange human.
As a centuries-old demonic manifestation of a warden, he has gathered many powers and memories. Among these are his other-worldly strength, size-shifting abilities (useful when fighting whatever gigantic horrors the world has thrown at his Temple!), his supernatural connection to his armor, and an ability to easily heal wounds that would be mortal to humans.
Before being (perhaps mistakenly) understood as a pure war embodiment, Titan had a much more caring role and life that shaped his core persona. Characteristics that others ignore when observing him is that, primarily, he is a guardian and caretaker, and also a demon responsible for transformation and changes.
So to gain his favors you’d want to focus on his other more nurturing roles first. Not everyone is able to see that–as, for many years, before meeting Eden, he’d most likely “greet” visitors in full-armor, weapons at hand, pretty much ready to expel anyone from his grounds.
Although keeping fond memories of good friends and lovers from those times, he used to try to keep out of the higher-citizen’s way, and tend to the plants, relics and animals.
Leave a Reply