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Butterflies | Character Concept Art (Chew)

Character concept art example, created for my personal project Butterflies.

"Digital painting of a full-body character in a cool-toned gradient background. It's a character concept art of a man with a dark, olive skintone, dark curly hair and a goatee. He wears glasses and has acne scars on his cheek and forehead. His costume is a cream-colored,buttoned-up shirt with sleeves folded up, dark trousers and boots, and a long, brown leather apron decorated with several pins and sewing tools like a scissor, measuring tape, wool, green rags, pencils. He holds a large, unfinished iron gate with his left hand, and a small, curling iron piece (part of the gate?) with his right hand."
Morthwyl (Chew) is an artisan who lives in a windmill workshop.

The character

Morthwyl (Chew) is an artisan who lives and works in a windmill. He tries to live a balanced, disciplined entrepreneur life as a tailor and blacksmith, but things don’t often go as planned.

The iron gate says a bit about his personality as well — more defensive than offensive, but has some mean ornate spikes when needed. He’s not a fighter, but strong enough for his craft, dexterous and attentive to detail.

I’ve been posting in-depth step by steps and insights in social media and Patreon, and learned a lot in this journey. This became a treasured universe I’m loving to revisit and polish in my free time.

More ‘Butterflies’

There are more scenes and concepts from Chew, other characters, and their story in my tags for Worldbuilding and Butterflies..

Digital painting of a head close-up in a dark, cool-toned gradient background. Chew has a dark olive skintone, dark curly hair and a goatee. In this picture he has no glasses, but the acne scars on his cheek and forehead remain visible. He has brown, almost black eyes. The character's left cheek is lit by a strong, white-hot warm light that seems to come from a fire.
Close-up.
An even larger close-up of Chew's portrait, framed around his temples and chin. The eyes are a dark gray-ish tone, and a fire light source casts an orange strip of light onto his irises. He has a serious expression and visible blackheads, pores, and red, deep acne scars.
Portrait without the glasses. I imagine he’s always sweaty and stressed, and brought this to the design with some acne scars. Also wanted to add some ‘real-world’ touches to the face.

Development

Gif process showing different features in Chew's portrait, from smooth (without acne and his glasses) to all details and some beads of sweat.
Features process gif.

Also: Thank you so much to the folks at Even M Amundsen and Paul Scott Canavan’s Discord channels for the helpful critique!

Facial features and angles.
I also wanted something large and asymmetrical on his visual design, showing a bit of personality.
An unfinished iron gate and tailoring tools.
The gate has spikes and angles, while also being defensive and ornate — just like Chew!
Pose roughs.

I tried to think about the character’s main shapes, silhouette, and personality from the start.

"Digital grayscale sketch imitating a traditional ink texture with minimal shading. Those are Chew and Yara. A man embraces a woman from behind, his face fits the nook between her shoulder and neck. He has a black goatee and short dark curly hair. The woman wears a light-colored, sleeveless dress. Her hair is wavy, short and light. Both have medium, tanned skintones. His right hand fingers are placed on her breasts; they brush the fabric of her dress."
Grayscale sketch of the character and his love interest, Yara.
A black and white drawing emulating inks and pencil. A man with a goatee and short, curly dark hair holds his glasses on one hand while his left hand is being handled by a mysterious woman whose face is obscured by her short, wavy white hair. They both wear trousers, and she wears a short tunic while he hears a buttoned up shirt. The hand the woman is treating is bleeding, dark droplets dripping from it.
Chew accidentally cuts his hand. Yara comes to help, forgets that the sight of blood may trigger her curse.
Chew is afraid (but also… charmed, interested, looking respectfully)
Digital grayscale sketch imitating a traditional pencil texture. A full-body portrait in simple, yet rough lines showing a man in 3/4 profile wearing round glasses and a panama hat. He has a black goatee as well. He also wears a long-sleeved polo shirt with large stripes, loose, creased trousers and dark-colored, shiny loafer shoes. He is leaning onto an invisible wall, and seems to be holding a small object - like a piece of paper. The canvas has other sketches showing the same man — looking down, sans hat and showing his short dark curly hair; and a very minimal silhouette of a side profile.
Exploring his features and costumes.
Sketch of Chew in his blacksmith forge.
The guy’s property was an old windmill expanded and refurbished into a forge, tailoring workshop, and a small storefront. I wanted the architecture to embellish the characters and their routine, like frames.

Enjoy, and thank you! ♥

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