Calamity of Light was a project I was working on during one of my last semesters at BYU-I. It is a fantasy story revolving around two characters: Valencia, a skilled fighter and hired bodyguard, and Kallai, a foreign diplomat who excels in healing magic.
I grew up playing a lot of Final Fantasy and the Legend of Zelda and other fantasy style games, and I was frustrated by the fact that the leading women were often healers and supported the men (who were often fighters) in their respective games. I wanted to flip that by emphasizing strength and fighting in the leading female character and healing and softness in the leading male character
The first Sketches of Valencia (meaning "Brave") and Kallai (meaning: "Light")
I quickly settled in on a design that became rooted in my mind
Kallai's design went through a lot of iterations before reaching one I liked, and even then it didn't quite fit. He is a man who has a prestigious job, but is also needs ti be practical in his outfit since he's traveling across the land. I based his design off of the White Mage class from Final Fantasy, especially since he was going to be a healer.
Even though I thought I was finished designing these beloved characters, after some helpful critiques, I realized there were still some important changes to be made.
In an attempt to dress Kallai up more, I took inspiration from South Asian attire and dressed him in a Sherwani
The main thing about Valencia was her pauldron and making sure it was attaching in a way that made sense
From there I decided to focus more on Valencia's character and created turnarounds, expression sheets, and more
Valencia's Sword is a Kampilan, a Filipino sword
I studied videos of proffesionals wielding the sword when drawing these images
Using this sketch from earlier, I created a maquette using oven baked clay
This project taught me a lot about character creation and story building, and I'm so proud of the work and world I created. Someday I would like to revisit these characters and expand their story into a finished reality. For now, I'm happy I can share them with you here!