New character idea sketches

I started drawing a new character idea, taking inspiration from the League of Legends Character Diana, with the hair and chest plate.

However I thought there was something still not quite right about the design. I realised that the presence of pupils and sclera were contributing to the human look, and taking them away made a big difference.

I experimented more with the colours and made a couple of changes to the clothing to see what worked and what did not. 

I thought this design above was too revealing and did not work as an outfit design.

I did however like the small bits of revealed flesh though, it looked better than when everything was covered, somewhat warrior-esque in my opinion, but not quite Xena, and the minimalist colour scheme worked better as well. 

I decided to take a small step further to help detract from the humanness of this character and add horns. However I had never really drawn horns before so I kept them simple to begin with, looking at other artists' depictions or at real animals. 

For example, above is a piece of artwork by Sandra Duchiewicz, titled 'Silvernai Satri'. Below is another artwork by Sandra, titled 'Satyr Head'. The horns extend from the forehead and are somewhat layered or tiered. 

Above is an artwork by Daniela Uhlig tytled 'Satyr'. Contrasting to the ones above, the horns appear more rounded and they seem to have clear ridges, rather than looking segmented.

I then looked at animal horns, for example wild sheeps' horns, which, again, extend from the top of the head, however, they are more solid as a shape and seem to have ridges in them and are not segmented. 

Then I looked at mountain goat horns, which, instead of curving around are more straight or curve towards the back of the head instead of around the face. The surface texture appears to be very similar, although in the picture below, the tips seem to be smoother.

Below is a flare-horned markhor goat that is under threat of extinction. It's horns twist upwards in a spiral shape, which is very interesting and rather unique looking. Generally they appear rather smooth with slight ridges and wear. 

I decided again to add something else. Inspired by the following photograph, taken by Jason Dulin, titled 'From the Shadows'.

 It isn't entirely obvious, but it reminded me of the old saint images with the saint halos. I found this photograph years ago and it's stuck with me ever since I came across it. It also reminded me of Paul Kwon's design for Karma from League of Legends:

As well as another character, Irelia, who's Chinese splash art is below: 

I really like these as they add something extra without being too much or drawing too much attention, if anything they draw attention to the head and shoulders of the character.

I liked the way my character was going, so I added more detail and was really happy with the way it looked. However, I still was not entirely sure about pursuing this design and thought to try some other ideas before I committed to furthering one.