The Future tribe project

From the first moment that I saw the brief I absolutely loved it. I have always been passionate about character design and this was a very interesting and challenging task!

Before I actually started to work on my iterations, I  had to think about the theme, the backstory, and the setting of the tribe. The thinking process was not an incredibly fast one, but I wanted to get everything right in advance, and then I came to a conclusion.

At the time the apocalypse came, humanity was already very advanced. Then, the technology stopped working and people starting living in tribes again. It was difficult to think about how a future tribe would look like. There was no way it could have looked like one from the past, that just would not make sense! It had to be something totally new. 

The people from my tribe are the descendants of the people that used to live in this futuristic city on water located in the middle of the ocean. When the apocalypse came, they were totally isolated from the rest of the world, so they had to adapt to living on top of the water, using the limited resources that they had access to. 

After the backstory was done, I had to think about how the characters would look like. What is their social status? How do they dress like? What makes them stand out from the others? What elements I could use to communicate these ideas?

So I created some different factions that I was going to base my iterations from:

-the fishermen, that had to provide the food for the tribe

-the search party, whose job is to search the ocean hoping that they will find their way back to the shore, and maybe stumble upon some other survivors from the apocalypse 

-the high society 

-the leaders

-the guards

Then I had to think about how these different characters from these different factions would look like.

The fishermen have very simplistic clothes, mainly made from recycled materials.

The search party wants to blend within the creatures of the ocean, so they try to mimic their appearance with fake tails, etc, even body parts of the sea creatures that the fisherman catch.. They also have access to scuba gear that was left in the city.

The high society does not have to worry about providing, earning money, etc.. So they are more interested in appearence, fashion, having fun, etc.

The guards had weapons,m but also decorations. Still, very light armour since they had to swim quite frequently.

The leaders have crowns and very sophisticated and stately clothing. 

Not all the technology stopped working, but the one does still works, is only accessed by the higher society. The higher you were on the social pyramid, you were able to access more and more technology.

After I gathered all the reference that I needed I started working on my iterations. I let my mind go crazy with them, and that was the best decision I could have ever made. 

I started with drawing some silhouettes and then drawing on top of them, making sure to change the designs quite frequently. I ended up working way too much on them, but I am very pleased with the results!

I know a thing for sure, it is going to be hard to choose!