I'll change the name if needed, but the credit for it goes to @CorruptedData42
This was considerably easier for me to do, most likely because the design had a lot less extra stuff happening outside of the body and clothes. Like there's a lack of wings and there's a lack of extra arms, I'm saying. This was also weirdly easier to draw? And I'd like to blame my time simplifying Samurai Warriors characters so I can draw them without changing their clothes.
I'm not very sure what I want for her kingdom yet, especially since the idea of how Rotten Cheese's kingdom will work changed since the 24 hours I posted the last Ancient. But all I know is that she's surviving, not living, especially due to her lack of interest in herself and other s around her. Hunting is what makes her feel alive, and the only ones she deems strong are the only ones that can match her strength or can serve a different purpose, whether its a blacksmith that can forge the bones, fur and scales she gets into weapons or armor for her other warriors, or a cook who can make some phenomenal meals with the meat and berries she brings back. Everyone else is deemed useless to her, or they just simply don't exist. Either this or I might just change Sloth into Obsession? Too much Passion or something of the sort. I just don't like "Sloth" for Hollyberry because of how easy it would be to do something Slothful for a character like her.
I am planning on making a story from this I want the concepts for how each kingdom works down straight and Cookies who will be around. The roles of the characters that were loyal to each Ancient before they were corrupted (like Burnt Cheese, Wildberry, etc.) and if I will be making ocs characters, which will likely be the case.
But either way, all of the armor she wears and her weapons are all made with stuff that can be found in the wilderness. Wood, bones, abandoned rope. She makes everything herself
I'm not sure where to start with this, so here's the picture
I didn't go into too much thinking for her design since I already had a baseline for her anyway. "Should I make her into a stereotypical barbarian or give her armor from dragon scales?" I asked multiple people this in the CR community and my real life friends outside the community and all pretty much agreed I should go with the second option. So I researched dragons for ideas and here I am. The reason why she's the second design being posted is because I thought she would be harder than she actually was overall. But it wasn't the armor that gave me trouble, it was the helm.
For the general, I wanted to make some armor that looks like it came from a dragon since its in Hollyberry's story that she did defeat a dragon before, Pitaya Dragon. Its unknown whether she defeated other dragons in the past, but it was kinda implied that she did. With that, I also still wanted to keep the heart motif, keeping a small heart in the helm for the second picture. As a result, her Soul Jam is going to be the heart around her beltline in the first picture.
I have a weak spot for battle skirts in characters, one of my favorite character designs in any sort of media is Guila from Seven Deadly Sins, who does have a "battle skirt" despite the fact she doesn't wear it all the time. She also has a cute heart motif in her design too. I did use her as a reference for the metal plating around the Soul Jam for Infernoberry's design. I didn't like what just the skirt looked like and why I added the metal playing over it. It also gave me a pretty decent spot to put her Soul Jam at.
The thing that gave me the most trouble was the helm. In fact, there's an entirely different helm in both images. The reason why I wanted a helm instead of a full helmet is because I don't really like helmets. In my opinion, its harder to discern a character's personality outside of them being a warrior or in some cases, a quiet type if we can barely see their face. It also makes them plain. There's some really cool helmets but you can do more with hair, hair ornaments, accessories. It felt limiting to me. So helms felt like a good middle ground. So I found this helm
I saw some of the same helm where the horns were sideways, and you can see in the first image that I did originally want to go with that. But oddly enough, maybe its just a me problem, but the horn sideways looks more like a bull horn rather than an actual dragon horn. But since I already wrote around that area, I only changed what one of the horns would look like. For the little shield design in the middle of the reference, I thought it'd be a better place to put the Soul Jam. So once the basic drawing for the helm was done, And then the heart around the belt line can be replaced with something else, maybe an actual hollyberry rather than what's around her "neck" (tbh I only made it look like a tie to get around the fact this style doesn't have necks)
I stared at it for a bit...and thought it looked a lot like Marvel Loki's helm instead and it didn't look like it came from a beast with the exception of the horns. So I wanted to change it.
For the second one, I had a few references, namely ones with wings so I can add more dragon aspects to her helm.
Along with the horns
And I started from the middle in the middle and the rest is made of bones and wings. With room for her hair around her face too. From the lines I erased, you saw I went to see what it'll look like if I didn't change Hollyberry's hairstyle at all, but it made her look more immature in the bratty way instead of immature in the "no thoughts, only fight" way, so I changed the hair buns to face downwards instead.
The second problem was the armor around the hand. This is when I realized just how limiting this artstyle can be when there's no fingers. I couldn't even use Wildberry as a reference because his gauntlet is his full hand, not just strapped on. These were my references
Since I didn't want her to be covered with armor, I thought having fabric underneath made sense, with the more vulnerable parts of her body being strapped on with armor. It gives a reason to use animal hide in my opinion. That's why I did a small sketch for the close-up on her shoulder since the shoulder pads are also strapped on. But that was easier to do than the hand because at least that general location doesn't change much from the normal human anatomy that makes a noticeable different to how I would draw shoulder pads. I couldn't quite figure out how to do it, so....I moved on.
As for the weapon, I was originally going to give her a battle axe similar to what Burning Spice uses. I didn't get the inspiration until I added the extra lines to her hand in the first drawing. How she would be holding the weapon there, it looks like it would be a spear or a hammer. And the obvious ham- I mean obvious answer was hammer. So I wanted it to be massive
This massive. But I didn't want it to look like this since its made out of stone. And despite that being something that is found in nature, its not easy to make use of immediately for weapons. This is just a reference for how it big it would be compared to Infernoberry herself
As for the reference
Simple references, but hammers are definitely not weapons you can do much with without it being unreasonably hard to make with just things found in nature. Though it doesn't stop it from being upgraded later on in her kingdom.
The hammer being made out of wood was a given though. Not much inspiration outside of, hehe giant hammer.
I didn't know where to put this either, but for her eyes. I wanted her pupils to be small, but feral (like we have small pupils for Espresso and Affogato, but they're not exactly feral), kinda like Pitaya Dragon, Burning Spice, and Tiger Lily. And then the lines that will be across her eyes will be like Tiger Lily and Naruto Uzumaki, to show a more animalistic nature.
Overall I am very proud of this. Much more proud of this than how Rotten Cheese came out, even though I used many more references to get some more specific details about Infernoberry's outfit. I hope I can be proud of the others too
