Beginning concept sketches for the 2023 Miku Expo design contest. The theme this year is toybox, with the challenge to redesign Hatsune Miku, a well known and popular VOCALOID. 

Very quick and early concepts for my design entry. The top left was doll-inspired, and would have Miku wearing a kimono-esque outfit, with charms dangling from the bottom of the dress. I did not proceed with this design as I felt that too many small charms and accessories could lead to the design quickly becoming cluttered. 

The bottom sketch had Miku in pajama-like attire, but I scrapped this one as well due to the fact that I felt like it was too far off the theme of toybox. 

The final sketch was refined in the sketches below. My idea for this was a more casual, playful outfit, but as I refined it further I continued to hit dead ends with it. Ultimately, I abandoned it. 

My initial sketch began with a dress with very few accents and designs, as most of the contests entries I had seen thus far were incredibly overcrowded and overwhelming. My second sketch was a little more complicated, and consisted of Miku wearing more accessories, as well as removing the dress. I didn't like this concept in it's entirety, as I felt like I had taken away too many of her defining features. During this sketch, I introduced the idea of using wooden blocks as hair ties and wanted to incorporate them into the final design.

In my final sketched, I liked the silhouette enough to color block. I felt like it was a good first pass, but wanted to refine it further. 

My second pass on the design mainly moved colors around, to balance the design. I also replaced some of the accessories to match more clearly with the theme and balance out both sides of the dress. Additionally, the bow from the original concept was replaced with Miku's tie, except recolored. I didn't want to remove too many of her original features, such as her skirt and long twin tails, and though the tie fit the theme well enough. 

While working on the second design pass, I tried to be mindful of the 3D modelers as I know designs with too many accessories and patterns can be difficult to properly convey in a model, much less a hologram. 

Lines for the concept sheet, following the guide from the official contest rules. As stated in the rulebook, all concept sheets must show a front, back, and side view, be drawn in 300DPI, and must be drawn with RGB colors. The final work for the design is due March 5th. 

Brief sketch in which I played with my style some. I tried to use sharper shapes and features, while balancing out the sharpness with the hair. 

Redesign of a personal OC, who is currently codenamed Bast. His old 'final' design had straight, long, purplish hair, as well as the horns. However, I was not very happy with this design, and wanted to alter it some. The braids are a concept I'd like to keep, and am still settling on the final hair color. 

Splatoon thumbnail sketches that I tried to experiment composition with. I'd like to use a more grungy, messy painted style in order to loosen up my art. 

Clothing and lighting study. For this, I rendered each clothing piece on one layer each, and tried to use this exercise in order to understand clothing folds, as well as lighting on clothing. For these, I tried to give myself a time limit in order not to over render the clothing.