Mal Redesign WIP (Feathers and Flowers)

Just a lil somethin' somethin' I whipped up on a whim! I've been thinking a whole lot about my oc project Feathers and Flowers. I never lost interest in it, but I'll admit that I did fall a little out of touch with some of the details of the story and lore. Mainly because I either "grew" out of some of the ideas, or some of them just didn't feel like it really fit the direction I wanted to go. So, I figured maybe it's high time to start doing a bit of cleanin' up on the lore and basic story and see where it takes me!

It's kinda funny, really, how scrapped ideas sometimes find themselves back into use. When I was first talking about the story I remember receiving complaints about Mal having both a human form and a monster form because some folks found it redundant, or-- in one very specific case-- offensive (it's a long story.). So I pretty much scrapped it. WELP. Here we are again, and this time I'm doing what I actually wanted to do with her all those years ago, both design wise and character wise.

SO! About the change! There's actually a very important lore reason for it! It's been a long time since I've last talked about F&F so to give a very brief refresher: story is about a Spirit becoming stranded in the mortal realm. It follows her, seasoned farmer Kaela, upcoming sports-star Sakura, and Evangeline, the new girl with a secret held close to her heart. Basically "slice of life" but there's a deeper plot developing on the edges as it goes.

Spirits in this world are god-like beings with a deep connection to the world, but by the time the story proper takes place, there's none to be found in the mortal realm anymore. Since I've began revamping them to play a little heavier into their roles as this world's pseudo-gods, I wanted their appearance to further reflect that. So instead of looking like normal humans with unique colors and horns and all that, I wanted them to tote more inhuman features. Look kinda human and not mostly, so to speak. And this is Mal's!

Mal's always been connected to birds (hence the name of the project) so I gave her more feather coverage and long legs. I might alter said legs to look even more bird-like, specifically her feet, but I'm not entirely sure yet. :/ I changed her horn shape to be more like that of a ram's to better make sense of how they work, and while the first iteration of this redesign had a tail, I opted against actually giving her one since her hair is already sooooooo long. Besides, I could just have it run down her back like the mane of a horse: connected from head to tailbone. Something to try I think! :O

As for her overall design, I wanted her to look a little more unworldly without looking too strange. She's meant to look like she has the capacity to be scary, but also the capacity to look approachable, which I hope the contrast between her jagged edges and soft feathers/hair/wings shows.

But ye! Just some design thoughts. Might do another take before I settle and clean things up a bit, but I wanted to at least show ya'll. :)

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Some quick lore funfacts to leave with with:

-Redesigned/revamped Mal isn't as friendly as her original iteration is. She's distrustful and cautious, and upon meeting Kaela she is suspicious of her from the get go. She barely tolerates humans out of necessity due to her situation... at first, anyway.

-In this form, Mal's mouth can open rather wide, the corners stretching back to reveal that fact. This is the shape she prefers being in, but she can't use it when she first comes into the mortal realm. Partly because she can't blow her cover, and partly because she literally can't; her magic is severely depleted by the time the story starts, and with how little she's acclimated to the magic of the mortal realm, she doesn't have enough magic to shift yet. It proves to be very frustrating for her and adds to her broodiness.