Welcome to Soulmarket Character Designs
Welcome to Soulmarket is a project that branched off of my University grad project. I was very attached to the characters from it, and wanted to build a world around them. Here are those characters after a bit of polish.
Seirus is the first character I had designed for my Grad project (which I may just call the Alpha). It was just a guy with a big red jacket and a two-bladed scythe with a long chain at the end. For Soulmarket, he gained more of a personality, and his jacket shrunk to that half-vest, and his scythe shrunk and gained the geese at the bottom. His personality remained pretty much the same however. He’s a hothead with an immense amount of skill in an unorthodox weapon. He’d get whipped up into these massive rages and just stop thinking, getting into trouble. That led to the creation of another character, but we’ll get there later.
Everet was both the last character to be designed in the Alpha, and the last character to be redesigned. Originally, I had just been calling him ‘the Magician’, a guy with a cape, knives and teleporting. For Soulmarket, he evolved into an old, grizzled but experienced character. He sort of ends up in a mentor position for Seirus, both due to his skill and his more relaxed disposition. I wanted to have a character who saw themselves as the protagonist, but in a story that already ended. He already defeated his dragon, and saved the people he wanted to save. He sees himself as a walking corpse with nothing left to do. I believe that, combined with a hotheaded, aggressive younger partner in Seirus would lead to a very interesting dynamic. Seirus learning from Everet’s experience, and Everet learning from Seirus through self-reflection. That still leaves out the people he had wanted to save though…
Caprii was definitely my favorite character, both during the designing process, but also for animating her in the Alpha. Most of her changes were aesthetic, from the shape of her horns to her clothes, and a little polishing here and there. I still feel that her soul remained the same, as a confident, but kinda silly character who has way too much power but no real skill or experience as a fighter. That led her to become more of an Informant in Soulmarket, rarely ever going out to a fight. She’s currently the manager of the Devil’s Delight, a bar/weapon shop, and a close friend, and ex-partner of Everet. His quest to destroy his dragon had led-albeit indirectly-to Caprii becoming a Demon, and he felt responsible. While his story is over, he still believes he has to make up for failing her. She, however, doesn’t much care about what Everet did. She had expected it, and now feels that their story won’t be over until she gets her humanity back.
Arache was a headache. He was designed from scratch for Soulmarket, with no base in the Alpha, except some concept scribbles from designing Caprii. He started as a master manipulator, who’s only goal was to convince people to give him their souls, getting stuck on Seirus, who wasn’t willing to give his up easily. Instead of taking the loss, Arache just stuck around stalking him for a decade. That concept evolved into Arache initially wanting to take Seirus’s soul, but changing his mind, and growing to actually like Seirus. It ended with the two being very close friends with some problematic undertones based in their power dynamic, with Seirus acting recklessly with the knowledge that Arache would feel obligated to divulge some magic power to get him through. Still, there had to be a reason for why Arache wanted his soul in the first place. That leads us to…
Telusce had maybe the most digital ink spent on the design. I recall going back and forth on her facial tattoos, hair and horns for well over a month, till I finally landed on a look that had some very strong personality, and building the rest of the character from that. The concept behind her looks are that she’s a far greater manipulator than Arache initially was, but she does so by convincing everyone she’s manipulating that they’re manipulating her. She’s wearing what look like PJ pants, and an ill-fitting blazer over a turtleneck, with a wild, seemingly poorly maintained hair style that just happens to cover up her horns, which are huge and branch out of the bottom of her skull from behind. The look pretty clearly lets off that she’s incompetent but sees herself as better than she is. In reality, the look is designed meticulously to make people believe she’s easy to manipulate.