Earlier this year I was given an exciting mission by the Naturhistoriska riksmuseet in Stockholm (the Swedish Museum of Natural History) to create a character that could communicate with the younger visitors.
The character was to be gender neutral, about 11 years old and with lots of personality, and in manga influenced style. The museum had also had contact with LajvVerkstaden, a group that uses Nordic style larp as a way of education and cultural exchange. They had provided the museum with some personality traits and a background story for the character.
It is quite unusual for a customer to be this thorough, and one of the reasons I very much like working with the person who contacted me.
To create a character that didn’t rely on any traditional gender specific signals was a challenging task, but great fun! It really opened my eyes on how much we read in in different colours, hairstyles, poses etc.
Fortunately as a die-hard fan of Japanese popular culture I had long been exposed to girlie boys and boyish girls and had lots of inspiration to work from… ^_^
… and this is what I came up with! The character’s name is ‘Kim’, a name which in Scandinavia can belong to both a male or female.
After my sketches had been approved by the museum, I inked the character in MangaStudio 5 (and also added some tones for some versions). Totally (s)he has five different poses and lots of facial expressions to choose from.
ramaform 