Character Concept: Taiwanese Warrior [part 3: Character Environment]

Heya guys, here's another update on my character development of the Taiwanese Warrior.

One of the most important and influential aspects of a character's identity isn't even part of them physically. I am in fact, talking about the character's environment. A character's environment really shapes the character in many ways, it shapes how they live, what they wear, what they look like, for example some one living in the desert would be darker skinned and wear cooler clothing than someone who lives in a frozen wasteland.

So onto my character. The biggest challenge I've been faced with is combining the futuristic worlds of cyberpunk with the ancient traditional oriental style settlements.

 Above there is a selection of images taken from cyberpunk media and pictures of traditional oriental and mostly Taiwanese buildings. I have tried to identify similarities between the two in order to give my own environments a cyberpunk feel without losing the oriental aesthetics.

This image is a perfect example of what I was looking for. It has an obvious far eastern aesthetic while at the same time having a futuristic look and feel to it. Especially the building on the right. The whole image suggests a market on the coast, while in the background is an industrial sector. Also, little details like generators, ventilation and waste disposal units add to the futuristic details.

When I came up with the idea of the Taiwanese Tribal warrior, this was one of the first drawings I did. A simple building found in a Zen-style garden. This drawing simply focussed upon the traditional oriental elements of the architecture.

When I started looking into the more cyberpunk aspects of my work I came up with these drawings. 

The drawing on the left is a design for a New Zen temple, although this cannot be seen without colour, the prayer lanterns and columns would be enhanced with neon lights instead of paints and naked flames.

The drawing on the right is a basic design for one of the taller buildings in the Tribal settlement. Being set in the future, I imagine the tribal people to build their houses out of scrap metal and concrete instead of bamboo and stone.

Next up in the character development is a look at the weapons and equipment used by the character.