#HowlLian

[theshenanijiang]

I present the character design I came up for for Howl!Xie Lian. This isn't even the final form! Next, I will work on Sophie!Hua Cheng and then I plan on making some art of them both interacting. This is all due to the post @unforth made about a Howl's Moving Castle AU HuaLian.

I had a lot of fun working on this. It has been ages since I have had the motivation to draw.

Some notes. I wanted to draw on some of the elements of Howl's design without just putting Xie Lian in Howl's clothes. So, we have the big coat, which I view as an affectation of Howl's to make himself bigger and more impressive and dapper of course. This coat has golden chrysanthemum embroidery. I usually pick my emblems for a meaning. In this case, the chrysanthemum is meant to represent nobility, new life, and longevity.

I looked at a lot of pictures of both the Fang Xin Guoshi and Crown Prince eras of Xie Lian to kind of figure out what sort of fancy feeling I wanted to go for. I really enjoy the peach to dusky rose ombre of his clothes and the mint accent was meant to keep it fresh. The touches of white are a nod to the main outfit we see him in in TGCF.

The earring is another nod to Howl's design of course.

I will probably reblog this when I finish Spohie!Hua Cheng.

[theshenanijiang]

My wife is calling this art HowlLian.... 😂 That's gonna be my tag for my wip now