Hi! Even though I found this challenge a bit late, I am very excited to participate in it. I’m going to bring to life a concept I created especially for this challenge: Meet the Dark Forest Guardian.
The truth is that I have done a lot of experimentation for this design, concentrating on visual storytelling and shape language. In the end I decided on a character part tree part human. However, I make a special mention in this thread to the mushroom girl design, that although it has been discarded, was also really convincing for me.
The story of this character is as moving as it is dark. The guardian of the forest has not always been what she is now. She used to be a normal girl. She belonged to the small nobility at a time when your class was who you were. However, as in most stories, everything changed because of love. The girl fell deeply in love, but she fell in love with the wrong person. A few months after the sudden wedding, the humble, seemingly ideal boy betrayed her. In an attempt not only to break off their relationship, but to kill her in order to keep her belongings and her title, he denounced her for witchcraft. The perplexed girl was judged guilty for reasons invented by the man who supposedly loved her and could not even defend herself. She was sentenced to be burned at the stake in the forest outside the city. But when the flames began to spread, the girl did not burn. Instead, the forest around her began to move. The trees formed a crust around her to protect her. People fled in fear and when the flames burned out the guardian was born. The forest saved her, but also cursed her with the power to make anyone she touched part of the forest. The guardian is tragically locked in this life that she did not choose and seeks revenge.
