Female capoeira character development

I initially thought this was a good pose to capture the essence of capoeira without being too overwhelming or excited. However, after clothing the character I felt it looked too static. I did not know how to remedy this and the only thing I could think of was trying to add movement in the hair and clothing, however I struggled with that too due to not knowing exactly how the clothing would move. Additionally, I wanted these drawings to show character designs, costume design, more than something dynamic. I am not entirely sure this is the best approach, but from tutorials I have seen the characters seem to be in very neutral poses for this stage. I personally wanted to indicate a sense of personality and background in this initial pose, but I was not happy with the end result. 

 Below are all the designs I did using this pose.

Below I decided to try a different pose using the carnival images I gathered for reference, to make her seem like more of a dancer type. I feel this pose is better, especially when comparing her to a character like Christie from Tekken. In the previous designs I had tried out a few different hairstyles however I initially wanted to go back to the hair after I came up with some costume designs. Before I got to the stage of trying out different hairstyles, I drew the hair seen below and really liked it, I thought it was perfect with the character, it's long and brown, a trait that kept coming up when I searched for images of Brazilian women. Additionally it added to the pretty, girly, glamorous element I wanted, as I knew somewhere down the line I was going to try out carnival style clothing. I thought that this hairstyle would be kept out of her face and since the ponytail is so high, the hair would not bunch together but would fan out the further away it was from the hair tie, so it would not tend to get in the way by getting caught in clothing or body parts or anything. 

I was quite pleased with these designs, however there are a few that stood out to me, such as numbers 4, 16, 18, 29 and 33. I particularly like these because I feel as though they are plausible for a Brazilian woman to wear, on top of that most of them reflect the carnival style which is part of Brazilian culture.

The characters I was looking at for reference were:

Ivy from Soul Calibur, this image in particular due to the sense of extravagance conveyed in her clothing.

Christie Monteiro from Tekken, due to her being one of the best known female capoeira characters in games. I really like the sense of happiness and upbeat nature conveyed in her poses and wanted to capture a sense of that in my own design, which is why I moved towards the more dance-like pose.

I still wasn't sure about the designs so I did some silhouettes to help me get a better idea of which make for more interesting costumes, and I really liked numbers 7, 15 and 16. I also figured that the feathers, the feather collar in particular were most interesting and could be a defining feature

and was reminded of Leblanc (below) because of her big collar. I really like how that collar framed her face and actually drew attention to it, despite everything else that was going on with the costume.

Another influence was La Mariposa from Dead or Alive. I remembered seeing a character that had a somewhat extravagant costume, and found it was her. She has more of a luchadora feel to her, but also has a carnival feel to her because of the feathers and the bright colours. I really liked how the colours are so bright and the costume is actually quite simple but the designs on the clothing makes it look busier and more complex. I wanted to explore more extravagant designs in my carnival inspired costumes, however, I did not want to go overboard and wanted them to seem more practical, that she would not fall out of or they would not get in the way. However, I do realise some of the costumes, particularly the last few are very revealing. I chose to do some more revealing because a lot of carnival costumes barely cover anything, and there are many feathers that are attached to the back or the legs or arms that distract from that fact. I did not think a lot of feather accessories would be practical.

I moved on to flesh out the character a little more by doing more refined portraits to:

Finally I sent out questionnaires concerning this character to gather opinions and critique on how to make this character better.

Below is the final concept for this character. This was my favourite design because of the silhouette, as well as the interest created by the feather collar. Initially I thought it may not be practical as I thought she would not be able to see well, however, the feathers would curve down, so whilst they give volume and height, they do not actually cover her face due to the sloping nature. I also added the feather collar, arm bands, waist trim and leg accessory to reflect the carnival costume look. I also tried to keep her dressed more appropriately, whilst carnival costumes are very revealing, I did not think one would actually be able to hold her whilst she did her capoeira movements, so I figured this low cut bodysuit would be a better choice, as it is somewhat revealing, but not overly so. The costume also remains feminine, which is what I wanted for her, as she is Brazilian, I imagined her to be somewhat exotic looking. Additionally she practices capoeira, which is a dance as well as martial art, I wanted her to reflect the dancer side, just as much as the fighter side. However I feel that the dancer is more evident than the fighter, but I do not consider it as a problem, as if you refer to other games such as Dead or Alive or even Tekken, some of the characters look rather average in what they're wearing, such as Anna Williams.