Aquamarine

 BIRTH OF AQUAMARINE

Two years ago, the first character of Aquamarine, Atlas, was born. They were a character created for my college final major project where I could do just about anything (in my case I did concept art for a game) as long as it included some kind of environmental commentary. I was kinda stuck on what to do for a while but one day I was scrolling twitter and saw a badass picture of an oil rig. This was the inspiration for Aquamarine- then named "Aqua Salvation"- and I decided to make concepts for a game about a flooded world where people live on oil rigs.

I wanted the main character to be a cool androgynous beauty with a maritime outfit and on March 25 2024 I created the first concepts for Atlas. 

You can see their final design in the top right. I don't actually remember how their design ended up to be so drastically different to the original concepts? I probably wanted a specific vibe or got some feedback that steered me towards that one. The biggest inspirations for their initial design were: Tidus FFX, Lightning FFXIII and Gyro Zeppeli (albeit subconsciously). And I guess BOTW Link too because I've always liked the colour of his tunic. There were a few more but those are the ones I feel you can see most.

I think they looked more fisher-y in their first concept. Or some kind of swamp explorer with the hat. I do like the outfit quite a lot so maybe I'll recycle it in some kind of way.

Atlas was initially the only character I was going to make for this project, but my tutor said that I should try make an accompanying character... which ended up being Dolly! I'll probably cover her in more detail on her birthday.

Atlas is very special to me since they were the first character as well as the 'face' of Aquamarine to me. For a lot of people, the face of Aquamarine is probably Nina or Dolly, but for me it'll always be Atlas. If Aquamarine actually was a video game, Atlas would definitely be the protagonist.

Without them, Dolly, Nina, Lou, Alba, Felissia and Raphael (and more!) wouldn't exist. I never expected to become to attached to my OC universe like this but I'm so glad I have them. I'm writing and drawing so much because of them and it's just very rewarding to have my own characters.

Happy 2nd birthday, Atlas!
(I'm too busy to draw art for them right now... I'll be back when I can ;-P)