Galajo

Daria (Early Concepts)

Added 2026-01-29 15:00:05 +0000 UTC

Here's another set of early concept drafts of my characters! This time, it's all about the brooding and mysterious Daria de Sorrow.

Wait a darn minute...this also looks like a completely different character! Her name wasn't even the same initially, too!

Yuuup...just like Bridget (who went from mongoose to mouse), Daria was not initially conceptualized as a raven. Instead, she was originally an airheaded blue macaw called "Sammi" in my earliest sketches.

And...that was really it. She was a blank slate for six years, as I struggled to figure out an interesting direction for my first avian character. In the sketches above, you can see that she's depicted as a fortune teller - but at one point she was even an exotic dancer or a masseuse in my head. None of these ideas really stuck.

If anything, she felt more like a supporting character, rather than one who could share the stage with these other furry gals I've created so far.

So...I took a sledgehammer to the concept of "Sammi" and flipped her completely upside-down. From a goofball entertainer to a gloomy witch.

And thus...Daria was born.

Reworked test sketches of Sammi (now Daria). It took me a few tries to find a color + tone which complimented her dull colors...

As you can see, her total 180 into a goth baddie turned out swell - and everything quickly clicked into place after this. Since real-life ravens have some amazing vocal talents, it made perfect sense for Daria to be a songstress who sings to cast magic.

So...despite all the major changes to her design and name, Daria actually turned out to be a distillation of the various ideas I had for "Sammi" (i.e. a magic-using entertainer). Funny how that works out.

...What's that? Will I ever do something with the original "Sammi" design one day?

Hmmm. Maybe.