Rin — A harpy-adjacent character who struggles to feel comfortable in his human side — designed and redesigned over a year.

Rin

Year: 2025–2026
Type: Personal work
Discipline: character design
Tools: Procreate, Photoshop, Sculpture

An original character created as an emotional outlet, redesigned repeatedly as my style changed.

Rin is a character I created as an emotional outlet, and his design has evolved over the time he’s existed. He’s a harpy-adjacent creature who struggles with feeling comfortable in his human side as he continues to interact with the humanity around him — an allegory for my own feelings.

As my styles evolved and diversified, I’ve become more confident in expressing his bird-like traits.

How he changed

Oldest to newest.

The earliest design — Rin against a dark magenta background, wings spread, signed

A design sheet on light purple, the full figure worked up beside several smaller passes

A later pass on white — the sweater carrying a much more complex pattern

A Page of Rin — a reference sheet gathering the original outfit, the new main outfit, the alt outfit, a base and a holiday outfit

Close-up of the new main outfit, front and back

Close-up of the alt main outfit — a fringed green shawl, front and back

A Deltarune detour

The dual toned orange/red and purple versions of Rin are a one-off design made as a part of my friends and I drawing our OCs as characters from the game Deltarune by Toby Fox. I took inspiration from the character Noelle for Rin’s outfit here.

Two dual-toned versions of Rin, one red and one blue, drawn without costume

The same two dual-toned versions in costume — a green argyle vest and a white and blue outfit

Where he is now

The current reference sheet — the green shawl outfit with eye motifs, a second costume, and magic effects

Sculpting him

I made a sculpture of him for one of my classes to help myself understand his design and physical attributes much better, even if it was my first time sculpting.

Painted sculpture of Rin standing, wings folded, photographed outdoors