Sebastian Balladaras Character Design Portfolio
About the Artist
Sebastian Balladares is a junior at Information Technology High School in Long Island City, NY. He’s a part of a special academy at his school called the Graphic Design Academy, which specializes in mastering Adobe applications such as Photoshop, Animate, InDesign, etc. An upcoming individual of the Class of 2024, he wishes to get into a college that majors in this area, but more specifically animation of storyboarding. He’s got a bit of experience of drawing from a young age, as he would draw Pokemon and other random things, but stopped because he thought he wasn't good enough at drawing, as all kids at a young age believe. The reason why he joined the Creative Art Works Character Design program was because he wanted to hone his drawing skills to a large extent, and to possibly make a living out of this area of expertise.
Sketch: I was at first going to give him a complex body structure, but I decided to go with this.
Final art: I didn’t quite know what color to give him, so I went with my favorite color purple in different shades to fit his environment and everyday life.
Character Narrative
My Character, Haki, is a ghost-like mythical being that has appeared in the modern-day Osaka, Japan. He resides currently in his apartment, but he first appeared in Zuihoji Park in Kobe. He was randomly transported by his portal in the park because he wanted to go somewhere peaceful and cool looking. He was soon greeted by the locals and for some reason was taken in by some middle-aged Japanese people. Soon after, he became friends with one of the locals named Ryuji Futobame (not the one from the Persona 5 video game) who helped him accustom himself to Japanese society. Ryuji and a few others gave him money and Haki soon become an “otaku” with a love for manga. Haki enjoyed the manga series Welcome to Demon School, Iruma Kun, and his favorite Persona 5: The Animation. Some thugs jumped Haki because they didn’t agree with him at all, only to receive retribution from Haki’s powers of telekinesis and a few others. From there on out, he would spend his days hanging out with Ryuji at school (with Haki following him sometimes if he got bored, which I don’t how that’s even possible for him but here we go) and hanging out with his friends as well. In the near future, I would love to expand the story of this character that I enjoyed talking about so much.