Saint Bears
I live in Mexico where religion it's a big part of the culture, me as an outsider to the religion I always found interesting and funny, how virgin Mary could be brown, black, white or any race, depending on where she did her appearance or miracles, and people would pray to each Virgin like if it was a different saint, but at the end is the same with different clothing and race, this is how I got the idea of this character, who plays with the sexuality as religion, who can be any color, and anyone really.
As I mentioned before, the idea came with this play of characters within the same body, face, and features, so I develop this character who can look whoever he likes, it resemblances a Saint, like in catholic religion, but this one is all about the lust of life, the hyper-sexualization of a character who doesn't know beauty standards.
So the style was thought out to be more in the cute side, hiding a dark side, colors and materials where important to give the character a look of unreal, but relatable.
I started with a basic sketch, and the idea was developing as I was moving, then I started the modeling in C4D, after I realized it was coming along the way I expected, I finished with the materials and then add some details in Photoshop.
Instagram people loved it, and some of the people who interacted with it, mentioned they could see themselves, specially when I shared the other skin colors, which made its purpose, cause at the end I wanted to convey the diversity in the bear community, which is a very loving and accepting community, so this pays homage to them.
Have fun whenever you starting a project, it's always fun to go out of the box.
