Ethnicurial
Ethnicurial is a personal project where I combined several personal interests of mine and I turned it into a product line on Society6. I channeled my love of food, fashion, and learning about other cultures into creating cute, appealing character designs that were then applied to culinary products.
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If you are interested in purchasing some of these products, you can find them under my Shop or link to the shop from this page.
Concept Art
I wanted the design of these characters to be simple and graphic, and also incorporate the ingredients of the dishes into the fashion of the characters. I wanted the overall shape and color of what the character wore to reflect a national costume that the dish they're based on is from. However, the details of the clothes would be inspired by ingredients of the dish.
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One example of this is Sushi, who has a two-color kimono that suggests a rice layer and a fish layer, and the belt, or obi, of the kimono is a seaweed. The colorful hair decorations are furikake seasoning. Another example is Pancit, whose shawl is actually kalamansi, a lime that is used to garnish the dish.
Graphic Character Design
Cannoli
Gyro
I settled upon a template of the same face shape and body height, but with unique dresses, colors, and background elements.
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The colors of the clothes are all based on the natural colors of the dishes they're based on, so the blue background provides a contrast that lets those colors pop. For visual interest, a pattern of another ingredient of the dish represented is cast over the background.