12 Dancing Princesses: Horse, Goat, Monkey

Thus far I've done the first six of the Chinese zodiac, and I must say they were easy to concept, since I had an idea of how to personify their animals. For instance, snake is thin, sexy, with sultry eyes, and skintight revealing clothes. However, she doesn't wear heels, but accents her wrist and ankles with jewelry. Because I had such precise descriptions for the first six, it was hard to break out an innovate interesting silhouettes.

Horse, goat, and monkey are the most probable wayI would approach character design for a client. First you have to find inspiring references (which I do for any design, but these went beyond the initial animal idea)

For horse, all I knew was that the hair would be in a ponytail, which reminding me of a warrior princess. I also thought of the elegance of equestrian life. A few years ago Dior did and equestrian themed runway so I pulled looks and silhouettes from there.

I am pretty sure I'd love to see horse princess in a victorian high-class plaid dress with a fabulous puffed sleeve jacket. However her personality is more of a free spirit "Wild horse" Her name may mean spirit. I don't want her to have a haughtiness. Dragon and snake can handle that area.

Also I must say models are perfect horse reference. They clop down the runway very well.
Lolita fashion has a victorian genre (as well as steampunk-victorian). I actually own the outfit with the cage hoop skirt.

Horse Sister Silhouette

Horse Sister Hair Concept

So next was goat, which is my sign. I'm a metal goat (1991) Goat is one of the sister of African decent and I wanted her to have short wholly hair. That's pretty much it. Her silhouette and costuming is far from anything interesting, and may be done based on what's missing from the other sisters. Goats do remind of gypsies but I really didn't want to go there for inspiration. I tried researching tribal girls, but clothing wise, nothing exciting came up. The purple and cream of her color pallet is based on Disney's Esmeralda (that's as much gypsy as I will go)

Goat Sister Silhouette

Goat Sister Hair Concept

I was initially uninspired to do Monkey, because it is one of my least favorites, until I thought of Goku (DBZ) and Goku (Saiyuki) based on the story Journey to the West. In Journey to the West, Son Goku is the Monkey King with a nyobo. This is an archetype, (there are several goku characters with monkey feature in anime and manga). The nyobo staff they carry and their tendency towards a red to yellow analogous color scheme reminded me of the Air nomads from Avatar, so that silhouette was also inspired in the design concept.

Monkey Sister Silhouette

Monkey Sister Hair Concept

Next will be Rooster, Dog, and Pig (which are correspondingly the signs of my dad, mom, and sister. My brother is an ox)