Body shapes...

I thought I'd start by thinking about a really general body shape - what kind of silhouette do I want my design to have? Do the descriptions of Kijimuna suggest a certain body type? Well they kind of do - they are described as being the size of a small child (3-4 yrs old), but they also said to live in the trees, so later I hope to look at the proportions of primates and other animals that navigate trees so see how they differ from humans...

The rough sketches above are just brainstorming about basic body shapes, I sketched in pencil first before I received a graphics tablet for Christmas - I have very little experience with Photoshop and have never used a graphics tablet before, so using these tools for this project is going to be a steep learning curve! The second image is some of the body shapes done with a tablet plus some extra ones exploring longer ape-like arms. The last tablet sketch with the elf ears if my favourite in terms of head-to-body proportion and look. Kijimuna are also said to be elf-like, sprites etc so I might take the elf ears further later....