XEN TRIGGER CONCEPT WIP

Several months ago, I was commissioned to create a DMC inspired Devil Trigger design for Alyx that we called Xen Trigger. The first iterations of it were leaning toward's DMC's design philosophies on DT design as a lot of my reference was just that. My first batch of iterations felt like DMC, but I wanted to do something that felt more appropirate for HL's universe even if i felt something like this would be a bit far fetched or high concept for it. It's more of a headcanon/AU if you will.
Back in December I took Alexandria Neonakis' Character Costume Design course on Schoolism and I immeditately learned a lot from it and wanted to take that to the XT design.. so I went back and did more "mood" searching. I stuck to the idea of a XT for alyx but I really want it to feel organic. I wanted her "clothes" to feel like a part of her body and not just pieces on top of it, xen-like extensions of her. Something I learned from the course (i'm not being paid to talk about this course, haha, but i highly recommend it) is creating a narrative around the design. What do we want to say about this design or at what point in Alyx's arc is this a costume, how does it relate to her? It landed on being broad concept of the Devil Trigger, a special power to release their inner supernatural potential. We thought Alyx is granted this potential from the vorts. She has a connection to them being an ally and also being attached to the vortessense. This form/concept is her personification to her connection to the vorts/xen, as well as her skills. It is as if Xen had overrun or mutated her body, much like Kerrigan, Queen of Blades from Starcraft. The Vortessence spreads throughout the universes via Xen (the dimensional slingshot), explaining how so much Xen fauna effects her body. The bottom line here was enhancing Alyx's silhoutte throught he use of Xen creature, flora+fauna while still being recognizable.

I ran with this idea and up until now i have been on and off making various sketches and studies. Im not quite done but the conceptual phase is pretty much done and now i am working on the *final* illustrated concept!
I have much more early drawings and iterations to show but i'll save it for another post once the final is done.

Here is a lot of these ideas coming together. i sketched a drawing of the back design as we havent really though about the back too much but i was more concerend with the front. I scanned it in and painted some values but the markings ont he but just werent doing it at first so i tried different patterns until something felt good. turns out getting a little carried away on the rendering + coloring on the back gave me some ideas to help me inform the front design and helped me feel more confident in the design.