Here, I went about designing a protagonist of a story while scrutinizing every step of the process. I started not with a pencil but with a character thesis: "I am a lowly, naive, but dedicated guard-fisherman who maintains the peace of my town."

Final Rendering.

I went about combining "Guard" and "Fisherman" with my visual research. My proudest revelation was combining the Roman Spear with a fishing rod.

From my visual research, I produced a dozen silhouettes, and my professor chose the top three to explore further. I played up a goofy nature here.

Here, I took the three silhouettes chosen by my professor and filled out the details--The set on the left is the first pass. Because the first pass is usually the "conventional" approach, our professor encouraged a second pass to "push" the design with reckless abandonment. The final design would hopefully be somewhere in the middle.
Herbert is from a poor backwater village, so his equipment is damaged and dingy. My professor mentioned off-hand to turn the tabard into a fishing net, and I absolutely loved that idea. In the second pass, I introduced a life preserver to play up a "life guard" image.

Had I not pushed the designs the way I did, I would've missed out on the life preserver.

First pass on the left and color blocking on the right. My professor recommended to adjust the net to turn it into some kind of tie. I combined the Roman spear and fishing rod proper to create: The Spear Rod. I gave his belt a few hooks to hang the life preserver from.
There were many more details than I expected in the blocking.

 

Value studies and color studies. I went with the blue color scheme to fit with the "fisherman" side.