#black prince
Black Prince: How’d it go?
Mo: Good. Ate some squirrel. Made some enemies. Regular day.
Continuing on from my previous costumedesign for this character, here’s the latest… Gave this one the name, ’Joseph’.
For this costume, I took influence from Ancient Egyptian (Kemetic) plus a few traditional West Afrikan fashion influences of royalty… A very common misconception people have of Afrikan history is that other than Egypt (for the few who are aware Egypt is in Afrika), nothing else of equal or greater significance occurred… This couldn’t be further from the truth.
Afrika has always had a rich & ancient history of powerful civilizations with great Kings & Queens. One such figure was the West Afrikan Emperor, Mansa Musa, who was ruler of the Mali empire during the 13th century, & is historically recorded as to have been the wealthiest man to have lived at that time; & some say to this day… It is said that during his well known pilgrimage to Mecca, when passing through Egypt, he gave out so much gold that it literally threw off the Egyptian economy.
Here’s a documentary on the West Afrikan Empire of Mali.
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Here’s the finished illustration of a character I designed a few weeks ago for an early & developing theme of ‘The Great & True Afrikan Histories’… This theme, which I’m extremely passionate about, primarily is to create content which represents & celebrates the Black Afrikan culture & it’s true/ rich histories.
The character’s outfit I designed as a ceremonial-type attire, as I imagined him to be a young man/ Prince about to earn his 'Rite of Passage’. The white marks on his skirt (wrapper) represent 'cowrie shells’, which are quite common in the traditional fashion of many African peoples.
His skin I wanted to be jet black for many reasons; one of which being to unapologetically celebrate it as the badge of strength & beauty that it is… For some reason, though he’d be a young man in his very early 20’s, the visual of him having a crown of white hair was appealing… Strong, fearless & noble; I decided to give him the name 'Samson’ (after my Father, in his youth).
I have two more pieces I’ll be finishing off soon, but hope you dig this one for now.
More of my work here: https://m.facebook.com/MaxiMAJiNATiON
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