Bringing My Character to Life: Raiden the Firebender (Original ATLA Character)
In addition to Yun the Waterbender, I've also created various other characters, one for each element.
This one is a male firebender named Raiden (thunder/lightning in Japanese). The character used to be called Samara (a wordplay on Semarak, a Malay/Indonesian word which has a meaning surrounding 'light/glow/fiery').
Backstory of Raiden:
Raiden had always wanted to be an athlete since he was young to follow in his father's footsteps to become the champion of the Fire Duel tournaments (or Agni Kai as it was originally called). He endured harsh training and reality until he reached his goal to become the highest ranking fighter in the tournament. At the peak of his career however, his circumstances has diverted him away as he crosses paths with Yun and the others.
Original concept of Raiden was a girl named Samara. She had more of Zuko's tragic personality and backstory.
Revised concept. I decided to make the backstory a bit lighter since he's just a supporting character now and change the gender. Character design is based off of Ross Butler slightly.
Full body design of Raiden based on the Avatar style
Finalized introduction animation of Raiden. The character design is changed slightly to be more youthful and fit the animation style.