Persona

Persona is a character-design project that grew from SHHAN’s lifelong interest in superheroes and fantasy characters. It imagines beings with different abilities and expresses, through their appearance, how those abilities alter the body, personality, behavior, and way of life.

SHHAN begins by imagining a single ability. What kind of body would a being develop if it could fly? How would the body and behavior change if it possessed far greater strength than an ordinary being? If it could use magic, what tools and clothing would it choose, and what traces would remain on someone who had used them for a long time?

These questions become the starting point for designing each character.

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In Persona, an ability is not a setting attached to a character afterward. It is a condition of that being’s life and, over time, a cause that changes the being itself.

A being capable of flight might develop movements and habits unlike those of a being that lives on the ground. A being with immense strength might acquire a body and posture suited to using it, while repeated use of a particular ability might leave traces on the body or clothing. Such changes could emerge as habits within one generation; over a longer span, they might begin to resemble physical adaptation or evolution.

Rather than defining these possibilities scientifically, SHHAN expands them through imagination. Beginning with the question, ‘What would it be natural for a being with this ability to look like?’, he follows one question with another and gradually shapes each character.

This process is not so different from human life. People do not begin by knowing every ability or talent they possess. Someone may discover a talent for drawing or become a different person through years of repetition and effort. A discovered ability changes behavior, repeated behavior forms habits, and habits in turn influence the direction of a life and how a person sees themself.

In Persona, superpowers are a device that magnifies these changes to an extreme. By expanding differences that appear in reality as modest talents or abilities into impossible powers such as flight, super strength, and magic, the project considers how deeply ‘what I can do’ participates in ‘what kind of being I am.’

The five characters created so far possess different abilities and distinct appearances. Clothing, weapons, and accessories are not decorations added simply to make them look like superheroes; they result from imagining what a being living with that ability would need. The size and proportions of the body, posture, and silhouette are determined in the same way.

SHHAN draws elements from superheroes and fantasy characters across popular culture, as well as from real clothing and objects, then transforms and recombines them for each ability and being. From the beginning, the designs also consider the possibility of three-dimensional production as art toys, ensuring that each being remains recognizable through its silhouette and defining traits both in two dimensions and in sculptural form.

Persona is not intended to end its five characters as a single completed story. Five beings have been created so far, but the project centers on an ongoing process of imagining new abilities and exploring the new forms of existence they might produce.

Discovering an ability changes behavior; repeated behavior changes habits; and habits ultimately transform a being’s form and life.

Persona begins with the fantasy of superheroes and turns that process of change into characters.