Hi!
Since the announcement of Ghost of Tsushima many months ago, I wanted to create my own samurai character.
I started working on this character a few months ago dedicating time to work on this mostly on weekends. My endgoal is to have a realistic character running in realtime (UE4) appliying what I learned by working in a studio for the last year and a half.
I'm not working with a concept so most of the design choices are try and error (offcourse using a lot of references in way)
Actual state:

Thanks for reading.

Replies
After I got the head I moved into blocking the hair. I did different versions but at the end I choose this one. I liked because the different shapes and forms making it more challenging and also breaking the silhouette with the llose hair clumps.
At the end I didn't aim for getting everything clean and perfect in Marvelous. I worked on each piece separated and then adjusted them in Zbrush. Also, this is just for the rough version, once I'm happy with the simulation I got from marvelous and checked is working good with my design I clean the pieces in Maya to get even topology.
Other shots
with two koi fish following the flow.
Take into consideration my character has two katanas. Each one it's going to have a different design because based on my research it is really unlikely that a samurai would carry two copies of the same katana because it would be really expensive. Only samurais under a lord could afford it. This samurai is more like a ronin which would make sense she would carry two different katanas.
Blockout
HighPoly [WIP]
I tweaked the mesh so it can have a realistic blink transition by using the power of layers!!