So I had an idea for a fictional setting based off of the Great Bear Rainforest of coastal British Columbia.

When thinking of characters that would inhabit said setting, I of course thought of the black bear which are very plentiful in the area. Instead of the usual black I wanted her to stand out a bit more so I made her a cinnamon bear (I wanted to stick with realistic colours instead of something like neon blue).

Of course it wasn't until I had already coloured her in that I found out that there aren't cinnamon bears along the coast (coastal bears are either black or white), cinnamon bears are more of a rocky mountain thing. So I made her sort of a wanderer who happened to travel here from very far away.

Her clothes are based on coastal First Nation clothing, made of woven western redcedar bark, which is very water resistant (they don't call it the "wet coast" for nothing).

For the pattern on the clothes I tried to think of what an anthropomorphic animal would find important, I decided to use plants that they'd either use for shelter or food. The plant pattern (and her name) is based off of Vaccinium species, mainly Vaccinium ovalifolium aka oval-leafed blueberries which are very popular with bears.