Example made for character design class, to explain making statements with layering: anatomy, clothing, and tools.

What does the body say; to make a viewer aware of the character in the timeline of their lives. The body can reference a character's background, perhaps stuff they can’t help but deal with, stuff they were born into or left scarred from, including things like posture and markings.

What does clothing say; to indicate a character’s personal choices and presentation or identity in the contemporary moment.

What tools do they use: to suggest how a character anticipates meeting the world, behaviors and responses.

Body = Past
Clothing = Present
Tools = Future

This is a huge simplification, but it is one way to start designing statements - just like you might start with a simplified egg shape for a head.

In this example all three characters are "someone large with a blade", and all three use the same basic silhouette, but differences in body/costume/tools lead to radically different conclusions.

Detail 1 / Detail 2 / Detail 3