Character design

I felt the need to establish the character more clear. This was actually done some time before the later versions of the scale drawing and wing prototype, but I am mixing some order because I am writing this all later.

Below are some of the sketches I did trying to get a more finalized look of the bird character. The bird is very vulture like, and I'm enhancing the wrinkly neck/head features some of these birds have. I still feel like I'm staying too close to reference images and would like to go a bit more extreme in stylizing, but I'm not sure how to go about this. I don't feel like I'm there yet with the design, but it seems like it would be taking me a lot more time, and as character design is not the area I'm trying to develop now for this project I feel like I need to move on with the technical side.