Nami is greedy.
This is an inarguable part of the One Piece series. No matter how smart, pretty or wonderful of a person she is, her quirky character trait is her inherent greed and love of money. This stems from her childhood, when she lived a poor life with her adopted mother and sister, often unhappy with the lack of funds they had for food & clothing. This is also true, not only in material greed, but in the need for survival. Nami is bossy and especially when it comes to fighting, will shout out commands to every member of the crew, even Luffy. This is because her main concern is her own survival; she can be a bit of a coward when it comes to taking on the big names of the Grand Line. Where does all this cowardice, self concern and greed get her though? Right smack dab in the Orange Lantern Corp!
Currently, the OLC consists of one member and one member alone, a creature by the name of Larfleeze (although Lex Luthor was deputized at one point.) The Orange Lantern, who sometimes goes by the name of Agent Orange, was sequestered to the outer most reaches of the Galaxy and was only re-introduced to the universe at large. He is unreasonable powerful, able to draw in the essence of the deceased and recreate them in the image of an Orange light construct. As the only member of the Corp, Larfleeze is also immensely powerful, holding up to 100X the power capacity as a normal Lantern. The one fault, the one drawback to this immense power is the insatiable hunger and wanting that comes with the wielding of the Orange Lantern. No matter what they consume, the OL’s are always hunting for something to fill them.
As for their costumes, they seem to fall into the same category as White and Black, meaning that there is no set uniform for this corp yet. When Lex Luthor became one of the corp, his trademark armor was bathed in an orange light. As such, Nami is no exception…
Keeping in the tradition of the last few posts, I didn’t change Nami’s normal attire but instead, worked around it. Lets start off with talking about the colors at play here: orange is obviously the main focus. It is vibrant and works more a base color than black or white had in the other designs we’ve seen. Orange brings an energy to the outfit, without being offensively loud or aggressive on the viewers eyes and I wanted to place that energy where it made sense, in terms of conveying greed (Orange is such a warm, inviting color that I’ve always thought it was a bit of an off choice for greed. Although I just learned that in Christianity, Orange is associated with Gluttony) I chose to put Orange on most of the ‘moveable’ areas of Nami’s person, being her joints, arms and torso, to signify the energy and activity. After all, what good is a thief without her hands and feet?
A Life in Panels 
Nami’s apparent greed isn’t because of her childhood spent in poverty – it’s because she was attempting to buy her village and all the people in it, back from Arlong. But, yes, she loves money.
Of course the color also goes well with her hair. Can you imagine how garish she would have looked as purple? 😉 I kid.
I’m very much enjoying your drawings and your essays – thanks for putting in the time and effort for our entertainment and education!