Yr2 Week 15: Character Project!

The new project of the term was finally introduced! After the Sentry Gun project being so long running, it is nice to get a fresh start on a project. Our newest project is the Dichtomous Character project. For this project we have to create a pair of characters that have to be opposites, whether it is based upon looks, personality or both.

We have 4 weeks to complete the project, including concepting, modeling, and texturing. The final hand-in requires one of the characters to be fully modeled and the stretch goal is to model the second dichtomous character, but this is not a requirement as long as we have modelled the main character and concepted them both. The main character must be humanoid but the second is not limited to this restriction.

I was quite excited by this brief, and initially overwhelmed by all of the different options that I could choose! I started off by looking at common characters of this style, such as Wallace & Gromit, Ash & Pikachu and other duos from popular games and movies.

I quite liked the dichotomys used in shows such as Pokemon and Digimon, which feature trainers and their companions (monsters), and thought a similar style would give me good exploration as I am able to create a character and a small creature to accompany it.

After deciding that I wanted to create a character and companion/pet duo, I started to think of the reason my character may have such a companion, and started to wander down the route of being either a hunter or a mage, which has caught or summoned a companion. I eventually went with the idea of a mage, as I think a mage would create a much more interesting silohuette and be more challenging, whilst also providing many options for a storyline between the two characters.

Once I had decided on my theme, I started to look into the kind of style I wished to used for my character. I eventually decided I wanted to do a League of Legends inspired style, which is somewhat realistic but features stylised characters which use very exaggerated proportions.

I decided it was important for me to create a base mesh for my model to use for concepting and paintovers. I found my low poly base model that I created in first year and went back and tweaked the model where necessary, fixing topology and creating a more stylised figured like the ones used in my style moodboard.

Once I was happy with my proportions, I imported the model to ZBrush and began to sculpt basic anatomy to the model. The image above is not yet complete, but shows my progress so far in creating a base mesh for this project.

I find working in 3D a lot quicker and more diverse than painting straight out, so I find that making a simple base mesh will give me lots of help when doing paintovers.