Character Concept And Development

Initial Ideas:

Coming into this module, I'm very aware I am not a character artist and that my ideas for this are rather limited in scope. I very much like characters more based upon fantasy games and RPG game worlds. I don't want to go too far into the creature-character idea but rather try to keep to just a character as much as I can for simplicity. I have a tendency to make any of my designs too complicated which means I am limited to the time I have to make the models and work to a much higher quality, instead having to settle and move on with a lower quality so I would like to make sure my scope for the project isn't too ambitious for once.

I was thinking of possibly taking the idea I had for a character that I had to create from my screenwriting module (we haven't actually drawn the characters so it would be nice to finally create them) as my theme for the story we had to create was based on human experimentation in a fantasy world, where humans were experimented on and given limbs of monsters that inhabit the world. This is very much in theme of Human-Creature and I could take this idea from simple horns to replacing existing limbs of a person to giving them extra extremities. For my character I gave them asymmetrical changes where they would "transform" with one arm being larger and more demonic, the character also grew a tail, a singular horn and their eyes were different too each other - almost as if two different people had been stitched together however I am aware for simplicity's sake this could make making a model rather difficult due to not being able to use the symmetry tool on the model so if I were to make a character like this I'd make sure to create the character and pick areas to add creature parts to, as areas that wouldn't be affected too much by the lack of symmetry or I could even just take the creature aspects to both sides of the model.

Some of the creatures I was thinking of merging with a human could be:

Horns from creatures like goats (Ibex Goat)/deers (like the Sika Deer) or other horned animals. Their horns look similar to those often represented in images of demons and devils so I think that the curved aspect is actually very appealing and the ridges these horns have would produce some nice details and textures on the model. I am aware of just how generic and repetitive this idea is, many people have done this before and I can imagine that people are incredibly bored of seeing this, even if I am not.
Another idea I want to pursue is merging a bird with a human. Whilst this has been done before, there are many different ways in which the character can be done ranging from replacing the head for bird head, replacing arms for wings, changing the legs of the character to become bird like or even adding a featured tail, plumage and adding a pair of wings on the characters back. The character could even have two sets of wings if I so chose. There are also many different variations of this idea I could take for example the colours can vary dramatically or I could even stray from the simple ideas of an actual bird and make it so the character is more of a mechanical creature.
Another idea I want to explore is the idea of a dragon/lizard/fish mixture. Again, there are no limits to what I could make here as I could include: tails, scales, clawed hands, horns, could replace the head, wings and other features. Due to dragons being mostly fictional, reference material from real life sources is much lesser however there are a lot of references from other video games and popular tv shows so I would be ok to use them instead.
Last but not least, I was considering taking creatures from other popular video game franchises and perhaps merging them and changing significant aspects of those creatures to make them more my own. A game like monster hunter for example has a lot of interesting creatures in the game that have many different varied features that I can draw on and adapt to a character. I think it would make for a very unique design if I took some of the aspects of the creatures in terms of shapes and silhouettes

Rebloggy. (2013) Final Fantasy XIV Concept Art. Available at: http://rebloggy.com/post/art-final-fantasy-concept-art-akihiko-yoshida-character-design-xiv-final-fantasy/64488093888 (accessed on: 01/02/2020)

CreativeUncut. (2020) Agrias Concept Art. Available at: https://www.creativeuncut.com/gallery-31/ff14sb-agrias-concept.html (accessed on: 01/02/2020)

Games like final fantasy have a lot of interesting characters that a very humanoid like but they each have features that define the type of character they are for example there's the lich like character on the left that is very similar to the more angelic character that is in the centre. These characters are defined by their colour palettes, with the lich having a much more demonic and evil colour palette with the reds and blacks when compared the angelic and royal colour scheme of the more angelic monster in the centre which uses a lot of whites, blues and golds. The angelic creature has wings too which helps to lean towards that angel design but without them, the silhouettes could almost be identical.

CreativeUncut. (2020) Phoenix Summon Art. Available at: https://www.creativeuncut.com/gallery-34/ffbe-phoenix.html (accessed on: 01/02/2020)

RiotGames. (2020) Rakan. Available at: https://na.leagueoflegends.com/en-us/champions/rakan/ (accessed on: 23/01/2020)

Gomalemo. (2018) Gomalemo Work. Available at: https://gomalemo.tumblr.com/post/159571847372/%E3%82%B0%E3%83%AA%E3%83%95%E3%82%A9%E3%83%B3%E3%81%A8%E3%83%89%E3%83%A9%E3%82%B4%E3%83%B3%E3%81%AE%E5%90%88%E3%81%84%E3%81%AE%E5%AD%90 (accessed on: 23/01/2020)

OVOPACK. (2016) Aarakocra Bird Art. Available at: https://ovopack.tumblr.com/image/152115664905 (accessed on 23/01/2020)

AminoApps. (2018) Revali-Rito-Champion. Available at: https://aminoapps.com/c/zelda/page/item/revali-rito-champion/g0vc_KIQNjrw1n2EGpG820JEJRBJ6K7 (accessed on: 23/01/2020)

There are a lot of creatures out there that use feathers and wings to create a more elegant and complex character ranging from birds to more humanoid characters that take aspects of birds and other winged creatures. I wouldn't mind creating a chracter that takes features from other animals since that would allow me to use reference from other creatures that exist and other peoples concept artwork too. Having a lot of reference would be essential when it comes to making a creature or character since reference is essential in almost all aspects of work. Creating a successful character is all about using the world around us to help make them believable in our or their own worlds. Creating something like feathers would be a challenge in itself however I always like to challenge myself to create something that is somewhat difficult so it'd be something I'm willing to take on.

KnowYourMeme. (2017) The Legend of Zelda: breath of the Wild – Rito by Ningukt. Available at: https://knowyourmeme.com/photos/1236793-the-legend-of-zelda-breath-of-the-wild (accessed on 23/01/2020)

I could take the approach of creating a more stylised character with more stylised feathers for example. This would let me stray from the highly detailed more realistic feathers and instead I could focus on making sure that the overall shape is much more accurate. It would also allow me to save time, or at least cut some corners to still make an interesting character with the aspects I'm interested in.

Game Res Feathers with Zbrush, Photoshop and Marmoset Toolbag by Dario Furlan DantertSo I figured that, since I have this function with the Artstation PRO, I better make use of it, sooo..I made a little tutorial about making feathers with zbrush fibermesh and marmoset baker.I hope it will be helpful to someone :3 I think I will upload ...

Furlan, D. (2018) Game Res Feathers With Zbrush, Photoshop and Marmoset Toolbag. Available at: https://www.artstation.com/dantert/blog/WeYE/game-res-feathers-with-zbrush-photoshop-and-marmoset-toolbag (accessed on: 23/01/2020)

I tried to look around for something that I thought would be interesting to sculpt within Zbrush and saw someones take on creating feathers. I figured that feathers would be a good object to sculpt as they can have a lot of variations in them, there are a lot of different patterns and colours I could choose from for them and one I'd sculpted a few different feathers, I could easily duplicate them and save myself a lot of work by having multiple feathers that can build up a sculpt.

There are some other details I'd be interested in trying out for example scales and clothing as they can be quite difficult to make within Maya however as Zbrush is a sculpting program, it should be easier for me to achieve creating more organic shapes and textures on a mesh.

[P]erfo. (2016) Final Fantasy XIV Heavensward "The Art of Ishgard" – Stone&Steel | Artbook. Available at: http://myfinalfantasycollection.blogspot.com/2016/02/final-fantasy-xiv-heavensward-art-of.html (accessed on: 23/01/2020)

Anther type of character I would like to consider is a character that has some form of extra features like a tail or horns since these would help to set my character apart from being an ordinary human and would allow me to use other creatures such as deer, lizards and other reptiles to inspire some features of my character to help lean towards the creature side of this project. whilst not essential for our designs, I still want to have elements of creatures within my design to give me some experience trying to creatures features for them as well.

CreativeUncut. (2020) Fafnir Art. Available at: https://www.creativeuncut.com/gallery-35/ffd2-fafnir.html (accessed on: 01/02/2020)

LarianStudios. (2018) Lizard Concept Art. Available at: https://twitter.com/larianstudios/status/1055489160306352128 (accessed on: 23/01/2020)

I had a look into dragons and lizard based people to see what others had done in order to incorporate their features into their designs, It seems a lot of people have incorporated tails into their designs and I believe this is something that I'd like to do as well. A tail would be interesting as there is a lot of potential to create a unique piece using said tail. I could look at many different lizards to see what features they have and incorporate them and I could even look to other species that have tails like some mammals or fish since their tail shapes and textures all vary drastically.

Zhou, J. (2017) 麒麟. Available at: https://www.artstation.com/artwork/VVg05 (accessed on: 23/01/2020)

I found this thunder dragon concept online and instantly fell in love with the colours. They scream fantasy and I would love to find a way to incorporate them in to my design somehow.

CreativeUncut. (2020) Thunder Dragon art. Available at: https://www.creativeuncut.com/gallery-03/bof4-dragon-thunder.html (accessed on: 01/02/2020)

Zhou, J. (2020) Jie Zhou Artstation. Available at: https://jiezhou.artstation.com/projects (accessed on: 23/01/2020)

Jie Zhou has a huge array of different character drawings and concepts on their online portfolio, each with distinguishing features that allow you to immediately recognise the character or type of character you are looking at, at a glance. I would like to achieve that too with my character having a design that allows them to be recognised easily as that is a sign of a good character. Their artwork is highly stylised, this is something I would also like to achieve since this would give me a little flexibility in creating my character.

CreativeUncut. (2020) Tamamo-no-Gozen Art. Available at: https://www.creativeuncut.com/gallery-31/ff14sb-tamamo-no-gozen.html (accessed on: 01/02/2020)

Another type of creature I'm very much interested in trying to incorporate into my own work is a fox. There are many different types however a staple for both fantasy and real life foxes are large ears and large tails so incorporating one or both of these features would be something I'm open to trying. There is a lot of work that already exists using foxes.

Slash, L. (2016) Fury beats. Available at: https://www.behance.net/gallery/32658669/FURY-BEATS-Lily-Slash?utm_medium=email&utm_source=transactional&utm_campaign=project-published (Accessed on: 01/02/2020)

Wikipedia. (2020) Fennec Fox. Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fennec_fox (accessed on: 01/02/2020)

BillabongZoo. (2019) Fennec Fox. Available at: https://www.billabongzoo.com.au/animals/fennec-fox (accessed on: 01/02/2020)

Mediakix. (2020) Exclusive Interview: Cuddle Up With Juniper Fox, Top Instagram Pet a& Animal Influencer. Available at: https://mediakix.com/blog/juniper-fox-instagram-pet-influencer-interview/ (accessed on: 01/02/2020)

Mizejewski, D. (2018) What To Do When Foxes Move In. Available at: https://blog.nwf.org/2018/04/what-to-do-when-foxes-move-in/ (accessed on: 01/02/2020)

I looked into some reference images for Fennec Foxes and ordinary foxes (the type you might find in your back garden here in England). They share a lot of similar features ranging from the large elongated faces/noses to their colours (orange and whites). The Fennec fox however has extremely oversized ears so that woudl be the way I would lean with my character design since these would be more noticeable and recognisable. Since we are only allowed to sculpt the fur, I'd have to find a clever way to texture that on to my character.

Wikiwand. (2020) Sika Deer. Available at: https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Sika_deer (accessed on: 01/02/2020)

WoodlandTrust. (2020) Fallow Deer. Available at: https://www.woodlandtrust.org.uk/trees-woods-and-wildlife/animals/mammals/fallow-deer/ (accessed on: 02/02/2020)

I also looked into some different deers however in this case, I didn't want to have ginormous antlers for my character, just something simple like the antlers of the sika deer on the right. I wouldn't want my chracter to have overbearing antlers as this might distract from the other features I would be sculpting and if my character were to exist in a world, they might get in their way or struggle to balance with such overbearing antlers like the fallow deers.

Brown, E. (2018) Bizarre Newts Live Their Whole Lives, and Reproduce, As Babies. Available at: https://www.nationalgeographic.co.uk/animals/2018/08/bizarre-newts-live-their-whole-lives-and-reproduce-babies (accessed on: 02/02/2020)

CSERC. (2017) Good News for Newts. Available at: https://www.cserc.org/news/good-news-newts/ (accessed on: 02/02/2020)

AminoApps. (2020) Axolotl Care. Available at: https://aminoapps.com/c/reptiles/page/item/axolotl-care/8Bwq_wxWUXInoN1kpaG0q2kRPkdB7dzLNEq (accessed on: 02/02/2020)

Juneru. (2017) Axolotl. Available at: https://juneru.tumblr.com/image/149810326398 (accessed on: 02/02/2020)

When it came to looking at reptiles and other creatures similar to them, I looked in to small lizards and amphibians like newts and axolotls as these have a cute aspect to them without having large overbearing scales tails. Instead they're small and delicate creatures so I would like to use their aspects since I wouldn't want to make my character overbearing and brutish.

Ovopack. (2014) Shymander. Available at: https://ovopack.tumblr.com/post/94447994830/shy-salamander (accessed on: 02/02/2020)

Ovopack. (2015) Kemomo. Available at: https://ovopack.tumblr.com/post/136027613370/%E9%87%8E%E7%94%9F%E5%B0%91%E5%B9%B4%E3%83%81%E3%82%A7%E3%82%AB (accessed on: 02/02/2020)

Ovopack. (2019) Festival. Available at: https://twitter.com/ovopack/status/1113042644941205510 (accessed on: 02/02/2020)

It had completely slipped my mind when thinking of my initial concepts that I could in fact create what I want to. The only restriction is that the character be bipedal so I decided to have a look into different creatures that people had made that were stylised and almost completely creature based. There was quite a lot of references or influences however I chose these 6 images here as they included some creatures I was interested in adding to my own design and the artists have given these cahracters a large amount of character when designing them, showing how their personality is by their reference drawings, whether they're playful, strong or intimidating. I found their artwork to be charming and each of the 6 shows a strong characterisation and humanisation even though the characters are creatures.

Oraingen. (2018) 白狼. Available at: https://twitter.com/oraingen/status/961421004785373184 (accessed on: 02/02/2020)

Bowwow. Yutsune. Available at: https://bowwow15.web.fc2.com/character/yutsune/sheet.html (accessed on: 02/02/2020)

Loiza0319. (2017) POPSTAR-Kindred. Available at: https://twitter.com/loiza0319/status/826425900782661632/photo/1 (accessed on: 02/02/2020)

Finished Concepts

When designing some initial concepts, I made sure to play around with the features I was interesting in using from my list above. I made sure to experiment with the highly stylised creatures, humans that were stylised and smaller in stature. I added elements of creatures to humans in order to see how that would look on my designs. I didn't consider this when designing my characters but I actually have to be able to make my character within Zbrush. This could prove to be very difficult with highly stylised and overly complicated characters with a lot of clothes and smaller my intricate details, especially since I am new to Zbrush. Whilst I liked all of my designs, I wasn't so ken on the smaller lizard like designs since they felt rather low quality when I designed them. The lizard/dragon like girl would be very interesting to sculpt however the tattered clothing could be quote difficult to sculpt and the large number of layers of clothes could prove to be a problem.

Some of my more bird like designs I feel were more successful. As I stated earlier, feathers would be somewhat interesting to attempt creating since I feel like once I have made a few, I'd be able to populate the wings with those already made feathers. I did once again make most of these designs similarly over complicated so I'd definitely have to reduce the amount of features my character has to be able to work with them more efficiently in Zbrush and keep my workload down.

I decided to take some of the other features I hadn't used yet, mainly from the foxes and the deers and add them to a more human character and these were probably my most successful designs. None of these are too overly complicated that I couldn't sculpt them and the details aren't too had. I could probably encounter a few problems that's for sure however, with perseverance and a lot of work, I'm sure I could find a way to overcome these. Out of the three, the middle design is my favourite since I was able to incorporate the fox, deer and lizard all in one design. This characters design is highly stylised and definitely leans towards a fantasy aspect or world and I would feel more comfortable creating a charcter with that type of design.

These are the two I was undecided between. Both would be interesting to sculpt and have features I am interested to make whether that be feathers or scales and tails however in the end I chose the left design since I feel I would benefit more creating a more human design since I will be able to apply the knowledge I gain there to more future designs and there is a lot more reference out there for me to work with. The right hand design to me feels like it would be more complicated too in some respects so maybe I come back to that one once I'm a a little more experienced.

I created a simple character turnaround and facial expression reference to get a better feel for my character. By doing a turnaround, I can mark in the reletative position of the different components of the design and have a view from the front, side and back. My design couldn't be used as a reference for proportions and such since I feel it isn't detailed enough and high quality enough to produce a good reference image to model against. However as a reference for the actual design, I feel as if my turnaround is good since it shows my character from all the major angles needed for a modeller to take the image and create my design, much like how a concept artist would take the character turnaround and pass them through a pipeline in industry. I created the facial expressions to help convey the personality of my character as being mischievous and fun, whilst also having a little patience. I could potentially take on of these expressions and use them later on when it comes to the posing or creating the facial design within Zbrush however I feel that these kinds of expressions would take a lot of practice to produce and it will be difficult enough creating a human face as it is. It's important to know about the characters personality and traits when designing the character since they can influence the overall design of the character and I feel I was able to convey that pretty well in these images. I could definitely work on them and improve them, however I can't spend forever working on this section since I have a major task ahead of me if I want to realise this character within Zbrush.

REFERENCES