Week 10: My, What big teeth you have!

Howdy Folks

This week on Game art has been rather fun and it seems like my final major project is starting to heat up! Working on the Shaman character has been very enjoyable and I’ve had the chance to brush up on some new skills which I wasn’t certain that I could do before. From last week, I wasn’t sure if I could complete this character, however I’ve dispelled all doubt. Nonetheless, this was the end of week 10 which means we are half way through the FMP- spooky!

Last weekend I was able to finish a concept for one of the power ups of the conquistador character, ‘The barrage’. I will be doing several more like these to put in my concepts. It was great to take a break from 3d and I am proud of the result.

I started my week modelling some of the smaller assets that the shaman would wear, this would be beads, bracelets, necklaces etc. Throughout this process I took a lot of inspiration from the characters in ’From Dust’ by Cedric Seaut.

Afterwards I modelled her hair and even got the chance to draw up a rough concept for her design.

Afterwards I imported all her meshes into Zbrush and spent the day working on the face, hands and feet of the character, as these are areas of the most interest to the character.

I must admit working on the face was challenging, especially as I had been working on male faces the previous 8 weeks.

I took a lot of inspiration from ‘African Queen’ by Arnaud Kotelnikoff for inspiration for the type of features and native beauty that I would like to convey with this character. The minimalism of this character does not detract from her beauty. I truly feel that this character has been perfected especially her face and I would like to evoke the same element of simplicity with an impact.

I got my work reviewed by Del and he mentioned how it was a big step up from last week’s outcome.

Afterwards I began work on the tortoise shell using the Mexican desert tortoise as reference. it was just broad strokes at this point, but I was able to map out the basic forms of the shell shield. Later on in the week I began adding detail.

On Wednesday I applied for a character art position at Codemasters. I was nervous about applying at first, however, I’m glad I did and I look forward to their reply.

In the meantime, worked on creating the loincloth for the character, which was difficult especially when trying to get the right material folds.

Fortunately I was able to resolve the issue with the cloth and began work on the crocodile head, silhouette and shapes. It was necessary that I had good reference up or I would have struggled throughout the process. The task was educational, especially learning about the different shapes of crocodile head and how it differs from that of an Alligator.

At this point, the main aim was to just get the silhouette down and focus on the broad stokes, instead of getting too bogged down by detail, as I had done with the previous character. Throughout the process Del was giving me feedback on my work, which was very helpful.

With the head complete, I spent the rest of the sculpting the back pelt of the crocodile. This was perhaps the greatest task of all as there was a lot of detail in the back of a crocodile and I needed to make sure that I used both the reference images I took from the London Zoo and online sources, including: this tutorial by Aidin Salsabili.

In addition, this brush piece helped me a great deal: http://www.zbrushcentral.com/printthread.php?t=58134&pp=40

I must say it was a tedious task adding all the different bumps to the mesh- so many bumps!

Nonetheless, after a gruelling few hours, I was able to complete the back pelt for the crocodile. Even Del called it ‘hot’.

With this complete, I had the confidence to begin sculpting the details into the crocodile’s head. It was hard to find good reference images for this especially as it was shard to come by front side and top images of a crocodile’s head that matched. Therefore I had to have a main reference and use other references to fill in the blanks.

Again, it was becoming a tedious task especially adding the numerous amount of facial cracks and bumps-so many bumps!

However, it all came together when I added the teeth to the mesh- Huzzah!

With this complete, I moved onto sculpting the detail of the shoulder guard. The main reference I had been using, ‘Occepa’, was not the greatest help as I was unsure of the shape and forms in the image. Instead I decided to use the Shells of Mexican Blue and Spider Crabs for the design of the shoulder guard. This would allow me to show originality with my design, but also stay true to the Mesoamerican civilization by using animals from its location.

However, Del advised that I reduce the size of the shell and shield guard as he made the very useful point that having more rests in your design allows the audience to be more focused on the areas of interest, but too much detail can confuse. He mentioned the designs of the characters of ‘dirty Bomb’ as a good example of characters with a great balance of rest and interest and suggested that I use as reference.

Afterwards I sculpted the arm guard too- here I had a bit more fun and decided to use the claw of a King Crab as the main source of inspiration.

With most of the meshes complete, all that was left to do was to add some more detail to the staff:

As most of the work had been complete, I spent the end of the week just tidying up my mesh and adding a few accessories. I must mention that throughout the week, I was able to enjoy working whilst watching the fascinating ‘Extra History’ documentaries on YouTube. I am a huge history enthusiast and I really recommend watching this when you have the time.

Del was very pleased with my progress throughout the week and I was starting to feel proud about my work, which hadn’t happened in a long time. I am starting to feel that I can create an Awesome Fmp, I just need to keep at this pace and remember my how cool of a project I am working on!

So there you have it folks my productive week. This marks the first week where I feel proud with my outcome! If I keep up at this rate I’ll be making great characters in no time

Thanks for reading

Too-da-loo for now