The purpose of this project was to create an original humanoid character and outfit . This project needed to include the necessary artwork for a 3D modeller take the designs and create an accurate 3D model of the character that could be used in a film or video game.
This project required me to generate a wide range of possible ideas by experimenting with general shape and silhouette in order to develop a finished concept for a character. The final concept was to consist of a character turnaround and the character rendered in a pose which could be used to build a 3D model the character and props/accessories.
The image above is the final render of the armoured character I created, whom I have called “The Woodland Ninja”. This final concept was a warrior who resided in the jungle as the guardian of a mystical ancient artefact.
The process of creating The Woodland Ninja began with gathering images for inspiration and reference to create an inspiration board. These images ranged from objects and materials to outfits and other character concept art - essentially anything that inspired a particular aesthetic, mood or character.
The next stage involved creating the silhouette sketches seen above. The goal of these sketches was to experiment with shape to create unique and readable silhouettes which could then be further developed into fully fleshed-out characters. Despite having a lot of ideas to draw on from the inspiration board, I actually struggled after a while to create a lot of variety between the silhouettes. To get around this, I started focussing less on pose and more on the shape of the actual character by keeping the designs in a fairly neutral pose and focussing more on posing the character later, which proved to be quite effective as I was able to come up with a number of additional silhouettes for a total of 20.
Through feedback and critique from others, the top 3 silhouettes (9, 16 and 17) were then selected for further development. The image above shows these development sketches, which aimed to add more detail and clarify the shapes in the silhouette sketches.
The top development sketch was chosen (which was silhouette 17) and this was turned into a final character concept with a set of turnarounds (line art, coloured and accessories) and a final rendered pose (see below). The turnarounds and rendered pose required a great deal of consideration around the shape and form of all the character’s armour and clothing, which had to be clear and defined from multiple directions (as seen in the turnarounds).
