Howl

So I've settled on a Native American character, but I realised that there isn't really much to design as they already exist, and they have a very simplistic look. To make it look less boring, I'm going to give it a more game exaggerated look, but the main feature will be an additional 'form' of sorts. Native Americans are known to be very spiritual beings, with many links to animals. Now I know it's a bit cliché, but I've always been a massive fan of wolves (I know right, a Native American with wolf links, how original).

I usually find this kind of art tacky, but here you go.

So the main thing on my mind is whether I should make this 'second form' full wolf, of werewolf. The problem with full wolf is the the simplicity. Like I said earlier the reason I'm doing a second form is to avoid producing a boring design. There are ways to make it less boring, like keeping human accessories/ characteristics on the wolf to make it look unique, but at the end of the day it's still just a wolf with feathers on. On oner hand the term 'werewolf' always puts me off because I just imagine cheesy 20th century movies with really bad costume and make-up, but on the other hand other games/ movies have done half wolves very well; Van Helsing did an extraordinary werewolf almost 10 years ago, and games such as Bloody Roar, and World of Warcraft have also produced excellent werewolf characters.

Although Van Helsing did an amazing job with theirs, I will be swinging more towards the game versions where the human side is a lot more present, I want the host have complete control of themselves, whilst also keeping visual characteristics from their human form.

 

Here Comes A New Challenger!

Ok so as I've been generating ideas for the past 5 days but only just started blogging, this stuff is back dated work, but I will talk you through my process anyway!

Well as the last one stated, I wanted to fit a character to a specific criteria.Originally I was opting towards an Ancient Chinese theme, producing a 'Dynasty Warrior'. And yes! I'm fully aware there are currently 1 billion games with this title, but that is essentially what they are.

Something like this is what I had in mind (In terms of design process, and style etc. my character thoughts weren't taken straight from the game).

But the more I thought about it, and the more I looked into it online, I realised that with their massive fan base, and their huge variety of characters, it would be hard to create something I would feel is completely my own, so I decided it was time to think of something else without completely scrapping my idea of a very historical, culture driven character. So I started thinking about other categories of exaggerated historical groups, like Pirates or Native Americans, and I know they aren't exaggerated in the sense they don't exist, but they both have very mythological backgrounds.

The more I thought about my original character idea for the Dynasty Warrior, the more I realised how much of it I could translate to a Native American design.

I started looking through images of Native Indian warriors, and realised that it's not really been explored that much with in the games industry, in fact when I tried to find any of them more than 50% were just stand alone characters from fighting games. That's when I decided on taking the challenge to produce a Native American character suitable for a video game (That's not part of the Assassins Creed franchise -_-).

Continue?!

So as the title suggests; this is the last one, and there are no more retries. I've been less than enthusiastic about work in the final year (until recently when I picked up the wacom tablet and started painting for fun), so I think it's about time I pulled this show together and produce a piece of work worthy of my 3 year stay on this educational journey. And if anyone has read one of these before (Most likely just myself), you're probably thinking 'Heard it before', and to be honest I'm a little tired of writing it without following it up.

Over the course of the 3 years I've always had one greatest downfall, and that is; Myself. I've always been my own worst enemy. I'm aware that to be successful at anything you must apply yourself and repeat the process over and over like the saying 'Practice Makes Perfect' advises, but I've always spent my life admiring the perfect and refusing to believe I could ever produce anything as good as the things I admired. Phrases like "I can't do that" or "I'd never be able to create something that good" have always been commonly spoken when I've taken on an art project, and 3 years later I think I've finally learned that the reason I'm not able to produce the best looking art, or the best looking model, is not for a lack of ability, but more a lack of effort, and I think it's about time that changed. So without further adieu, lets get started!


Now I'd usually give a first impression for the brief but as I'm setting it... My first impression is "0MFG BEST BRIEF EVAAAHHH!!!", so now we've got that out of the way I will break it down.
My project is going to be that of a character design. In the next 6/8 weeks I would like to have produced a solid work process for a single character fitting a specific criteria, art of the character, and last but not least, the big finale model.

So here is my personal criteria:

• Design log of character creation process (This will predominantly be in the form of blogging my progress, so any work I do will be uploaded to this exact blog)
• Drawings of character
• High-res model character created in Zbrush
• Game-res copy of character (Or bust)
• Bonus Round: High detailed painting of character in environment (This may seem like a walk in the park for you every day artists but I don't want to feel like I'm biting off more than I can chew).

Pretty much the basics of any character design brief we have ever had/ may potentially ever receive.