Concepting
The entire project started with me just thinking of existing duos, and then making a pinterest board out of it. While I was doing this I was also using my notebook to think of ideas of my own duo; this was a mistake but I didn't realize it at the time. By picking a theme and style this slowly began to pigeon-hole my thought process which eventually led me to a potentially stale design.
I had eventually made a choice on the theme and began to design the first character, which was my second mistake. I should have designed both characters together. I struggled with the initial shape generation of this character which is why I jumped straight into sketching heads.
With one character done, I began to think about the second character. I knew I wanted this character to be a larger, protector of the child, yet not combat focused. I was confused on how to go about generating ideas for this character, so I tried what worked with the turret, a bash kit. I grabbed shapes that I liked from the moodboard to get my bash kit going.
It was at this point that I had to present my concepts. I had only one character complete with a small selection of silhouettes for the other character. The end result of the presentation was that the silhouettes are far more interesting than the final character, and while I liked the child soldier, was the idea really pushing myself out of my comfort zone? I decided to scrap the child and restart with the silhouettes.
Post-Presentation #1
I pulled more shapes from the moodboard and just began piecing them together to make interesting shapes. I didn't think about the duo or the theme at this point, I just wanted interesting silhouettes and eventually I had a good selection to chose from; then I paired them up into interesting duos to try and get some good dichotomy going. The silhouette I picked had elements that reminded me of feudal Japan, with a headdress and lanterns so I began researching the theme on pinterest while trying to push the idea within the silhouette.
I picked the duo I liked the most, which was an older, larger guardian figure and a younger girl, who clearly travel together. With a couple picked I pushed forward with the design process until I had orthographics.
Modelling
As we only had to model one character I chose the big guy as he seemed a lot more interesting with his huge backpack. I decided to go for a 8,000 tri-limit, which was larger than we're used to but not completely insane. It felt like a comfortable size. I modeled it with Z-Brush in mind, learning from my mistakes on the turret but this also tripped me up, as I found out later, I didn't focus on the overall model enough, my mind was to focused on the sculpting.
Base model complete I took it into Z-Brush and began sculpting. This time I actually had fun with Z-Brush, as I wasn't learning it for the first time. There's still plenty to learn but I got stuff done! I then baked it all out, added the extra arm and the other lanterns and then dropped it into UE4. I still needed to the pose character but I was getting ready to begin texturing.
I had to do another presentation for critique at this stage, and unfortunately things didn't quite go to plan, which is something you don't want to happen with only a week left. The overall critique was that my model didn't capture the likeness of my concept. While my concept Big Guy had a caring look, the model looked quite creepy and his overall igloo shape was lost. I agreed mostly but I just wish I could have been told earlier.
Post-Presentation #2
I decided to remake the model low-poly. I am still unsure if this was a good idea but I did manage to model and texture both characters and hopefully their quality is still to standard. Both characters come to only 2,600 tris which is a significant drop from 8,000 for one model. It was a challenge to try and capture the characters in a low-poly limit.
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| About 1,300 each |
As I was now very short on time I decided to skip Z-Brush, but i did try and go for a painterly texture sheet which was a bit different than I am used to. When I started the guy I had to find my feet for the style but I think by the time I had reached the girl I had found my footing. I do however need a lot more practice with skin as I think my faces have come off a little flat, and certain other elements such as the hair could also use some more practice.
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| The metalness, roughness and AO are all in 1 RBG texture sheet |
Final Outcome
I am happy with the final characters but I am always wondering if the higher poly version would have been better. Due to the characters low-poly count I made the textures quite small too, which means that these characters probably wouldn't be viewed up close. I had also made some mistakes with the unwrapping, I should have had the facial features take up a lot more space over other parts of the meshes, like the legs or bags for example, then these characters might have been usable up close.
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