3D Toolkit: Character Creation (2D Toolkit Character Design principles)

Alien Warrior Priest design process:

The brief illustrates a multitude of potential characters to design and model. Of these I chose to model the "Alien Warrior Priest".  Each of the briefs also have a description that illustrates a potential avenue for design that the character could lean into. The brief for the Alien Warrior Priest is as follows:

This gives several prompts that I used when creating my character. Chiefly I leaned into teh "Elongated head" of the design, and gave each a staff appropriate to is extraterrestrial and religious origin.

Initial thumbnails were largely based around animalistic forms, with some leaning into avian/lamprey aspects. This was mainly found in the head of the design, which was the aspect that I wanted to seem most alien of the character. I also experimented with a more sciene fantasy approach to the design, with antennae. To show the alien aspects of the character, I also experimented with technology embedded in the design. I liked the idea of the alien having a rebreather of some variety, alluding to the fact that they may be adversely adapted to the atmosphere of earth and require such technology to survive. I also experimented with how I may show the orthographics of this character, drawing out two of the designs in a front/side view. 

Of the initial designs I produced, I found that the lamprey-like being with the slender tail was that which I found most effective. I then went about developing the design. In this, I realised that the long tail may appear to be impractical in the design process, leaning into an aquatic suggestion that may appear to be more akin to the "Sea King" brief than the alien warrior priest. As such, I went about designing robotic legs that the character may use in walking. I then went back to the thumbnailing stage to integrate these robotic legs into the silhouette of the character. I then had the idea of extending the head of the design back further, which gave the character an overall silhouette almost alike that of a "Gray" alien. Though perhaps generic, I am fond of this alien design and removed the slender tail to lean further into it, basing my final design off this descision.

For my orthographic images, I chose to seperate the different aspects of the character into numerous parts that could each be individually modelled. These were the body, the legs and the staff. The distinction between the body and legs is sharp in this regard, as both could use different modelling methods in their creation. The body, organic, I could model solely in Zbrush, and I feel that such a process would be preferable for the organic masses and smooth curves of the body and its muscles, which are largely analagous to human anatomy in form. The legs, however, are entirely robotic and metallic, and I feel that this would be better modelled in a hard-surface format. Though I believe this could be done in Zbrush using the Zmodeler functionality, I may create the base mesh for the legs in another 3D software that specialises in hard-surface modelling. I could then import these into Zbrush and alter them with the Zmodeler or sculpt atop them to add finer details; work on the legs will still be done in Zbrush, but they will be modelled elsewhere to expedite the initial creation process. Though the body and the legs are, in this sense, seperate components, I drew where the legs would sit in relation to the body in terms of positioning and scale.