3D Character Creation Series: Part 1, Character Concept.
Work In Progress / 13 November 2021
3D Prop Creation Making
Final Product
For my journey to understanding character sculpting, I'll be using my "Final Project" as a canvas of my accumulated knowledge that I've undergo in my modeling course.
For starter, I should determine of what kind of characteristic and story in which the character that I will make would be. This process taken me 1 week in making.
My starting point is to think in terms of the target audience of the said character would be catered for, this could change the way you want to build your character drastically. If its for children movies/games, I should put myself through the lenses of the children on what kind of character that they would be attached with, same goes if I want to build an adult themed character.
For my project I decided to take the route of producing a character that carters for children (5-12 years old). This means that my character should be something that perceived as non-threatening, friendly and approachable. something that is more ethereal opposed by realistic.
The setting of where the character would be in is in bed-time story fairy-tale.
The character is a fairy in which her job is to wake the children up in the morning so that they wont be late on their morning schedule. She will go door to door, spreading the feeling of serenity to the kids she visits so that they would have a good mood after they've being woken up from their dreams. Instead of having a bubbly character in which forces the children to woke up abruptly, the character would be pretty soft and soothing. She will also represent good things about morning itself by her attrite. She should look relatable to the children, thus, having her looking like a child would be viable option.
I've collected a mini mood-board in which represents the theme that I've determined.
From this mood-board amalgamation, I've created a character:
Her name is Princess Breakfast.
I'm using the color palate that associates with the morning sky.
Her hat represents "Breakfast", an enjoyable morning activity which one would have few minutes after waking up.
Princess Nightgown and soft comfortable socks, the attrite that ones would have when waking up.
Steam hair, associated with the steam that raises up from the hot coffee/tea from the breakfast.
Now, we blacken out the character to get the sense of the character first impression.
From the silhouette, we could see the lack of harsh edges in the character and overall emphasis of roundness and cutesiness. Instead of using wings to fly like a normal fairy would, breakfast used her cloud-like hair to float. Thus, her hair replace on the significance of wing in the silhouette. The cup hat and the cloud shapes could bring the looker the sense of relief because both of the objects are associated with it.
Textures:
I then proceed to draw 360 version of the character to ease my character sculpting later on ZBrush.
Rough Sketch, on body blocking of the character
Lastly, I've created details of the face. Upon consultation with one of my mentor, it is advisable for me to change the hair for sculpting purpose, so that it would be easier to make and retopo later:
The changes do not take away from the main concept, it is still look like a fluffy clouds but different approach.
