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Final Evaluation

This project I originally wanted to focus on improving character concept skills and character modelling, but due to burn out and poor time management I chose to focus my concept skills. With drawing, I took into account how long I might take to produce multiple sketches or possible choices along with exploring them fully. Ethics, I thought of my character's game PEGI rating and whether it’d be an Indie or AAA feature. Cultural considerations, I researched gothic fashion’s history to get ideas for my character's appearance. Sustainability, I saved the amount of paper used by drawing mainly on my ipad.

I chose a Gothic-Victorian theme as I’m really into Souls-like games, their dark themes and wanted to explore something I hadn’t fully done before; pushing myself further with character creation, learning new techniques that intimidated me. I’ve learnt how impactful the slightest detail or change can be to designs and how much thought goes into them. My original intentions changed overall as I did hope to model my character, but some problems slowed production time. So I decided to focus on artwork, getting it as best as possible. My line of investigation was character design, art styles and shape language.

Primary observations, experiments, initial material developments and technical engagement supported the process to my final outcome. Investigations helped me with knowing my theme along with pushing to learn those new techniques to improve my work, making my ideas justified through research and exploration. Other people’s processes, work and methods are what gave me inspiration and got through the tough part of creation. I researched, watched people’s method for character creation and anatomy; allowing me to ignore my perfectionism and enjoy the process of getting the product to something I was happy with. These all helped me improve my art skills.

Processes and skills I explored, adapted and developed were drawing techniques, anatomy studies, colour schemes and character creation. These were all appropriate to the development of my project as these helped structure my process and outcome. The skills I've been most interested in were character creation, as so much goes into it like researching specific characters in media and what makes them unique as a character. I would say I’ve been very effective in attempting to learn and master these techniques. I've gained so much knowledge every step of the way, through many mistakes and interruptions in addition to research.

Significant aspects that required resolving during my project to progress, were trying to think of outfit ideas along with initial character concepts before choosing a final option. I think I adapted relatively well to unforeseen problems that appeared. One main factor that influenced my ability to solve problems was experiencing art-block from burnout, as I didn’t want to get back into my creative process as much; I overcame it by slowly pushing myself to get back into the swing and get to a point where I did enjoy my work again as I was determined to see this project through.

I selected my chosen method of procreate to produce my final outcome as it costs nothing for me to use it, I was very familiar with the application I was using, along with procreate becoming an increasingly popular application for digital art; digital art is also one of the main ways industry work is showcased nowadays. These outcomes relate to my audience as it was created to be familiar to souls-like enjoyers along with fitting that world and environment, this also appeals to my demographic. The character and story was designed with Bloodborne heavily inspiring a lot of the elements.

I looked at many ways I could represent it, for example how artists present their work on art stations portfolios. In the end though I decided to go with all my work on character sheets displayed together, along with a slideshow going through it all next to it. This would be appropriate to my professional practice as it is industry standard to have your work included in your portfolio or laid out nicely during showcasing so that it can all be seen. I’d say I’ve been fairly effective in communicating my ideas through my blog work, which justifies my reasonings.

Aim and objectives I was interested in developing this project initially were character concept, modelling and exploring Zbrush. Overall, I’ve been effective in reflecting on development and realizing when I misjudged my time management. Then creating more achievable targets for myself, getting it as good as possible. I wanted to make sure I gave updates and targets often, but admittedly I did slip up. I think I’ve been fairly good with receiving feedback on my work and making sure it fits my theme along with thinking about the considerations. This all helped with getting new ideas and exploring more options.

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Displaying my work

In order for my work to look professional and showcase everything I've done nicely and properly, I'll need to have a look at other professional artists work layouts in order to get an idea as to what industry level work should be presented.

I had a look at this artist to find out they do a lot of concept art for games like Overwatch 2 and League of Legends. They're portfolio shows how they present each of their artwork in a very nice and clean manner, by showing the front and the back of the character with/without jacket on one sheet and then showing them in an action pose the following sheet. This is so viewers understand how that character would look like in a more dynamic pose.

Another concept artist I looked at displays his character sheets a bit different but overall has the same effect. Their character is displayed fully along with a naked/muscle anatomy version with some expressions on the side, this is all on the first sheet the other ones show variants of the outfit and character; very cool. On the other character sheets it features him in some silly and action poses along with showcasing all of his inventory too. This helps viewers get a preview into how this character could be and what they might be featured in.

Just based off looking at these two concept artist, I get a very good idea on how I should be presenting my work. So what I'll do is present my final character sheet all together and then separate the headshots onto there own along with all my concept drawings in the beginning, to which I'll also put them on a slideshow that goes through them all automatically and finally post them on my ArtStation portfolio.

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Final Touches

All that's left is for me to have a look at how other artist present their character sheets along with presenting my own and submitting.

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Final character sheet

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Weapons

This is just some possible weapons I thought would suit this character.

With the stature and clothing of my character in mind, I decided she'd work best with more lighter close range melee weapons as I feel she'd be able to do more damage with it since she'd utilize her slight power boost from being part beast during fights when hunting.

This is the finished character sheet of her possible weapon concepts along with a quick little pose that I thought suited her as a character since it shows a hint of sass with that hip tilt along with the way she's holding the weapon.

I drew these just to get a better feel what I'd see her use in combat and how I could make them math or symbolise her character and story. I'm actually very satisfied with the result of the weapons as drawing objects aren't my strong suit so I'm glad I challenged myself with it, as they look very cool.

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Monster Silhouettes

This is a mood board of all the possible forms I could do for the beasts that roam this world. Rather than doing full detail concepts I'm doing silhouettes that way I can efficiently show some concepts on what they may potentially look like without spending too much time trying to get a specific look down. This will overall save time for things that require a bit more attention

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Final Feedback Session

Question 1

Question 2

Question 3

Question 4

Question 5

Question 6

Question 7

Based on all this feedback I'd say my final design was a success and does fit my theme as I hoped it would've. Some final minor adjustments to make but nothing major, overall I'd say I just need to present my final piece of work now.

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Character headshot + Monster form headshot (redesigned)

I decided to go further in depth with my monster headshot and give it more dimension. So I created some light in order to emphasise the teeth-baring jaws along with adding some drool to exaggerate the mouth and make it seem like this wasn't the same character, almost like her beast-form changes her slightly.

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Changing character outfit design and creating adaptations

This was a timelapse of redrawing my character outfit and adding more variation between two of the designs, along with adding a bit more colour to give it that gothic-Victorian touch I'm going for.

All-in-all I'm very please with this design as I learned from my feedback and used it to build on my character and work on her, making sure she had personality in her style and her appearance itself told a story to the viewer.

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First Feedback Session

Question 1

Question 2

Question 3

Question 4

Question 5

Question 6

Question 7

Question 8

Based off the responses overall from this first feedback session I'd say option 1 without hood was preferred as it made her stand out more, giving that recognition you want for a character design. Silver hair was also preferred as it showed that hint of beast to her even when in human form. I'm very pleased with the comments and I feel like they'll be very helpful going forward with the production of my character.

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Full character sheet outcome of first concept

This is the first rough character sheet with like a rough sketch of what could be the outfit? along with her look all together. I went for some frills on the blouse as as I wanted to create an elegant and flowy look to her outfit whilst it still fitting the them, this is also why I add a trail on it too as I want to add that flow of elegance knowing that she can still have more 'feminine' clothing whilst still being able to hunt and carry out her job. Pretty but practical.

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Adaptations of character headshots + Monster form headshot

At first I wasn't 100% sure about doing a monster variation headshot especially from the side as I'm not typically good at side profiles, but I chose to ignore that and learned. I got a image that gave me a good anatomy structure with the skeleton, rather than picking the first one I found as it didn't provide me with much to learn. I carefully sketched out my base sketch and made sure I felt no pressure for it to look perfect and actually it came out way better than I anticipated.

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Character's monster form

In order to get some ideas on how I could flesh out my character's monster form more so I made a mood board on things that I could take inspiration from or interested me with their creature-like features.

Overall I'd say doing this mood board was very useful to me, as I learnt a lot about how the anatomy can look and change when drawing a beast-like character.

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Final character pose + Development of full body sketches

I chose this pose as it was one I had looked at the other day when focusing on some anatomy work and felt like it really carried some sass, class and confidence in the stance with the hip raise and foot in front of the other.

I'm overall happy with the outcome of this pose as I sometimes struggle with doing full body work, but I'm very proud of myself with this one along with ignoring my perfectionism and trusting the process I had going.

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Experimentation with body posing concepts

These art just two other concepts with posing I wanted to try out and see how I could draw certain parts of clothing moving with the character, like an trail on her outfit along with the ruffles on her blouse. I then just wanted to experiment with overall other ways to show part of my characters beast form.

Overall very happy with this character study as I actually made myself explore more concepts of the character and see her in different ways, which was very fun and interesting to explore as the colour palette really can change the vibe of a character.

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Dynamic Poses

These are just some ideas I'd found on Pinterest for possible poses for my character. I imagine her to have a bit of sass and elegance when she moves or even just in her body language overall, along with moving swiftly the being nimble since she's part beast but also on the smaller side with her stature.

By doing this, it helped me create a better image in my head for how I see my character acting and moving along with just her personality all together.

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Character original headshots

This was my favourite headshot out of the 3 I made, so I decided to explore it more and see what that character may look like with a more defined face, different eye colour and even hair variation.

During the drawing process I began to get frustrated with trying to draw from the reference so I went away and did a quick study on the loomis method.

Afterwards I was pretty happy with my overall outcome on the headshot and very happy I decided to push myself to go re-learn an art technique as it helped me create a concept I was even more happy with.