Final Major Project Update – 21/05/20 – Main Character master dump

 

It’s been a long time since my last post, the world has been strange, and everything has become more difficult. I have been working from my university house now for almost 2 months and it has been anything but relaxing and easy going. Doing work in the same spot you also relax, play, eat, and sleep in is not the most effective way to get things done and it has been a real struggle, hence me momentarily neglecting my blogging duties.

But, here is a compiled post of all the work I haven’t posted of my main character design development, as I realised a little bit ago that I had actually forgotten to post about her after I had done some work on her.

So, after I finished the general block-out for her outfit, I actually came back to the design of her face after taking feedback from my tutors. I needed to give her face and hair a bit of wear and tear, and so I sketched a whole new face for her and experimented with scars and dirt etc.

I chose the far right face, and the added detail of greyish hairs and metal accessories in her hair to keep it tied up.

Next I sketched her in more detail in her outfit, and tried a couple slightly varied colour schemes.

From this, and feedback, I gathered that she needed more detail and a colourway that wasn’t so murky, so it wouldn’t blend in with the “enemies” which have a muted colour scheme.

I also had to concentrate more on the design of her back, because this is the area that players will be seeing most of the time. After sketching a design for the back, I decided to add a knife, because what kind of wilderness-exploring creature-hunting person would she be without a simple hunting knife.

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After my formative feedback (which I found very helpful), I came back to my main character to work on the colours and details. Inspired by Horizon Zero Dawn concept art, I drew the character with her layers of clothing and detail being added in steps so I could compare easily and see how everything would fit together and add to the previous silhouette. I found using small silhouettes helpful. This is why I added details like the claws on her leather shoulder guard, and the feathers on her sleeve.

I then used photos of fabrics to create a more tactile looking texture, which I then adjusted into a desired colour. I realised it was still looking mute, so I made a copy and turned up the saturation. I also adjusted the brightness and contrast of certain garments, after using a colour layer to view what the values were like in black and white.

I did the very same process for the back of the character. I’m quite pleased with the outcome, as I think it is a good combination of practicality and visual interest. 

Of course there’s a lot more I could do and improve and continue upon, but I needed to hop to the next task. I decided early in my project as well that I would not be doing a male version as I felt in no longer made sense, and would eat up time I could spend on developing things like my creatures and native more.

Thanks for reading!