Final Piece

Part of the assignment was also to do a final piece showing your character, unfurtunatelly I mismanaged my time on the model sheet as pointed out in the other post and didnt have much time to finalize the piece.

Although i hope I still managed to convey the character across.

Final ModelSheet

Finally finished the model sheet!!!

Although I've learnt a lot of things not to do that i did during the process of making it.

First of all, decide on a design before doing the model sheet, which may sound obvious but my past self didn't think so.

Also, it's all about precision and not how good it looks, anyway I laid it out so you could see the different clothing layer.

2DuPDATE

Quick update on the progress of the sloth shaman. The above is a WIP of the model sheet and, although unfinished, you can clearly feel the mood of the setting from which the character come from.

As much as I'm happy with the steady and general progress this project has, I still have to analyse all the parts of it, especially the ones that aren't working.

For example, already included in the list of things that are going to change are:

- the lines in general need a major touch-up, between thinning out and darkening they will hopefully help bring the character better together.

- the clothing, although has been carefully designed still has some movement and logistical flaws, such as how the drum belt is going to stay up, for which I will make a belt to help keep it and the "skirt" up, and how the wrapping around the top part of his body going to work, probably resulting in some loosening up.

- in addition, I'm still undecided on the whole sloth arm transformation he's got going on his right arm. The two options I'm going to explore are either one arm full sloth and other covered in two wood shields (like the shoulder one he has on his left shoulder), the second option is keeping the glove look that he has at the moment but have it on both arms and have both arms completely human, still keeping them slightly longer than usual.

- the last point, which was in fact pointed out to me was the size of the hands, which might need a size adjustment. Making the slightly longer but still thin will help with the feeling of skeletal body.

Progress?

On this post I'm going to upload a few sketches and design that I made during the creation of the Sloth Shaman:

All these are sketches from early stages of pre-production, as such non of the will show in the final piece as whole but still parts of each of them is still present in the final version.

Especially the clothes, as can be seen in the last image, have been given a lot of thought (if not all the though) gathering inspiration and designs from other shaman images or photos.

The first image still remains the closest rendition to the final character, with drums hanging around his skirt/trouser thing which he uses to summon his sloths in battle.

A start...

After being undecided between the Jack Of All Trades and the 2D assessment, the latter prevailed.

Although the basic idea would be the same, the JOAT assignment would have focused more on the game rather than the development of the character itself, which is what i was interested.

The idea for this character was born in Trafalgar Square, when i saw a homeless person that obviously liked teddy bears. The duality of the two elements stirred a weird mixture of feelings inside me and will be the focus of this assignment.

The above is a sort of One-Mood-Sheet which, although it doesn't show a clear idea on how the character will look, hopefully sets the feel for how he is going to look.

As I was brainstorming different ideas, the one that became prevalent in my head was an African shaman-inspired Teddymancer (the bigger one in the image).

the nail of the thumb

First thing first,we have a 2D assessment / Jack of all trades.

And for either of them i thought i would have to develop a character(s) so i di a couple of thumbnails to get the creative juices flowing.

Was thinking of going with some sort of summoner type guys,

we'll see how it develops.

Influences&Co

Where am I from?



The image above answers more or less that question.

I say more or less because of the nature of my influences and my complicated relationship with art:

Starting from the fact that I grew up focusing on science and therefore missed out on a massive amount of influential inputs during my school years, during which any form of art was followed in my own time.

The biggest influence overall were obviously the wide arrange of games that I've experienced during the years but Hayao Miyazaki and his Studio Ghibli was probably one of the main influence regarding visual inspiration, with all of the amazingly detailed stories that are portrayed in his films.

Another major non-game-related influence should be attributed to Magic: the Gathering, by far the greatest trading card game and also staple of the genre, holding the record for widest played.
Not only it has a massive universe of it's own, documented through books and regular on-line updates, but it also contains some of the most beautifully crafted artworks.
Anastasia Ovchinnikova is part of the massive group of artist that have worked on the Magic artworks.


Artwork for the card Prophet Of Kruphix

Some of the most prolific artists like Kev Walker, John Avon, Pete Venters and Christopher Moeller even have their own personal fan bases.

Aside from that the street hip hop culture also had a big influence starring artist such as Banksy, Shepard Fairy, Mr. Brainwash and others. There are many sources of information regarding the birth of street art but probably the most interesting as far as the story behind the recordings and the way the are edited together is Exit Through The Gift Shop.