Some time ago I had started working on a fantasy character design. I was learning ZBrush during that time and wasn’t as familiar with the tools as I am now. I decided to revisit that design and give it a complete overhaul, incorporating some other ideas that I’ve had into it. It’s still a work in progress, but here’s where I’m at.
The original design was meant to be somewhere between heroic and antagonistic. The character was meant to be a wanderer, someone that picks up scraps off of fallen soldiers on battlefields, equipping them for his own purposes. He wears the insignia of different kingdoms because he doesn’t have one to call his own. He’s an outcast, a loner, but a completely competent fighter. He’s not evil, but he’s rather neutral, and mostly only looking out for himself. Here’s the original design and prototype sculpts:
Early images as I blocked out some ideas.
This was closer to what I wanted at the time, but it’s way too complicated. There are too many details creating visual noise and complexity that pull the eye all around. I want to simplify.
This is closer, but certainly has elements that are illogical. I’ll address those in a newer version.
Looking back, there are a number of things with this design that are crude and amateurish, but those are being addressed in the new version. Things that I like here, however, are the ideas of mixed materials, mainly a variation in cloth types, such as linen, leather, and even metal bits for armor scraps. This design appears to be fashioned or tailored to this character though, and I want to communicate more of a make-shift armor idea in the new version. This old character was a great first pass at what I was trying to do, but I wanted to take it further.
Here’s an early draw-over of some things that I wanted to change:
The first thing that should jump out is the added use of more material variety, which I think will help communicate his ‘found object’ lifestyle. In addition to this, way more patch-work, broken stitching, and visible seams throughout all of the leather bits. These boots, pants, and breastplates weren’t made for him and had to be customized heavily to be workable. I didn’t decide until much later that I wanted to remove the mask. For the final turntable of this character, I really wanted to be sure to have a visible expression on the character’s face, rather than a shroud of mystery that this mask is creating. Here’s an early pass at the initial setup:
Much of the blocking on this was done in Maya, then imported into ZBrush for detailing and refitting. The large pieces of cloth were simulated in Marvelous Designer but are temporary for now until I get this character into the final pose. I’d like to add some wind and environmental elements to the cloak in the final turntable. This pass has other issues, such as the boots, as my friends over on Polycount critiqued. I’m looking to address those as well as continue on with the polish and detailing of the individual pieces at this point. Here’s a second pass:
Okay, so this version has a mask again. I obviously wasn’t sure what I was going to do with that area yet, but I’ve ultimately decided to scrap it and spend more time polishing the face and expression of the character. There is some temporary poly-painting happening here as well to help me visualize what a finished product might look like. This also helped to get other eyes on it for more critique as I’ve been rather close to the project for a while now.
Ok, here’s the latest!
These views are decimated meshes that have been exported into Maya for some test rendering. I’ve taken a pass at some high frequency detailing that will end up being baked into maps. I’ve been really inspired by some of the work of the folks at Naughty Dog and what they’ve done with The Last of Us, and have been taking tips from that team based on what they’ve shared on ZBrushCentral and other forums. I’m starting to retopologize this character now, using ZRemesher with guides for what I can, and Topogun for the rest. ZRemesher has been providing relatively good results but it will undoubtedly require some retouching for certain bits. Here are some examples of the output that I’ve been able to achieve so far:
So what are the next steps? Well, I need to keep pushing forward with the retopology of the other armor pieces, then take a pass at reducing the pieces that came from ZRemesher, since they’re a bit too high. I’ll be targeting a polygon count of somewhere between 30,000-40,000 polygons in the end, so we’ll see where I end up. More to come soon!
Thanks for checking it out!