Fireplace asset project

My final 3D module project of this term is a PBR workflow based project to make a fireplace hero asset for a game. I was really looking forward to this brief as it was our introduction to using ZBrush and Substance Painter to sculpt high poly assets, then bake and texture them in Substance Painter. I have been very keen to learn how to use ZBrush, so I wanted to challenge myself into making interesting and unique assets to add to my fireplace scene. As I really like quite dark and gothic games, such as Dark Souls, I decided that I wanted to make a fireplace for a gothic themed living room, combining interesting and unique designs together to make an asset which reflected my own interests. I also felt that, with this theme, there could be lots of unique items and elements that I could incorporate into my design. It will be a fun and challenging brief which will introduce me to a different kind of workflow with which I am not yet familiar. I am looking forward to seeing what I can create and how I can produce a creative asset which adheres well to the brief guidelines.

To start off, I decided to make a reference board with some images, to start coming up with an appropriate and creative concept of what I want my fireplace to look like. I found lots of images which included a very red colour palette and was lit by candles. Even though the brief was for a fireplace, I want to make some more of the elements of the room around it to add a little bit of narrative to my project and to also push me into making some things that I haven't tried modelling before. I really like the idea of using a range of different fabrics and materials to create a comfy and warm, yet hellish space, where some kind of vampire lord would live. I really want to be able to make a lot of different textures when I come to use Substance Painter as I am very keen to try it out, so when looking for refences and drawing my concept I have tried to incorporate this. 

After I had collected some relevant images, I did this quick concept sketch of what I wanted my fireplace to look like. I tried to use lots of interesting and thematic shapes such as the bat wings and the spikes on the mirror to create an interesting silhouette to the asset and make it a memorable part of the game environment. I drew in some statues (this will be a challenge for me to sculpt using ZBrush) and also several mirrors, paintings, rugs and a pouffe. I am also thinking about modelling an armchair as I feel like this would look good within the first block out. I would like to have a go at making a leather texture in Substance when I move onto texturing. Coming up with this concept will help me to start making my first block out in Max as I have a general idea about what kind of things I would like to add and might work together. I would have liked to have spent a bit longer on this iterative process; however, I was conscious of the amount of time it would take me to model. I am so far very enthusiastic about learning this new workflow and keen to make my ideas in 3D. 

This is what my block out looks like so far. I referred back to my board and my concept sketch to make this and decided to model in the armchair. This was challenging, as I had to keep it quite low poly due to the tri limit and considering any smaller assets I might like to add such as books or candles. I will probably move some things around and add some additional assets just to add more interest and narrative for a player. I wanted to create lots of points of interest through out this project. I am making sure to optimise my model as much as possible as a piece of feedback I received from my shopfront was that not all faces had been deleted where they weren't needed to optimise the model. This time I am trying to make my model and workflow as efficient and game ready as possible to aim for a clean and logical finish and process. At this point, I will continue adding smaller assets into my model and will then begin adding in things that will be sculpted using ZBrush to make a high poly version. 

Today was my first attempt at using ZBrush and I found it really difficult at first as the mechanics and way of thinking are quite different to that of 3DS Max. However, so far I am really enjoying it. I had a go at experimenting with lots of different brushes such as mallet fast and trim adaptive to carve out some basic slabs which I will use as the high poly version of the steps up to my fireplace. I used a combination of these brushes, along with orb cracks and some reference images of the kind of rocks I wanted to sculpt, to inform my modelling. The initial sculpt of these slabs I did on Max and then quadded so that I could use the subdivide tool in ZBrush to up the tri count and add further details into the model. I added edge wear and other changes in surface to imitate the texture of stone. I didn't want to make them too noisy with texture so I was conscious not to sculpt too much into them. I wanted to add a nice texture in Substance Painter. Once I had modelled each of the 3 slabs and I was happy with them, I decimated them to a lower tri count and then imported them back into Max.

The next high poly asset which I sculpted in ZBrush was this statue, which I will be sculpting as part of my fireplace design to hold 2 candles. The candles will be stood in its face and will light up the area in the hood, creating a spooky, yet atmospheric, effect. I used images of stone and a picture of this grim reaper statue that I found online. This took me a while to make and instead of using subdivide I used dynamesh as I was constantly changing the forms quite a lot. I made a basic shape of the statue in Max and then brought it into ZBrush as I thought this might be quicker than modelling from scratch in ZBrush as I already had some of the very basic forms down. I will have to re top this to make a low poly version in Max before I bake as I need some of the structures to be picked up so that it bakes nicely. I was quite happy with this sculp in ZBrush and am very keen to continue learning and refining my skills using the software. I plan to have these statues either side of the fireplace as can be seen in my initial concept sketch. I had a couple of issues with decimating this and had to find a nice point to decimate it at so that it would still retain as much of the detail as possible and so that I could import it properly into Max. I still have a lot to learn when using ZBrush but I hope that through this project I will be able to develop my skills further. 

Here is another asset which I sculpted in ZBrush. There will be 2 of these in my living room. I added some engravings onto the front of the frames using different gothic motifs which I had some references for from other medieval gothic assets. I wanted the frame to be very ornate and detailed so as to add a sense of luxury and wealth to the room, therefore adding to the narrative and giving the player an insight into what kind of person would be living here. I used the tool clay tubes and the normal brush to build up clay and carve back into the sculpt. For this I brought my quadded low poly frame into ZBrush and subdivided rather than using dynamesh as I wasn't changing the silhouette of the actual frame.  

This frame, which I spent a long time on, will be the central piece in my room and will go on top of the fireplace. I plan to add a metal texture to this and it will have a plane in the middle of it with a mirror texture on. Some design features I decided to include were a bat to tie in with the other elements such as the stone bat wings and skulls to tie in with my gothic theme. Many of the carvings that I sculpted came from real gothic architecture which I had referenced from both photos I had taken myself and from online. I wanted my design to be quite fantasy like but have convincing elements of realism and authenticity. The frame took me quite a while as there were lots of small details. However, I used the symmetry tool in ZBrush so that both sides would be identical. I carried on using this workflow for other high poly assets in my scene such as the armchair, wood, stone wings, logs, wicker basket and candles. For each low poly, I made a low poly sculpt on ZBrush apart from a few such as the candle holders and rugs to which I added a lot of loops and chamfers to to make the high poly version. My main fireplace was sculpted in the same way as I had some with the frames as you can see on the image below. I again used the idea of bat carvings and skulls to tie all my assets nicely in together. I think I underestimated how long the high poly sculpting process would take as I added quite a lot of detail to each on of the sculpts. 

This is what most of my high poly assets look like together at this stage in the process. I will now need to re top anything that I changed the structure of in ZBrush such as the wings and the statues. 

This is what my re top of the statue is looking like. It has taken me quite a while to get a nice clean re top and I have really tried keeping to the constraints of the tri limit and optimise it as much as possible. As I've not baked anything before, I'm not sure how this stage will affect the bake of this but I'm hoping that I have added in enough geometry for it to bake all the details in well.  

Here is the process of me re topping the stone bat wing after I changed the shape of it quite a lot on ZBrush. I hope that the details will bake well in Substance. I have had to reduce the tris quite a lot to conform to the tri limit. 

I added in some stone slabs to make the floor. Originally, I was going to just bake them onto a flat plan; however, I really wanted the floor to look 3D and have front and sides to it. Therefore, I ended up changing it from a plan to a box with no back or underneath as I think the bake will be nicer and I think just having a plane will really make the model look too flat. 

During this process I learnt how to use layers within the hierarchy of the organisation of my objects, to make it easier to separate out my high poly and low poly assets. I was also planning out what assets I would be having on my UVs as I plan to use all 4 as texture sheet because my model will not be requiring any emissives. Therefore, having 4 unwrap sheets with 3 texture sheets will conform to my budget of 3 2048 sheets. Using layers really helped me separate out the groups of high poly and low poly assets as I needed to name them correctly in Max in order for the bake to work. I also placed the objects I was going to bake together directly on top of this and when I only needed to see the low poly I could just hide the high polys altogether. It took me a long time to organise my Max file and I should have taken more care at the start of the project to separate out things and to not have so many random unused assets lying around. I will be taking this knowledge through to future projects as this will help my workflow become more efficient. I think I did waste some time trying to sort everything out and this set me back a bit, not leaving me as much time for texturing. As you can also see from the image above, I changed the floor to be 3D and not just a plane and I will bake my stone slabs over this. 

This is the final low poly blockout of my fireplace asset ready to be taken in Substance Painter to be baked. As you can see the assets are split up into layers on the side, depending which UV sheet they are on and if they are low poly or high poly. I will be taking these into Substance Painter in UV groups which I have packed and organised in terms of material and how much of the texture sheet will need to be taken up. 

Here is an example of one of my texture sheets. This is my first UV and as some of the assets will be sharing the same texture I have moved these onto the corresponding places on the tiled UV plane. This will help to achieve a nice clean bake. I have also tried to pack this sheet as best as I can, utilising as much of the UV space as possible. The unwrap and packing stages took me quite a long time as I had a lot of assets which needed unwrapping and sorting out into the UV sets. After a lot of trial and error, I finally split up all my assets. To help with this process I wrote down which assets I was going to have in each group in a notebook, so that I could refer back to it if I needed. I wanted my workflow to be as efficient as possible and in each stage, I had to consider the new factors which would lead up to the PBR processes which I was learning through this brief. 

I brought each UV into substance and began to bake down all the high polys onto the low poly models and to texture them making my own sets of textures through masking and layering. This is how the bake looked for my armchair after a few adjustments to the settings. Becuase each part of the sofa was separate, the bake turned out really well and the only error I had was at the side of the chair where the decimated high poly mesh was very good. To fix this, I re-imported a better version of the high poly mesh for the side panel of the chair. The details picked up quite clearly on the buttons and I'm looking forward to making some textures for this asset as I spent a long time sculpting it. 

Another issue I ran into on Substance Painter was with the steps. As you can see, where the steps meet, there is a strange grey line. Due to the fact I ran out of tri budget, I didn't re top these stairs and instead had 2 separate cuboids for the top and bottom parts. Therefore, this made this strange effect. To combat this, I moved the steps slightly apart from each other and re-baked so that I wouldn't have this error. I later moved the stairs back together and was able to texture in a shadow instead. I also realised that some of my books had baked oddly due to the fact I had them resting on the floor. To fix this, I moved them so that they were floating in the air as the ambient occlusion was a bit strange and also the UV wasn't completely relaxed, therefore, there was some strange occlusion going on which I fixed. 

Using Substance Painter, I made my own smart materials using procedurals and masking out parts from scratch. For the paintings, I did some actual landscape gouache painting and a painting of the possible owner of the house on Photoshop, made them into alpha stamps and simply stamped them onto the planes. I found this pale stone quite challenging as I kept making it look too noisy which was taking away from the details on the edges. Therefore, I had to knock back some of the grunge which I had added. So far, I am really enjoying using Substance Painter as I am able to try out lots of different combinations and layers to create realistic textures.  I ensured that I was using a range of different materials in my piece as the brief required me to do so. For all the textures I made, I used references from my initial board and some new ones from online. Most of the assets I made to look a little bit aged and worn; however, I didn't want to overdo it too much because my high poly sculpts were already quite detailed. 

I was really looking forward to making leather and spent a long time making this chair. I used quite a lot of layers and grunges for this to build up a slightly cracked leather effect. I also used a paint layer to hand paint in some wear on the chair with a lighter shade of brown so that it looks like it has been used and worn down over the years. Next time, I would also model the buttons on my chair separately because then I could have vert painted them into separate material groups instead of having to carefully hand paint them one by one, which was not an efficient method. I tried to make the cushion on the chair a silky texture. This was challenging as I kept making it look too metallic and pristine. All the metal wear was hand painted on the fill layer instead of using masks. 

I used some of the alpha stamps in Substance to make these books. I also adjusted the height map on these so that they would look like they were actually embossed into the leather itself. I added some wear and ageing on them along with a texture for the pages. The pages took me a while to experiment with as nothing really looked realistic enough; however, I found a good grunge texture which I changed the setting of a little bit to add some height, depth and ageing. There are 3 variations of books. One with this Celtic type motif, one with a cross and one with an eye. In relation to a game, these could be picked up by a player in order to learn a new spell or as part of a quest. The books are blue, brown and purple to contrast a little bit with the heavy red theme. 

Due to my tri budget and having so many assets, I wasn't able to re top these assets so I was concerned about what the bake would look like. However, I am really pleased with the outcome. The design also didn't really require me to re top; however, it would have achieved a nicer bake. It took me a bit of time shifting around setting and baking some things slightly apart; however, I don't think it looks too low poly. I added a simplistic stone texture because my slabs already had a lot of detail on them I didn't want to overpower it. I added some lighter edge wear along with some grunge which I added height to in order to create some more cracks. 

I made my wallpaper and rug textures using some wallpapers that I found online and edited myself in Photoshop to make them look purely black and white. I added these to a fill layer as a grunge texture and added height and other layers to imitate either a worn fabric appearance or a wallpaper texture, having some of the design stick up slightly. The part that sticks up looks a bit more puffy and matte whereas the other part looks more shiny. This is common in ornate wallpapers such as this. 

I wanted to have a go at using Substance Designer to make the rug texture; however, because I was really short on time, I wasn't able to and did my best at making one in Painter. In summer, I really want to have a go at using Designer to make more realistic textures. 

 Wallpaper

Rug

Here is a close up of my candles. As you can see, they look quite low poly; however, the bake helped with the details on the side. I made the middle of the candles glossy to imitate melted and liquid wax. I also added some more orange parts to make it look like the wax was thinner and light was passing through these areas. Next time, I might consider adding a thickness map to make the candles look more realistic. 

When I first put everything into Unreal I was unhappy with how my textures were looking. The leather looked a bit too shiny and the mirrors didn't function as mirrors. Therefore, I had to find some ways to correct these issues. This is before I had properly lit it or made the fire. 

Non functioning mirrors - ahhhhh!!! They should have been reflecting pure black as the void was black; however, they were this strange murky white colour. 

After changing some settings in Substance and installing a plug-in I was able to make Substance imitate what my model would look like when it is in Unreal Engine so that I could adjust the textures and make them look how I wanted them to look in the game. I had to refer back to a colour chart showing what the actual base colour of certain surfaces would be. I realised that the reason why my mirrors were not functioning as mirrors in Unreal was because I had the base colour set as white when I needed to have it as a mid-toned grey colour. Referring back to these colour charts made a huge difference to the appearance of my assets in Unreal. Once I had sorted out the textures that didn't look accurate, I reimported everything in (each one as a 1024 sheet),  set up my folders for good organisation in Unreal and plugged everything into the correct node in the material set up. 

This is my material set up for the fire animation I added. I made the sprite sheet using a YouTube video. took frames and edited them in Photoshop. In Unreal, I used a flipbook node to animate them all together. I think if I was to do this next time, I would add in more frames. However, due to time constraints, I only did 4x4 frames. We were given an extra 1024 texture sheet to do this on. 

Example of my material node set up.

Finished and lit!

After setting everything up in Unreal and organising my project, I lit my project in a new all-black level as I wanted to bring out the light and atmosphere of the scene. I am really happy that I went back and corrected some of the strange looking finishes to the textures as they look a lot nicer in the engine now. I used a mixture of different lights to make the candles look like they are glowing. I also added a cooler toned light to the left side of the piece to act as a hypothetic moonlit window. I liked how the cooler tones light created a contrast to the very warm tones on the left hand sides. I tried to make the room as atmospheric and narrative as I could with the help of my lighting set up. I also focused on bringing out the textures themselves and creating a setup which lent itself well to my concept. 

I spent a lot of time working on this project and really loved working with a PBR workflow and learning how to use Substance and ZBrush. I got really into the theme as well as it is something that I personally like in a game. Even though I came across quite a lot of challenging points in this project, I was able to learn from my mistakes and to understand what I need to do next time in order to make my workflow more efficient, therefore leading to doing it in a shorter time frame. The most challenging part for me was trying to figure out how to fix certain errors with baking and being able to keep everything organised in Max because I ended up with so many things in only one Max file. Next time, I would think about maybe splitting the project into a few different documents to help me stay on top of everything and create efficiency and better organisation. I would also have liked to have added some flames for the candles; however, I did run out of time. As I enjoyed this project so much, I think in my free time I am going to add another wall to it and maybe build up the scene a little bit more as I have some further ideas for how I can add to this and really push myself with the new PBR techniques I have learnt this year.  Some things I think went well are the arm chair and the statues as I like how they contribute to the narrative of the set up and I am pleased with my sculpting on these assets in particular.

Overall I learnt so much doing this PBR hero asset project and cannot wait to apply my learnt knowledge to up and coming projects! 

Perspective project

 

My next digital project is all about perspective, specifically 1 point, 2 point and 3 point. Perspective is a crucial piece of knowledge that I must have in order to create good quality and convincing pieces of environment concept art and can also be applied to other areas such as character design. My aim throughout this process was to build up a solid understanding of how to tackle complicated perspective pieces. I want to be able to build on my current skills and be able to think in a more perspectively accurate way and to make use of grids to help me come up with interesting compositions. 

One Point perspective

To begin learning about how to construct an environment in perspective accurately, I first blocked out some Notan landscapes. With these Notans, I will be moving forward and creating a one point perspective set up environment. This part of the design workflow really helps with being able to come up with a visually appealing and good layout for an environmental concept and creates a solid iterative process that will allow for the best design outcome as possible. I found that drawing the Notan designs helped me to get down ideas for big shapes and silhouettes quickly, in order to choose one and start building up a strong concept. I focused on what kind of shapes were in each quarter of the rectangle and how the eye would be drawn through the piece itself. I tried not to think too much about the narrative at this part of the process and just get a good basis to build up in. Blocking out black and white shapes was challenging, as it was tempting to keep adding in lots of detail; however, this step was important, to get a good aesthetic composition before adding any details. The Notan method was something I had never tried as part of a conceptual workflow before; however, I think it is a vital part of creating a strong environment piece. I did 15 different ideas which I will then be taking forward and selecting a few to build up more tonal range and start adding some deeper narrative. I tried to stick with a running theme of stone arches throughout my Notans as this is an asset I knew I wanted to have as part of my one point perspective element. 

After picking out a selection of Notans of which I liked the distribution and composition best, I added some more value to them to create a more narrative and flowing concept. I made sure to keep in mind elements of a good design by considering how the eye would be lead through or around the scene. As this first part of the project is to build skills on one point perspective, I will need to consider picking one which will showcase my ability to use one point in my work. When adding tonal value, I considered the perspective of the element and how that would affect its tone. For example, anything close up to the viewer would appear dark and objects further away would get lighter. This creates a sense of depth in the piece and also allows for a good story telling element as the eye will naturally follow through the composition. In this part of the workflow, I thought about adding some smaller details such as wires, stone pathway detailing and a general sense of what kind of environment this is going to be. Once I had finished developing the ideas based on my Notans, I picked one of these ideas which I liked most and developed it with further details. 

For my final one point perspective piece, I chose to develop this one as I really liked the kind of atmosphere and place I had created using the previous Notan task. I liked how the eye looked through the stone archway in the centre and down a river with ornate looking houses either side. I can image that this environment could be an abandoned town or a ghostly outcast village in a mountainous area. I created a futuristic vibe by adding some rings and wiring along with a sign saying, 'Beware', which could contribute to the narrative of the piece and set the atmosphere more. In addition, I added some highlights and shadows to distinguish a clearer lighting source. Through the process of drawing my final piece, I used a one point perspective grid which I created using Photoshop so that all my assets would follow the correct lines and go to the correct vanishing points. I made a horizon line and established the vanishing point based on the composition I wanted to make. The vanishing point goes more or less through the centre of the piece. 

2 Point perspective

For this piece, I had to establish a 2 point perspective set up and render in a basic amount of detail to create a narrative concept. I feel that, given more time, I would spend longer planning this. There are elements of this concept which I think could be improved, and after some feedback, I changed my 2 vanishing points so that my building didn't look as compressed in the middle of the set up. I found that it looked a lot better to have the vanishing points quite far away from each other as this creates a wider and more fish-eye viewpoint to the concept. I made sure that I took each element to the correct vanishing point to create this 2 point perspective idea. I wanted to do an urban cityscape, so for my assets and details I added neon signs and banners which also help with the story telling element. My vanishing points are offset this time to create a more dynamic and interesting layout. I added some basic tonal values; however, I would have liked to further refine these to create a little bit more depth into it. This piece was good practise for being able to draw in 2 point perspective and to understand how to create the set up for it.   

3 Point perspective

For my main perspective brief, I had to create a 3 point perspective interior setup with a concept and theme of my choice and a clear lighting set up. Before starting the actual drawing, I collected a range of reference images from the kind of theme I was going to choose. I decided that, for my lighting set up, I was going to go for big gothic stained glass windows with moonlight shining through. I was also going to contrast this very cool light with some warmer tones so I collected images which had candles and red wallpaper and other warm toned assets. I liked the idea of having the contrasting light sources to add a sense of dynamic atmosphere to the piece. In my 3D module project I was modelling a gothic fireplace and I really wanted to link this project into that by creating a narrative for it. Therefore, I incorporated my design of the  bat winged fireplace into my asset sketches as I thought it would be a nice idea to add a wider story line and concept to it. I quite liked the idea of having some gothic living room elements such as a leather sofa, some books and potions along with a coffin to really push the gothic side of it. The images on my reference board will help me when I begin drawing out my compositional ideas. I also established a colour palette for this, using these images; I would use a range of gold tones and reds. 

To further develop a strong baseline for my concept I did some quick Notan panels of different compositions and added in some of the assets which I had researched in my reference board. I added a window to each one, as stated previously, to act as my moonlit light course, along with wooden doors and any other fitting ideas I had researched. This part of the process allowed me to quickly get down some iterations and to ensure that my process went smoothly and successfully. It also meant that I could express good compositional skills and think about how the eye would go through the scene to create an interesting and clear narrative for a game. I chose to move forward with the second idea as I liked the wide angle and amount of different assets that were added into it. These iterations were not drawn in accurate 3 point perspective; however, moving forward to sketching out my final piece, I will be using a 3 point perspective grid to get an accurate drawing. For 3 point perspective, I chose to have the viewpoint facing down over the top of the room so as to capture a lot of different angles and assets into the set up. I would like to have spent longer on this part of the process as, when creating my Notans for my one point perspective, I was able to really develop and pick a solid idea to take forward. Next time, I will consider my time management for the project so that I leave a good amount for time for my iterative workflows. 

On Photoshop, I made a 3 point grid and started sketching out my design for the interior using the previous iterative concepts I had sketched out. I made sure to accurately draw assets to the correct vanishing points at this stage. As I built up details, I realised that there were some slight errors I had made, so I rectified these before starting my rendering process. Using 3 point perspective was challenging as there were a lot of different things that I needed to think about in order to make an accurate attempt at it. I had to consider the 3 vanishing points and my horizon line throughout the process of sketching. It was a challenge to be able to think in this way as I was used to only using 1 and 2 point in the past. 

After establishing a basic sketch and making some adjustments to the angles, I started blocking out the basic lighting scenario for my scene as established through my iteration stage at the start of the project. I quickly blocked in some grey scale tones so that I could look at how it was going to be distributed through the room and how it would hit certain places more intensely. I also started to build up some flat colours using my reference images and colour palette, really focusing on the contrasting purples and reds. 

Once I had finished the rendering process, I wanted to make some adjustments to the colour of the piece, just to add a clearer overall atmosphere to the concept. I have also included a greyscale version of the piece so the different tonal values can be seen and how I had distributed elements of light and shade. I experimented with warmer and coolers of the piece; however, I decided to go for a middle ground as I found that the warmer version looked much too saturated and the cooler version made the palette look too murky and dark. 

Finally, using levels, I adjusted the lighting of the piece and also did some iterations to this to better support the narrative of the concept and to highlight areas of more intense light and dark. These steps were important in my workflow process in order to get the desired narrative aesthetic and really set a scene for a possible modeller to use, if this were to be made into an environment for a game.

This is my finished piece for the 3 point perspective task. In this project, I really focused on creating a dynamic and interesting atmosphere whilst adhering to the 3 point perspective practises. There was a lot to consider when implementing this and it was a challenge to be able to draw all the more complicated assets such as the chair and fireplace to fit the composition correctly. There are elements that I can see which aren't completely accurate and I will need to further practise 3 point development; however, I am pleased with the concept as I worked very hard on it. This project really pushed me to explore the power and usage of the different types of perspective drawing and how they might be useful in game development pipelines. I would like to have spent a little bit more time rendering my scene as I do think it is missing some detail, in order to further refine the textures of each material. In conclusion, in this project I have gained valuable skills and an understanding of the use of perspectives and how you can gain different effects from each one. 

Future tribes character project

My next digital project is to design and render my own character in the theme of 'Future tribes'. I am really looking forward to being able to develop my character designing skills along with learning some valuable knowledge regarding human anatomy, which is something I do not currently have a lot of experience in. Also being able to challenge my abilities regarding a character design workflow is something that is a new and exciting challenge.

For this brief, I wanted to create a unique and appealing character which would really draw a player in and evoke enthusiastic and interesting combat. I want to come up with an interesting base story and concept for my character and suggest some abilities or traits that she/he might have. Through this brief I plan on challenging my abilities by experimenting with some interesting fabrics and textures along with mixing in some of my own personal thoughts and preferences when it comes to making an appealing playable character. 

I firstly began researching some real tribes from around the world, particularly in Asia. I was really drawn in by some of the bright and beautiful clothing worn by those in the Chinese Miao Minority and also the bold head dresses, hairstyles and make up of the Mongolian tribes. I especially liked the use of face paint and I thought that this may be something that I would like to incorporate into my own character design. The lip paint really stood out to me and also made me relate to Padme, a character from Star Wars. I think as part of my futuristic aspect I would like to do some research on her character design in relation to the Mongolian tribes I had found online. The clothes worn in the Mongolian tribes are mostly red or warm tones with contrasting elements of cooler colours such as green or blue. The sharp contrast between these bright colours, combined with black could be a design feature I could use when iterating the clothing. The environment in which these tribes live varies between harsh snowy climes and vast green tundra and the environment in which my character will be from will play a role in what kind of design elements I will use. So far, I like the idea of having clothing that is a middle ground as the tundra of Mongolia tend to have very mixed climates. Making this board really helped me to explore some tribes from Asia and to gain an understanding of some traditional clothes, makeup and head wear that would be typically worn, all of which I could use in developing my future tribes character. 

As stated in my previous research, I decided to do some research on the characters of Padme and Ray from Star Wars as I am really inspired by their character design. it is clear that Padme has been heavily influenced by the attire worn by the Mongolian tribes. I really like the dark red fabrics used in her dresses and the bold hairstyles she wears throughout. As part of my futuristic aspect, I would like to combine these tribal and space-like elements together to create a completely new and bold character. Padme's long flowing skirts could also be an element that I add in, in order to add a sense of gracefulness to my design, depending on what kind of combat or concept I was going for. 

Before starting any of my actual designing processes, I decided to do more research on a more style basis. I researched some concepts which I liked from Pinterest. I will not be using these as references, more so as ideas and as inspiration for the kind of style in which I will be drawing my character. I looked at some of the basic design features these characters had for some more inspiration before I began drawing. These steps really helped me get to a firm starting point where I could begin iterating my designs and then developing them. I also established that I wanted to make a female character as I really liked the type of clothing and bold hair styles that could fit on her character. I quite liked the idea of giving my character a soft face; however, with harsh and more serious features or expressions. Maybe tying in the idea of gracefulness and strength along with a sense of clear danger based on how she looks alone. As a player myself, I really appreciate strong female characters whose appearance clearly shows their personality and maybe elements of their story as well, to really solidify a convincing and playable concept. I think from all my research one of the main elements that came up a lot is bold hair/ headdresses. I think I can use this as a major design feature which will make the silhouette of my character stand out and be recognisable which is very important in terms of character design.

To begin my designing process, I started by creating 50 different block out silhouette designs. I decided to add some tonal variation to further explore some of the options for clothing whilst I was thinking of distinctive designs. This part of the workflow really allowed me to explore many of the picked out design features I had previously learnt about through my research boards. I really focused on creating a wacky and unique silhouette that stands out, whilst also tying in elements of a space-like futuristic Mongolion tribe theme. I liked the idea of adding elements such as bold sleeves or incorporating the idea of symmetry into the hairstyle as I noticed this was a key factor amongst the styles I saw from my research. For example, I did some designs using space buns or pigtails, making the hair into a headdress of its own. In terms of weapons, I also drew a different idea for each design so that I was able to gauge an idea of the kind of thing I would be bringing forward into my more detailed iterations. I really liked the scythe concept that I did in my first silhouette, along with the oversized sleeves. I referred back to my research often and also picked out elements I liked, such as ornate beading trims along necklines and skirts. I think this part of my workflow was a very crucial part so far as it has really given me a good idea of some ideas which work and some which don't and ideas which I could combine together to make a more visually exciting character. Some ideas I did not like so much from this exercise were the skirts that stuck out quite a lot and the idea of having a more restrictive skirt as this wouldn't be a realistic design for a character which could be a fast and smooth assassin or fighter. When drawing these, I also considered the anatomical proportions of a female figure to better establish designs. 

The image above shows my 5 favourite silhouettes which I will be taking forward and developing in a bit more detail. I chose these as I liked the uniqueness of the hair and how the outfits tied in well with the the futuristic and tribal theme I was given. Before thinking of a colour palette, I will further establish a design. 

From my previous 5 silhouette designs, I rendered some more detailed versions to better establish a design that I liked. I took elements of each one that I liked and mixed them together to create more refined ideas. From this part of the workflow, I really like the idea of having a scythe as the weapon and maybe including a cropped top with quite long, flared sleeves as this really lends itself well to the clothing I saw whilst researching the Mongolian tribes. I really like the top of the 1st design as I think this brings in some very modern elements such as modern day fashion seen on celebrities or K-pop idols. I like the bold shapes that can be created using loops made with the hair. I think that having a combination of designs 1 and 3 will allow me to render in a number of interesting textures and materials, such as metal structures and flowing fabrics. I also tried to establish a definition in tones as I would like to use a range of contrasting tonal values in order to make the character stand out. I have rendered in a variation of greyscale tones to help me establish where the variation could be. I kept in mind a lot of the research I had done in the past weeks. I considered how the pieces of clothing would be structured around the body as this will help me when establishing a back view later on. All the components must work realistically together.

Throughout this process, I was also focussing very much on human anatomy as this brief focuses on how accurately you can convey the human structure through a character concept. Although the sketches above aren't fully rendered, I did try to keep in mind the proportions of the female figure and how the design elements would need to be drawn. I plan on making my character a slim female, therefore before drawing up my final sketch, I will be collecting some references from online to help me establish good anatomy practises. 

Today, I experimented with establishing a colour palette for my design. I opted to research the cyber goth style as I really like some of the bold clothing features and colours that were relevant in the style. I like how neon colours were contrasted with black and how a lot of tubes and pipes were used. This gave me the idea that I could have full shin warmers instead of trousers. This would also give my character more flexibility and mobility when in combat, whilst also being suitable for a range of hot and cold weather which is very much the case in tundra areas throughout the seasons. In this research and on the reference board, I picked out some design features which I would be adding to my final sketch along with establishing a colour palette of neon's mixed with black. This colour palette also conveys quite a futuristic vibe. The silhouette of cyber goth outfits also relates somewhat to my previous iterations. I really like the idea of the clothing and components starting off quite fitted at the top and as you move down the body they become wider and more chunky, such as flared sleeves and the chunky leg warmers. This will also help me to develop my character in terms of the environment that they will be living in. 

In the next part of my process, I established a colour palette for my design. I drew out my basic final design using a few female figure references from online and, referring back to my previous design iteration processes, I combined all the chosen elements together to produce this idea. Using my cyber goth reference board, mixed in with the bold red colours I saw in the designs of the Mongolian tribal wear, I opted for a black, white, red and green colourway. The idea that I had to use pipes as part of the distinctive silhouette also tied in here as I was going to fill them with a contrasting neon green liquid which I would write into my character concept at the end of the process. I already had lots of ideas for what my characters back story was going to look like based on all the design choices I had made over the past few weeks. 

As I began rendering, I realised that I did not like the colour palette of this design. The colours  did not work well together and the concept did not work well with the type of clothing or design I had chosen to draw. I had been using a couple of my material study items for reference for the green liquid in the tubes. I also noticed that I had got some of the anatomy wrong on the character. 

After receiving feedback, I realised that there were parts that I needed to change and rethink before I could produce a finished piece that I was pleased with. The legs and feet were not correctly positioned and the lower leg of the character was too long compared to the thigh. I was also advised to rethink the colour palette which I had already decided to do. In addition, I widened the ribcage where the top is, as it was too thin and did not look anatomically correct. I decided to refer back to some of my first design boards to decide on a nicer colour palette and possibly change the design a little bit. I think it was a mistake to incorporate the cyber goth element, especially the colour palette; however, after referring back to that board there were some design changes with the legwarmers that I thought would make my design tie nicely into both cyber goth and the tribal element. The error I made showed me the importance of having a strong workflow and to not add too many design ideas to a project. I think next time, it will be a better idea for me to stick with only 2 or 3 very strong ideas rather than trying to throw in lots of different extras. My character currently does not look appealing to play so I am going to really work hard to change it so that it is something that I like.

Before moving on to any more rendering, I decided to collect some more references. Instead of having so much black in my design I decided to break it up with the element of fur instead of using such bright neon colours. I collected these images so that I would have a good idea of how to convey this material on my final render. 

At this point, I had really started to rework my design. Instead of having the green pipes, I had replaced it with loops made from her hair, as in my previous iterations this is something that I had explored and liked as a design idea. The purple acted as a nice subtle contrast to the red and wasn't so loud. I also referred back to the cyber goth board and  liked the fur leg warmer idea so I decided to incorporate this to break up the black using animal fur. The colours looked like they were starting to work better together and to not clash as much. I had also decided that I wanted her to be more elegant and less brutal. I started researching white chiffon as a possible new asset to maybe add to my concept as elegance, whilst also seeming unnerving. The face paint has been very much influenced by that of the Mongolian tribes and is something that I will consider tying into her overall ability concepts. There wasn't much white on my design and it looked a bit out of place; therefore, I really wanted to add an element that would start tying all the colours nicely together.  

After some alteration of the design and anatomy, I finally finished fully rendering my future tribes character. After making changes to the colour palette and referring back to some of my previous iterations, I had added a fur shawl, fur legwarmers and some chiffon elements to the sleeves and made an overskirt to tie in the white a bit more. I think this colour palette works a lot better together and still allows me to pick up elements of both the Mongolian tribes and the influence of the cyber goth features, all while using a more appealing choice of tones. I tried to capture the contrasting tones with the red and the purple, rather than having such a bright green added into the mix as it didn't work. The hair element also added a sense of originality and lends itself nicely to the flow and silhouette of the character. There are however, a few features which I might have liked to rethink, such as the fur shawl, as it is not very practical. I added it in to show a diversity in climate; however, I am not sure it really adds much to the actual design. Also, the skulls look a little bit out of place compared to the rest of the design. However, overall, it is a lot better than it was previously. I named my character, 'Inara', as the name suits her design and story which I decided to write a little bit about... 

'Powered by her own blood, Inara uses charged hemomancy to gracefully and stealthily eliminate those who are a threat to her people. Inara is the daughter of the chief of the Giang tribe who dwell deep in the tundra lands of Tao. Inara rebelled against the traditions of her village and used her rare gift of charged hemomancy to fight her way into the renowned assassination unit, ‘Bóng tối’ (translating to ‘The Darkness’), against her father’s wishes. The free spirited assassin is feared by all across Tao as she joined hands with two others on a deadly road to destroy the Taoian senate who forced her people into exile after the Red War.  Around her scythe is tied the skull of Valtiang- the previous tyrant ruler of Tao who fell at the mercy of Inara during the Red War.'

I added a couple of small renders of the back view of my character to show a potential modeller what it would look like. However, I did start to run out of time and I would have liked to have made them a little bit clearer than they are. I tried to make the front view as clear as possible. After some feedback, I also changed the position of the feet, the length of the legs and brought the arms out a little bit to showcase more of the design. 

Overall, I worked really hard on this project and learnt a lot about drawing human anatomy. Even though it could be improved, I am happy with the design concept of my character and think that I gained a better understanding of the character work flow and how this will help me in future projects. I am very interested in getter more into character art so I will be working hard to perfect my anatomical skills.