I've been working, or should I say re-working the main character as a bipebial animal. Also the goal now is more of a tech demo show piece, with a full game in mind.
I've never been super happy with my stylized human faces, and a while ago I decided to change them all to animals. I've always been had a fascination with bipedal animal characters. My first game attempt was Pollock in 2011 which was fox against wolves, Crashimals was the same, altho stylistically different. I actually took Pollock heads added eye sockets, and brows, stuck it on top. There's something about creating an animal world that I love and want to explore.
Proportions I tried to get more legs but not too much. I tried to have short or even no legs, and that works for top down but I'm not 100% on that camera choice, and they need legs, I also felt they needed tails, even though thats more animation.
I'm drawn to Chibi style, and always want to push my proportions but it never works for me, so the head keeps shrinking as I go. Actually all proportions get more conservative as I go.
I'm drawn to Chibi style, and always want to push my proportions but it never works for me, so the head keeps shrinking as I go. Actually all proportions get more conservative as I go.
Felt like the proportions were close, and melded it all together, and get a first pass at good topology for animation. Figured I need to make the main chr, and this head was the best of the bunch (did a bunch of different 3D "Sketches" of animal heads). The arms are long and head is bigger, but getting there.
A lot changed with color and clothes. I've been making the character look like a squire in previous iterations but I've been thinking "Take me on an adventure" as a theme. I wanted it to feel like a DnD game where you go out adventuring. I started making a scarf top when it looked like how people put bandannas on dogs, and that was fun. I'm not sure if you will be able to change outfits/armor, so there maybe lots but this was a fun start.
Backpack also more animation but I've always felt like why do I have an inventory when I have no place to put all that stuff? Backpacks also say to me "We're on an adventure".
This actually took the longest to get here as the pictures go. Added the mouth, b/c in Crashimals there were lots of places where I regretted not being able to move/open the mouth, esp for marketing images. Lots of overall fine tuning, lots of try and fail. We had the idea wouldn't it be fun if he had a campanion who lived in the back pack? Yes it would! So I made it.
Then removed the hedgehog for scope.
I was happy with the wolfs fur color but nothing else. I thought what character has blue skin that looks cool? Phantom Lancer (DOTA2) is and I used him as a color reference. Which really helped figure out a palette I could be happy with. I made many iterations on color, and those aren't shown. It takes a while to get colors down, and you'll see I tweaked on them until the end.
More tweaking and I think its ready. I'm finally happy enough to move on. Added a fur pass which can be seen in the ears and back of his cheeks. Finally got the saturation levels on the backpack working with the clothes. More details all over, reworked the feet, shoulder pad, backpack, sword, belt, wristband... pretty much everything to get the detail level where I wanted it. Now onto rigging.
Then removed the hedgehog for scope.
I was happy with the wolfs fur color but nothing else. I thought what character has blue skin that looks cool? Phantom Lancer (DOTA2) is and I used him as a color reference. Which really helped figure out a palette I could be happy with. I made many iterations on color, and those aren't shown. It takes a while to get colors down, and you'll see I tweaked on them until the end.
More tweaking and I think its ready. I'm finally happy enough to move on. Added a fur pass which can be seen in the ears and back of his cheeks. Finally got the saturation levels on the backpack working with the clothes. More details all over, reworked the feet, shoulder pad, backpack, sword, belt, wristband... pretty much everything to get the detail level where I wanted it. Now onto rigging.
