Week 10 - Character Three Reference

For my third character I have been working heavily on trying to build up reference for Drak. This characters body type is  a mesomorph. He is portrayed as a very muscly character, he has incredible definition in his upper chest and has long wavy hair. As a character he is very large in terms of muscle definition so trying to find reference was relatively easy.

I had to search reference for weapons and armour as my character would have both, the general design of the character would encompass all aspects similar to a Viking warrior.

Below you will find lots of different reference that I have put together into one image for convenience, you can see the different types of body build and armour. Sifting through all of these images helped me decide on some designs which i will show later in the week, I started my sketches today so I do have rough idea what kind of character I will be going for.

Week 9 - Life Drawing

Today in life drawing I noticed my drawing skills leap. I started using materials that I felt uncomfortable with but i actually found that I was not that bad at using them, I created a nice wax pastel drawing today using shades of blue and I think it opened my eyes a lot more.
  The reason this helped me was because it allowed me to understand lighting. I found that when shading with pastels is best done with smudging the wax (for me anyway).

Sam took me through some pointers with measuring the head and I found it all very useful, by creating a box around the head and creating grid lines, I was able to determine where certain areas of the face were to be plotted in a dynamic pose.

I'm starting to bring together my skills that i have learnt over all of the weeks now and my drawings are starting to vastly improve.

Week 9 - Character Design Two Final

Here you can see the very final character design of Grath. I thoroughly enjoyed creating this character concept and I have enjoyed branching out and trying different character designs. Through using different body types, and switching between mesomorphs, endomorphs and ectomorphs, I have been forced to adhere to different styles of drawing to try and portray the characters as perfectly as possible.

When creating the character, it was a little hard trying to decide on the shape, but in the end I am very pleased with how it has turned out, I really like the use of colour especially the greenish skin, and i like the facial features. You can really tell what kind of personality Grath has when looking at the design so for me I think I have achieved what I needed to, which was to create a character design, fitting to the character histories.

Week 9 - Finishing the Torso

I am finally at the stage of finalizing my torso, I am very happy with the end result and i think anatomically my torso design looks very good, areas i have focussed on in particular are the Teras Major, thisis a muscle in the bac, but its quite a complex shape and it tapers down the back from the shoulder.
This muscle also influences where the Intraspinatus and the Teres Minor. Its evident when you look at the actual screen shots of my Z Sculpt, that all of the muscles connect logically. The Lattisimus Dorsi wraps round the side of the chest and connects with the back muscles and the External Obliques. Thinking constructively about the creative process of the structure of my torso, has allowed me to create accurate anatomy.

Overall I have achieved a curvaceous female sculpture that portrays the major muscles well, and even the little muscle details, that I have positioned properly. If i had more time, I would have liked to sculpt the arms and legs too but this was out of the question due to my deadlines, I am very happy with the end result and I think i have gained many skills from this module. I will take those skills and apply it to my models in the future using Maya in conjunction with Zbrush.