Western Scene - 3rd year

To start with the 3rd year we had an environment project set for us so the new lecturer could measure where we all were. He set us a few themes but I chose a western theme as I felt that it was the most appropriate for my style. I began searching for western building images and then decided to go with a Train station influence mostly by this image.

I really loved it for the lighting in the scene and the shape and size of the building. I also liked the way the platform looked even though it wouldn't be high enough for a train station as trains were still rather tall back in the day. We were told we didn't need to do concept art so we all ended up going straight into the modelling.

The wireframe is pretty low poly, except for the railway track. The tri count is 4248. I bent the edges to make the scene look more realistic but I didn't quite get rid of all of the hard edges, which is something I'd like to revise at some point.

I had a little problem with the lighting but I had to go with what I had on the deadline day, again this is something I'd like to revise again at some point.  

In the end I came up with these textures. I would have liked to have had more time on the texturing but due to several modules coming together at once most of us on our course didn't have very much time to texture. It was for a test rather than an actual module, until our lecturer decided to make a module of it after the deadline which was slightly annoying. But oh well, I've got 2 projects that at some point I will change to make them look better and I'll update this blog with the new designs too :) Thanks for reading :)

2nd Year project- 3D Nycra

Hello! As promised I'm going to add the 3D images of Nycra up on this post :)

I made the head sculpt and applied the helmet to it by pulling the hair into the skull. I initially wanted to make her with an empress outfit so I made the hair so it would be ready to use for that design. The helmet was difficult to apply as the hair got in the way a lot but I eventually got it to fit properly :)

I made the body first and once I was happy with it I then duplicated the mesh and extracted parts for the armour that I then extruded to make the thickness of the armour.The hardest part was probably the breasts. I had a lot of difficulty with them because of the way I'd made the body but I decided that I'd come too far to start again so I just did the best with what I had.

Overall I was happy with the outcome but felt that I could probably have done better with the texturing, it was a bit rushed and I regret not taking more time to do it. I may however when I have time, re-texture her armour and see how that goes :) I also had normals maps that I struggled to get to work on the armour to get the swirly patterns that were etched into the metal, so id like to get that working properly really. Thanks for reading :)

2nd Year project- Drawing Nycra

The first design I came up with was this, before I knew I'd be making this character for my University major project. I wanted her to have antlers but soon decided against it for because it would be difficult to have a helmet on top of that. All of the other designs were influenced by the research pages I posted last week. I have several more designed pages but I chose not to over clog this post ;).....

I decided to go with a stylised character but I was unsure of what style to begin with so after designing a few styles I chose the top right because I liked it the most. 

These armour designs took me so long to do but they were so worth it! My favourite ones were the top left, bottom left and the second in from the left. I chose the top left because I loved the idea of a swirly, warped metal as the armour because it's unusual and almost magical. I thought the design would be usual and interesting but challenging to make as a 3D model.

I also decided to go with a black colour that tinted with purple to add a mystical and mysterious colour to my character.

 I designed a helmet very much influenced by Kenpachi from the Manga Bleach. This character has bells on the end of this hair spikes in order to make himself aware to enemies as he feels he's so powerful. He feels the need to do this as nobody can defeat him so he weakens himself in order to help the opponent as he wants a challenge. I wanted my character to have a similar mentality and have bells on the end of her helmet to give herself more of  a challenge. This idea however made the helmet look strange so I decided to keep the long strands like Kenpachi but to get rid of the bells.

 As a quick sketch I made this expression sheet for the character even though I wanted her to have minimal emotions to be honest.

 The end design is what is above, I made a turnaround to help with the 3D model I was going to make and this is how it turned out. I put spiked on the back in order to make her look more monster like and intimidating. I also felt it worked well with the helmet.

I also designed a sword for her, influenced by several designs from the past post. I wanted it to be a combination of a samurai sword and a futuristic like sword. The serrated edge would be the most efficient for damaging an enemy and I wanted my character to seem cruel and frightening so I chose a sword that would suggest both.

 The final promotional design I came up with was this. I felt that I actually quite enjoyed making this character as she became an interesting character to research for. She the kind of character that one would rarely get to create and I'm glad I got a chance to create her. I'll make a post at some point of the 3D model I eventually created for my major project of 2nd year. Thanks for reading :)

2nd Year project - Empress Nycra

Hello! This is this first post on this blog as I wanted to start afresh! I decided to only put the work up that I was particularity happy with and the only piece from 2nd year was a character I created for a Narrative project called Empress Nycra. I would put up her background and so forth up but she's a little complicated and I think maybe there's would be too much for this post :P. She's basically a terrible, warmonger, greedy Empress but there is more story behind her I swear! Anyway I made some research before I made her mostly on deviantart and I found some inspiring images that I made a collage of.

  These ones in particular I loved the styles of. I decided early on that I wanted her to be influenced by Asian type clothing so I began there. My favourite one is the biggest one in the center of the top page and from this image I decided I wanted my character to be the same, as a shameless, beautiful empress that did everything in her power to get what she wanted. Blackmailing, seducing or killing, she'd do them all to get her ahead. I wanted her to have an elaborate headdress and a beautiful long sweeping dress but in the end I didn't have the time to design this side of her since I wanted to create an armoured version more.

 For the hair I wanted something unusual that would mean she'd stand out from common folk but from an armour perspective wouldn't get in the way of battle. I wanted her to still look feminine but also bad ass as well. I liked several of the designs but my favourite was the top photograph with the plats.

 For the amour designs I found loads of images I loved and I wanted to some how incorporate several into one awesome design. I especially love the designs from Diablo 3 and Dragon age on the above page.

 I wanted to create a female protagonist that was strong and mysterious but interesting. The character above are Nariko from heavenly sword, Chell from Portal and Portal 2, San from Princess Mononoke, Female Shepard from Mass effect 3, Chloe and Elena from the Uncharted series and last but not least Faith from mirrors edge. All of these females have a strong presence of 'I can take care of myself' and this is the kind of female I wanted to create.

And last of all I looked at masks and horns to give my character. I wanted her to look creepy but I also wanted to work a mask into her helmet to be intimidating. One of my favourites in the woman with white hair that has horns made out of her hair.

Thanks for reading, I'll add some designs up as soon as possible :).