Week 9: Dichotomous Charcaters - Getting There, Slowly but Surely

This week has been a bit of a roller coaster. I presented my work to my tutors at the end of last week and got some mixed feedback. I was told that from my mood boards and current designs that they couldn't see where this was going at all and to be honest I agreed with them. My mood boards were too big and too vague, I needed to narrow them down use those images to inspire some more exciting designs

I proceeded to refine my mood boards and changed my idea slightly.

Shaman Mood Board

Faun Mood Board

Style Mood Board

The warrior character I am replacing with a faun, these features stood out to me most on the previous board. The character narrative will now be: A wise shaman lady, with her servant/ forest guardian protecting her as she is frail and elderly.

Silhouettes Development

I took the features that stood out most to me on the mood boards and combined them to develop the silhouettes above, I then chose my favourite silhouettes to take forward and fully develop into ideas.

Developed Concepts

Edited Concepts and Feedback

Final Concepts

My final concepts for my dichotomous characters fill the brief in my eyes. They look like they would belong in the same world together but they are visually contrasting; the shaman is half the height of the faun, the shaman is heavily adorned with clothes and trinkets whereas to the faun has only his flute.

Gradient Tone Test

Choices To Take Forward

I next experimented  with gradients to create different tones, not necessarily looking at the colours, but focusing on the the contrast of values. I then circled my favourites to turn into black and white to see the best value range.

Value Range

Final Value Choices

I chose the two value designs that stood out most and worked best when next to each other. I drew up my final orthographics ready for modelling.

Shaman Orthographic

Faun Orthographic

Colour Concepts

I even started on some initial colour concepts. I feel like I have achieved a lot this week, and I can't wait to start modelling! At the moment I feel confident that I will have enough time to model both characters, and maybe even rig one of them. Its going great.