Project Description
The project was to model a character based off of reference found online. We are to model this in zbrush and follow the reference as accurately as possible, conveying enough realism to match the concept art.
Adding requirements of the Project
Because the project mainly focused on a static pose for a sculpted character with no textures. I proposed a character that would challenge my sculpting ability concerning detail and various textures. I am not technically new to 3D sculpting ( as I've had a little experience in Mudbox), I am still new to sculpting using Zbrush. The proposed character design will show the progress I've made throughout this course in learning the pipeline in one of the industry's most effective digital sculpting software.
Research
Anatomy
Body build
Here, I had to look up muscle diagrams to accurately depict a body type for an athletic woman that would make sense for a warrior. Aside from finding muscle diagrams of the female body to study muscle flow, I also researched female Olympians to see how different builds result from different sports.
Facial features
Likewise, the biggest challenge to sculpt this character would be to accurately depict a south east Asian woman. The biggest inspirations for this character was a mix of Chinese, Japanese and Vietnamese imagery so there was no specific ethnicity in mind. The default for most character designs focus too much on Euro-centric features, so my focus was southeast Asian. Some famous people I used to model my character and reference South East Asian features off of include Michelle Kwan, a young Maggie Cheung and Lucy Liu.
Reference Images
Armor
The images below depict the important aspects of the character, taken mainly from the Chinese movie "Painted Skin" and China's 2009 adaptation of the Mulan epic. I've also found references for different styles of armor. Some include samurai armor. Most of these are the simplified armor designs from Konietsko's and DiMartino's famed " Avatar the last airbender" and " Legend of Korra" series.
Here are the references from "Avatar the Last Airbender", " Legend of Korra" and Disney's adaptation of Mulan. An animated series or movie is a good reference for a simplified design of something as complex as armor. Plus Konietsko and DiMartino's design of Azula captured Chinese features well despite the anime-focused aesthetic. Plus these animated works also help provide good ideas for hair styles for a female warrior with a Southeast Asian theme. The Kyoshi warriors have heavy influences in the image of the Japanese Geisha that was useful in designing my character.
Disney's Mulan adaptation helps in more ways to simplify Chinese-style armor designs, as well as how a warrior would style their hair.
Here are references from China's 2009 movie "Painted Skin" and Disney's upcoming live action adaptation of Mulan. These are references for hair styles, armor and period pieces for costume design reference.
The turtle has significant symbolism in Vietnamese mythology, and I decided to use this as an overall theme for my character's armor. Below is a scroll and a little statuette, to see how the Vietnamese would design turtle imagery.
The Geisha-style hair helps differentiate this design from the designs of the various Mulan characters, while taking more influence from Nakano Takeko, the female samurai pictured above in the armor gallery. Likewise, adding in more "feminine designs can help distinguish mine from Konietsko and DiMartino's design of Azula, who shows more fierceness and cunning as opposed to the grace the Geisha's below convey.
Color Pallette
Because of the primary visual influence is in Chinese mythology and pop culture, and the fact that I planned on a turtle theme to this character, I chose a variety of greens and blues to convey that theme. The hints of gold help in conveying the mythology behind her.
Primary pallette
Secondary pallette
Thumbnail Sketches
Here are some thumbnails for armor ideas. Plus I can figure out the silhouette of the character when I'm drawing full-body thumbnails.
Here are thumbnails for faces and hair. Capturing those Southeast Asian features is a must here.
Thumbnails for her limbs (in more detail can be seen here).
Rough Drawings
Rough drawings put elements of the thumbnails together into a whole character. I don't have all the details concrete yet, so I can see different versions of my character and decide which works best.
Computer Roughs
Computer roughs help see the basic shape of the character mesh. We get to see how the silhouette will look before adding too much detail.
Concept Drawings
The concept drawing here helps in visual reference in how to sculpt the character. I added just enough detail to help me figure out what would be the most effective method in sculpting these areas. Some of the various surfaces include hair, metal and cloth.
The design mixes a lot of the motifs found in the reference above, but I chose to more heavily base my character on Disney's Mulan and the Kyoshi warriors from Avatar: The Last Airbender, because of the consistency in color scheme. It helped give me some direction in how to further push my own character design.
Different from media references
This design is different from the references in popular media because of how I strategically combined the various motifs chosen from the references. Those references focus primarily on Chinese motifs. I leaned a little more towards Japanese motifs in the overall construction of this character's elements while, the color scheme leaned towards the Chinese imagery.
High Resolution Mesh
Here is the result of my sculpting. This was my most challenging model up to date because of the mount of detail and variation in textures. My relative inexperience with hard surface modeling along side time constraint prevented me from completely capturing the surface of the armor, gauntlets and shin guards well, but with my knowledge in organic texturing, I am confident in the results of the cloth. Because this was a sculpting based project, we were not required to put textures on this character (partly due to time constraints), but the color would help bring this model to life. I have made progress in great strides, but I still have a long way ahead of me in figuring out the intricacies of 3d sculpting. The culmination of fifteen weeks of work has proven to have some excellent results.
