Character Design Brief

A summary of the Character Design brief

This developmental process will enable you to explore effective design practice within anthropomorphic character design. This process will begin with an in-depth study into the context your character inhabits as well as your chosen mode of final output. This will be followed by a series of digital modelling and rendering demonstrations using Maya, Zbrush and Photoshop.
You will begin by selecting an existing Film, Game or Book and create an Anthropomorphic character which compliments the existing characters.
You will also need to select an output mode of either 1. 3D Game 2. 2D Game 4. Film or Animation 5. Toy or collectable.
Designs will be developed through the generation of iterative sketches, which will then be rendered as a Three-Dimensional output in either a digital or analog medium. Your final design can use a variety of three dimensional modelling mediums, which will be demonstrated within the workshop. 

Animal & People Mash Ups

Anteater with a suitcase, Seductive Bat girl

Drug dealer Vulture, Smart Grasshopper, Nazi Rabbit

Silhouettes

 Silhouette Experimenting

I haven't played with silhouettes before so when I started (on paper with pencil) I actually found it really hard. I couldn't think outside the "normal" silhouette. Once I got under weigh though, I enjoyed different body shapes I had discovered. 

I tried out my silhouetting on my new tablet (I have never used one before) and I found that challenging too. All worth trying though. I ended up with my marker silhouettes being the stronger ones. 

Research of Different Worlds

Considered Worlds:
The Labyrinth, Pan's Labyrinth, District 9, Lord of the Rings, Never Ending Story, Percy Jackson, Dr Who, The Nightmare Before Christmas, Edward Scissorhands,Tarzan, Frankenstein, Narnia, Death Note, Alice In Wonderland, Harry Potter.

Narrowing down Worlds:
District 9, Pan's Labyrinth, Death Note

District 9                                                    Pan's Labyrinth 

Death Note 

Final Choice:
Death Note: Death Note is originally a Japanese manga series created by Tsugumi Ohba which was then adapted to an anime series. It centers on main character Light Yagami, a high school student who discovers a supernatural notebook titled "Death Note". The notebook grants its user the ability to kill anyone whose name and face they know once written in the book. After Light discovers the book, a Shinigami named Ryuk appears to Light to guide him with the book. A Shinigami is a "Deathgod" or "Death Spirit" in Japanese culture.

The character I am wanting to create is a Shinigami -not redesigning Ryuk's character. 

Death Note Shinigami Designs:

A range of Shinigami Designs                                                         Ryuk                                             Rem

Shinigami Profiles; Sidoh                                                                 Zellogi

Styles of Shinigami

Traditional Takes on Shinigami

Left: "Shinigami" by Shunsensai Takehara.
Right: "Depiction of Searching in the Blue Sea by Amanonu " by Eitaku Kobayashi. Izanami is to the left.

Modern Approaches to Shinigami
Anime & Manga with Shinigami

Death Note

Bleach

Naruto

Artworks Inspired by Shinigami

Shinigami inspired artworks

Cultural Inspiration for Character

A Shinigami is a part of the Japanese culture but instead of keeping to Japan influenced ideas, I explored the idea to extend it to other countries of Asia. I feel they all have a similar style but are drastically different at the same time.
I am hoping to incorporate different peices of clothing from each culture and also combine their own stylisation of animals that they paint too. An example of this is the traditional Chinese way of drawing a dog.
I researched Asian Gods and Demons to compare and contrast them against each other. I also researched different Asian warriors as I find their clothing interesting and I think that the personality behind my character would be quite tough too -this could communicate this idea.

Influential Imagery:

Thai: 

Thai God Painting                                                                Thai God Statue

Thai Warrior                                                                                       Traditional Thai clothing

Thai God                                                                              Thai Crown

Chinese: 

Traditional interpretation of dogs                                                                    A Chinese Warrior

A Chinese Warrior                                                                               Warrior Inspired by Traditional Chinese Warriors

Zbrush Experiments: Eye, Ear, Lips & Nose

Zbrush Testing

I found Zbrush a little challenging at the start but I slowly got better as I went. This is particularly demonstrated well with my face studies.

Eye Model

Eye Study

Ear Model

Ear Study

Lips and Nose Modelling 

Study 1, Progress shot 1

Study 1, Progress shot 2

Study 2

Study 3, Progress shot 1

Study 3, Progress shot 2

Zbrush Experiments: ZSpheres

Attempt 1

Attempt 2

Characteristics of my Character

World: Death Note
Species: Shinigami
Job: He is a Japanese version of the Grim Reaper, he takes people's souls. In traditional Japanese folklore he would take people's souls or cause people to commit suicide. In he Death Note world, like other Shinigami, he writes down human's names in  The Death Note book. This causes them to die. This is literally what he has to do to stay alive.
Personality: He is very mysterious and has a very eerie feel to him. Whenever you are near him, you feel cold and very insecure- threatened. Although he doesn't look violent, you feel no need to disrupt him unless ABSOLUTELY necessary because you fear how his mood could change. He sits alone most of the time and reads Ancient Shinigami literature. Although it is the equivalent of a human reading Chaucer (the father of literature, 1343-1400), he reads the words with no need to translate into modern Shinigami language. He is incredibly articulate and smart. He takes pleasure in his job and his favourite way to collect souls is to make his victims commit suicide. He like to switch up the way his victims do this. 

Starting my Design Process

Face Studies

I started off wanting to have my Shinigami to have a strong Asian look to him using traditional Thai artworks and religious figures to work from. However, because of this I felt like I was restricting my design process so I expanded to look at other monster and creatures designs.

I also wanted to explore symbolism associated with death. So I took a look at the Crow bird and played around with that too. I felt my designs here weren't changed enough from the original bird so I left that idea.

Left; Thai and monster based designs
Right; Crow based designs

Left;I tried to pull back into the Asian theme but I couldn't get it to flow
Right; I started playing with skulls (another symbol of death) but I felt it might have been too obvious. 

I ended up building on the design of the last drawings. I like the blank look on his face and how it gives a sense of no emotion. This is me communicates that there is nothing after death.

Creature Inspirations

Going back

I realised I was restricting myself too much by just the cultural influences before. I found it hard to develop any of my ideas and create new ones. I went back and remembered that this character is meant to be a creature -not an extremely stylised Asian influenced work.

Body shapes

Here I like the body shapes and styles. These creations have more joints in their legs and arms than a human and I like that idea. I will experiment with this idea.

An extra mouth or extended mouth

The idea of having an extra mouth oran elongated one interests me but I don't know if it is too much of an aggressive approach to a Shinigami. I wan't him to look creepy rather than scary and dangerous.

Multiple eyes

Having more than two eyes is an idea that might work. Although I was thinking it reminds me too much of spiders and I want to stay away from the influence of animals/insect influence. 

Skin types and flaws

Exploring the skin approaches I can take. I want a thin, malnourished creature with maybe some burns scarring. I want him to have a vivid spine and ribs -wherever bones can stick out, I want them to be poking through the skin.

Body influences

Bones

I want my character to look really malnourished in areas and be quite bony but in other areas to be quite well developed with toned muscle (even if it is slim). 

Ribs and hip bones

Spine, ribs and collar bones

Strong Calf Muscles

Well developed calf muscles

Veins

Very pronounced veins in the arms and feet. I will ad veins to my character's hands and calves also. 

I will make the vein features a lot more vivid though. I want a mixture of large and smaller, more delicate veins to give him more realism. 

Developing my Character

Left; More silhouettes to help mild my character.
Right; First Design concept. I like the back curve and his body but the head is too dog like

Left; Concept 2. I decided to develop this design further
Right; Development 1 & 2. 

 I elongated his arms because I felt he was too shy and timid looking before with short arms. The long, skinny arms I kept but I felt he was still a bit of an awkward looking creature but not in a good way.
I experimented with the legs in the development 2. This made the character too complicated and even more awkward looking. 

"Final" Design

"Final" Design

 I like my character's face here and I don't think I'll change it. I originally was quite happy with my characters body but still felt there was something about it that didn't look quite right. I asked my character design class what they thought and I got feedback about having a thicker stomach so his back sits better and also having a bend to his legs. I agreed with them and made the changes. 

Final Design

I thickened him up a bit but I still wanted him to have that malnourished feel to him. I left his arms really slim and although I made his legs more toned, they're still slim too. I added a droopy stomach to give more character too. 

Final Design

Figuring out Details on the Body

Hand/Arm Studies and Mapping out Zspheres

I struggled with figuring out how the hand and arm works so I spent some time drawing up some studies. I wanted to see how they hang. I might model my character with fists though. I'm not too sure yet.
I didn't want to dive into modelling my character straight away without figuring out how his body works and the basic shapes that go with him. I decided mapping out the Zspheres before even touching the program would help me a lot. And it was the best decision ever.

Left; Hand & arm Studies
Right; Zsphere Mapping 

Modelling my Character

I had a little trouble at the start when it came to the Zspheres but I played around a bit with it and it fixed itself in the end.

Started with Zspheres

Adapted Skin

Shaping the stomach area, hip bones and the spine

Adding ribs and collar bones to give a malnourished effect 

Shaping the legs; slim but muscular 

A start on the arms and developing the face

Close up of face so far

Feet with minimal modelling

Developing the feet. Design only has two toes and one toenail on each foot.

Start of modelling the left hand

The symmetry stopped working when I wanted to model the hand. I tried Googling it and asking my class mates but I couldn't figure it out. So I just modelled the one hand. At the moment I am trying to figure out if I can somehow duplicate the hand to the other side but I am struggling with finding that out too. 
Modelling hands is extremely challenging and I don't know if this part will turn out all right or not.

Model with hands and feet completed. 

I couldn't duplicate it so I had to make another one *sigh* I'm happy with my progress so far.
Now time to tweak certain features and add some detail!
Also I've named him: Taffy.

Slight alterations to the face. Thicker front of face, more pronounced nostrils.

The final model

I finished adding detailing to him and I'm really happy with the final model. I have been looking at the colours that come with Zbrush and I've narrowed it down to these colours so far.

Option 1.                                                   Option 2.                                             Option 3.                                           Option 4. 

I think the lighter I go, the less detail is seen. Red shows the detailing really nicely whereas the skin tones lose it. I thought fleshy tones would work and give him a creepy feel but I don't want to risk losing all my work and details because of it. 
I asked my Character Design class and the majority thought I should go with the second option. I am leaning towards this colour and experimenting with mixing with skin tones and also the charcoal colour seen in option 3. 

Adding veins to the feet

Detailing to the calves, adding veins

FINAL MODEL -without texture