3D character Project Thumbnail sketches and Mood Board

 Mood Board -

For this project I chose to focus on the Alien priest warrior brief. My first step was to create a mood board outlining the general feel and silhouette I wanted to create for my creature. Some themes and aesthetic choices I wanted to cover are-

Sharp appendages, graceful feel

General graceful silhouette

Long bodies and legs, more of an unearthly feel

Sharp of dangerous looking elements that give a feeling of intimidation

General humanoid silhouette, perhaps some insectoid elements

Biological elements, perhaps reaching for a more anatomical look

Religious semiotics, Religious garments, angelic elements

Thumbnails -

This is my first set of thumbnails, mostly surrounding themes of an angel and sharp blade like elements. I found when drawing these creatures I used a lot of implied smooth surfaces, almost giving them a synthetic or robotic feel. This certainly sets them apart from some of the more biological designs i explored later on and really solidify that feeling of being inhuman. A big design element i mostly kept throughout my thumbnails is a very feminine almost ballerina like figure, I want these creatures so seem hauntingly graceful, they are strong creatures able to wield magic and thus i feel they would walk with purpose and poise, hauntingly beautiful. This is definitely seen mostly in the legs, the legs being spindly spikes they walk upon looking quite frail and fragile, yet at the same time intimidating and capable of causing a lot of damage. Of these designs i really liked the first one, i think it has a very interesting silhouette and the four arms draw back to the angelic seraphim imagery. However I don't like how smooth these creatures are and i feel they would be quite difficult to model in z Brush.

The next set of sketches I created are some orb headed priestesses, I leaned more into the insectoid route with these thumbnails creating an arachnid like creature and a long bodied centipede like creature. These designs combine that synthetic look of the previous designs with a more biological look, I also looked at how i could incorporate fabric into these designs, creating banners that hang from the waist and priest like shawls that fall over the creatures shoulders. Of my sets of thumbnails these were my least favourite, i feel they lack that feeling of a religious figure and are also not very graceful looking. While they are certainly more intimidating, these creatures look quite weak and easy to knock over, I feel my designs should either heavily lean into the graceful agile design, or really lean into the horror and strong looking design, sitting somewhere in the middle makes these creatures look awkward and clumsy.

By far these are my favourite designs for this creature, I think they are eerie, graceful yet strong looking and really lean into the nun silhouette. I definitely wanted to make these feel very biological, them being entirely made of meat, with teeth embedded into their club like arms and hefty stumps for legs that would stop them from easily being toppled over. These creatures also feel very inhuman, vaguely similar in silhouette yet horrifically malformed and exaggerated. I especially like the design on the left, it reminds me of something from silent hill or fear and hunger, games which both twist the human form into horrific creatures. I also think that the fact these creatures are very biological looking will allow me to model them in  Z brush much easier, the brushes and tools will allow me to create veiny surfaces, lumps and bumps that I wanted to avoid in the more synthetic looking creatures. I find getting a model to be smooth to be very difficult, so leaning into the more lumpy looking style could actually work out very well. 

Feedback -

Nathan - "The religious text on the scarf is really cool it gives you the opportunity to design something really unique, the designs on the third page look the most alien to me and the shapes and organic elements in the design work really well"

Francis - "This one [the first of the visceral nuns] has a very good blend of "Priest" religious semiotics and aliens shapes and design"

Silas - "I like the right second pic [centipede alien] and the left last pic [left hand visceral nun]"

August - "YO all of these look really cool honestly, but I feel like the first two in the second image look really neat and fit the description pretty well or the very first one would too, but if you made it a bit longer. They all look really good though!"

Vinny - "Yeah I agree with August but I also think the nun one looks cool but it doesn’t really speak warrior"

Holly -  "I like the right most one on the first and the left most one on the second, to me these are the most readable of the designs, though the right most one on the second could be really cool with some extra detailing"

"Ooooooo I missed the last image I love the left most one on this one! Very fun proportions, make it a bit uncanny which suits your prompt well"

Additional Sketches -

Here are some additional sketches considering what textures might be on the creature, highlights of any divots or holes in the creature, and how the creature might move when it attacks. Of all the designs this one is by far my favourite, and with the feedback i got it seems this design was also quite popular and stood out to some people. Sticking with the religious theming, i gave this creature the name Magdelene.

Out of all of the creatures I have designed i think that i will model Magdelene as i think the biological aspects will be interesting to recreate in Zbrush, i have tried to include aspects of her design that will allow me to use the full range of tools we have learnt so far to demonstrate my ability to use them. I also most importantly just think her design is really cool and i am very excited to begin working on her.