Mantic Feedback

 This week I had the meeting with the Mantic people to get some feedback on my designs, I had a 10 minute slot to explain everything so I did have to keep my descriptions very brief. Talking to the clients I got some very useful feedback which i will split into things they liked, and things they suggested me to improve on:

Things the client liked:

Speaking to them first about my Marauders design [The Hogg and Swine] They really liked the overall look of the Hogg, it reminded them of a piece of concept art someone had done from them a few years ago and they thought that my idea was very cool and kind of took that concept and made it better. On top of this they were ok with the fact i upturned the goblin's nose to make it more pig like, they said it worked because i had kept the proportions of the goblin relatively similar to what they already have. In terms of my rebs character [Katya] they thought the concept of the collar and Hook were very interesting and provided an interesting concept for an attack for this character, they also liked how i had designed her head and how even though I hadn't seen the female Sphyr figures it was pretty similar to what they already had designed. They also really liked the compositions for my key art pieces and thought their points of view were very effective of showing the characters off. For example they liked the POV shot of the Hogg and swine that helped show the scale of the tank, and liked in Katya's piece the composition showing off her unique attack.

Things to improve on :

Going back to my Marauders character the client had a few suggestions both for the overall design as well as my reference sheet. For my reference sheet they would have liked to see the Goblin orthographic by itself as well as next to the Hogg. Whilst having it next to the Hogg made for a good sense of scale, it was very hard to see the details on the character. They also said they would have liked to have seen a close up of the gun mounted atop the Hogg. In terms of design, they made a very good point about the pivot point and overall weight distribution of the Hogg meaning that if it raised a leg up it would probably fall over, they suggested for me to add wheels onto the front legs of the Hogg to help it move without falling. On top of this they suggested to remove two spikes from the front of the Hogg to help show how the head would stay static as the body moved. Finally they suggested to make the back where the exhaust pipes are to be bigger to imply the existence of an engine. For Katya, the first thing they brought up was the fact that the Sphyr are an amphibious race, not a mammal, and therefore the Sphyr women would not have breasts. Following from this they also suggested to slim down her hips too and compare her body type to some of their pre-existing models that are more blocky and similar to the males in physique. On top of this they suggested a shorter tail and smaller fin to act as a better counterbalance.

Changes-

Using their advice these are the changes that I made:

Here is a breakout of the goblin character [Swine] from the Hogg and Swine, You can see all the details much better this way as previously even when zoomed in, the Swine was just far too small to see.

Here is my redesign for Katya, I had a look at their models again and also considered that since the Sphyr are amphibious, they would not need such large hips like mammals do. I also drastically shortened her tail and the fin at the end. On top of this i also fixed the issue of the missing scarring on the back view on her hand, I didnt notice I had forgotten this until I looked at it again today.

This is my final piece for the Hogg and swine of which i removed the spikes from the head region to help show how the Hogg's head might move.

For the orthographic I made quite a few changes, for example I added in the small wheels in the front as the Mantic guys suggested, these would act as stabilizers so that the Hogg would not fall over during transit. I also added in the gun zoom in showing the details on the gun in better quality. Finally i Lasso selected the exhaust section and brought it up , adding in a hump where the engine compartment would be. I think that this also added to the chunkiness of the design and made it look more intimidating.

Overview -

I am very grateful to have had this opportunity to get professional feedback on my designs, I think having this feedback has helped my identify and fix issues i might not have ever realized by myself and I am much happier with my designs because of the changes that were suggested for me to make. I think it was also a good exercise in getting me to make my presentations more concise, I tend to include too much information out of fear of missing something, but i think having less information allowed for me to get questions that lead to feedback which inevitably helped me a lot in the long run.