Character Concept

Character Concept

Final Character Turnaround

My character concept was drawn entirely in Photoshop with a graphics tablet. I feel it was important for me to not use image textures since I used them as a base for my environment, and decided to test my ability to draw from scratch. I am especially proud of the fur armour pieces and the way the fabric appears to be creased in places. Additionally I decided to leave my colour palette in the final character sheet to help illustrate the colour themes in the clothing.

Character Concepts

I began by sketching thumbnail images of several different designs for my character. The main things I was experimenting with  was cloaks, hoods, and different types of armour. I was also keeping in mind ways to break the symmetry of my designs, such as having different sized arm guards in design 1, or different shaped shoulder pads in design 3 and 6. I decided to take design 6 on to further development because I felt it was the most interesting; the fur armour pieces gave a unique look and the overall feel of the character suited the survivalist/hunter theme I was aiming for.

Colour Palette Concepts

With the design decided on, I started experimenting with different colour palettes for my character. I found that different parts of clothing would look best when sharing colours, such as the scarf piece and the waist strap. I eventually decided to use the colour palette in design 5 for my final concept, since I felt it suited the sort of environment my character would be found in as well as being visually interesting. I did like designs 1 and 2, but they looked more at home in a desert or snowy landscape respectively.

I began by drawing the figure of my character from all angles, then drew the outline of the clothing over the top. The back of my character remains blank for most of the drawing process, since it is made by duplicating the front perspective when it is done and changing the few required parts (e.g. cant see front of face, feet and hands face the other way...)

The first step to colouring my character was to block out all the colours. Not only did this give me a good base for shading, but also allowed me to use these layers as clipping masks. This means I couldn't draw outside of where the colour already is.

I then shaded the clothing, using shadows and highlights to give the impression of creases in the fabric. When doing this I made sure to consider where creases would occur in real life, such as where the leather straps dig in and where the trousers fold up as they rest on top of the boots.

At this point I drew the fur and facial details. I achieved the fur effect by using a small hard brush and painted in small strokes. Additionally I layered multiple shades on top of one another to give the impression of shadow and highlight in the fur.

I then duplicated the front, mirrored it and edited it to make the back perspective. Amongst some other details, this included redrawing the boots and hands so they faced the right direction, drawing the quiver, deleting the face and extending the hair down, adding some leather fittings on the boots and gauntlets, and distorting the pad on the torso.

To finalise the character sheet I added an appropriate background and added the text seen on the left.