Project 1 – Style Matrix briefs

So we are in the run up to Christmas with 3 short months between me and sinking my teeth into my final major project. To fill those months and prepare for the final project each student must complete 3 tasks from a selection of different briefs. Each brief is accommodating to a particular discipline so individuals can pick and choose the projects best suited to them in order to hone skills they most want to show off as well as building on portfolios.

I have chosen to focus more on character and environment briefs as my fmp idea is to build a game and show case that I can do multiple roles within the industry. Brief number 1 is the partially stylised 3D character. The brief supplies a vague concept of a character dubbed ‘The aviator’ and asks you, the employee to create a character from this concept.

As with most projects I started by trolling through the internet and depths of Pinterest digging up anything that could relate to my aviator character. Me being me I instantly thought of steam punk but truly this concept is done to death and so I deliberately avoided this. Instead I chose to look towards women pilots around the 1900’s including the likes of Amelia Airheart, Amy Johnson and other such ladies of the sky. During my searches I came across propaganda posters and older photographs from previous wars ( I couldn’t name them) Looking at clothing they were wearing everything seems oversized and ill fitting yet various harness and straps have tailored the jumpsuit, coat or trousers, for their body shape. Speaking with lecturer Micheal Powell, he was reminded of Soviet Russian snipers. A quick google search later and I had a tone more reference material which was from a more obscure source rather than the typical search around ‘aviator.’ I really like how these two sources came together and fed into my initial ideas.

alternative inspiration board

Aviator mood board

The next step was to generate these initial ideas. Drawing over the sketch in simple line art I identified ‘key features’ that the brief said “must be included in the created character.” Looking at the concept closely I found goggles, straps and buckles and layers key to presenting the character as an aviator. Keeping these things in the design I quickly drew alternative ideas for the clothing feeding inspiration from both my created mood boards into the designs. In particular I found the idea of flared and baggy trousers, simulating perhaps a male’s jumpsuit, becoming a very strong design idea. Other elements such as the increase in belts and straps, even a strap around the waist of the character to simulate a parachute belt, taken from the propaganda posters. After completing a few concepts I was fairly confident that I wanted to move forward with my second design idea, where the flared trousers are most prominent however there was a bit of an overwhelming worry that I was straying too far from the original brief so I sent a quick email to Stash and Mike asking if the concept was too far from the original. After all the ideas I wanted to incorporate, such as the asymmetrical trousers and lopsided collar, is more of a modern flare. The feedback I received was positive and that the idea I was most keen on pursuing was one of the stronger designs.

With this I continued on to the character orthographic sheet. Looking back I wonder if I actually needed it. After all I knew I was going straight into Zbrush. I was only used to 3DS max modelling si making orthos seemed the right thing to do and in the end, once I had finally figred out how to load an image into zbrush for reference, it did serve a purpose so I guess I would do it again. I think making the orthos took me longer than it should have especially this late into the uni game. Tip for my future self, Orthos can be speedy and don’t have to be refined beautiful art.

Im not going to lie to myself trying to learn Zbrush during the first project back after summer might not have been the best idea. It took me the rest of that week and countless tutorials to figure out how best to control and interact with the programme. Once I did understand what was what and how best to proceed I spent the time I had crafting heads out of spheres, in various detail levels, until I was happy I understood enough to proceed. Here is the outcomes of that practice. Some of them are quite laughable. I am confident however I can proceed to start modelling the character body during next week. Rather than build a simple body and build clothing over it I think I will go straight to making the limbs look like the basic geometry of the exaggerated clothing.