Art Heroes Monster Challenge 2020

Happy Halloween!

From the 19th - 25th, Art Heroes hosted a Halloween themed Zbrush character challenge where entrants created their own original monster characters. I decided to join in the challenge and push my Zbrush skills to create my first character solely with Zbrush for the modelling - no Maya. I used substance painter for texturing.

For the first 5 days of the challenge, they hosted a nightly livestream lesson in Zbrush. 

I am shocked by what I created because it's very unlike me to create something so repulsive... I loved it! Meet Benjamin the Zombie Knight, adapted from my uni character design project "The Nervous Knight".

Sculpted in Zbrush.     Textured with Substance Painter.      Rendered with IRAY.

Idea:

The story I created for The Nervous Knight was that he was anti-heroic - scrawny and clumsy who survived only on dumb luck. (You can view the production bible HERE). In this adaptation his dumb luck ran out and he died. Many eras passed and a new one was sparked by a pandemic - the zombie virus. Overnight, the dead crawled out of their graves and began to walk the Earth, feasting on the living. Zombie Knight is how I imagine Benjamin looking once he crawled out of his grave - and after he had his first meal. I also imagine the virus would have regenerated him enough (wearing what he wore when he died) to be substantial enough on the surface.

Work in Progess Images Below:

Days 1-3: Head and Body Sketching

Day 4&5: Adding Details and Imperfections

Days 6&7: Texturing, Ground Creation, Rendering and Compositing

Premise: Rosa Turnarounds

Character Design Production Bible - The Nervous Knight (Updated)

After receiving feedback on my character bible, I revisited it and made some improvements which include: changes to the Knight's structural issues, (I made his neck thicker to support the head and helmet), I also made his cape a lot shorter so the silhouette around his legs aren't swamped. I revisited the Beast, still not in as much detail as the Knight but did make improvements and tested out different poses to make the Beast look more aggressive and intimidating. Lastly I revisited the storyboard to build more tension.

Premise: Doris Turnarounds

Premise: Fred Turnarounds

Premise: Fred Head Turnarounds V2

After receiving feedback from Alan on my turnarounds I went back and fixed it, not 100% certain about them, only the 3/4.

Premise: Fred Head Turnarounds V1

Here are turnarounds of Fred's head.

Premise: Emotion Capturing Concept Art

I didn't know really where to begin with concept art there's so much to do and for me this story is character driven so I'm starting with them, and this piece will help me capture the emotion (mainly Fred's) - the starting point when a mother's children are forced to leave her.

Premise: Rosa Thumbnails

So I've been trying to work out what Rosa will look like, these are my first drawings of her, I'm thinking she looks a bit glam (which she shouldn't) mainly because of her hair, I'm not sure how I can show she has curly hair without it looking like glam? The left two thumbnails below have different body shapes, the left is more square where as the middle/right is more rounded, because Rosa is an adult I thought it would be better to construct her of more rounded lines/shapes, the face on the right thumbnail is more to Rosa's character. 

Premsie: Doris Thumbnails

My approach to designing Doris was to try and do it in the same style as Grandad and this was the result, below is a height comparison of Grandad next to Doris.

And if you're wondering why they are smiling when it's a sad story, it's because these are the first drawings I've done exploring character design, my approach to finding it has been me translating a photo of them (below) into different art directions, which in, they are smiling.

Premsie: Design Development

I made developments trying to make 1 more stylised - it's the head that's mostly changed.

1 is the original

Premise: Character Style Experiments

I've been looking at character illustrations and I've tried translating the picture of my Grandad into a few different styles. I like 2 and 3 the best, I like 2 more but I think 3 will fit more with the art direction I've chosen. Still more to come as I don't feel ready yet to settle on a design to develop, finalise and do turnarounds for...

Character Design Warm Up

On youtube I found this video of a super talented artist who takes random squiggly shapes and makes characters from them. Before I start to do more thumbnails of my characters for premise I figured I'd try this as a warm up. 

I like this method as it forces me not to overthink things which is where I go wrong and get very frustrated...

Character Design Production Bible - The Nervous Knight

Character Design: Environment Concept Art

Character Design: Week 10 - One Day Challenge

Today we spent the whole day on a challenge which for my group was to research the world of Noddy Toyland Detective, identify their art direction rules and create characters that would fit in that world along with a merchandise toy of our character. 

My group's approach to the task was to think of it as if we were creating an episode that would require extra characters, so we decided on an Easter Special. As all the beings in Toyland are toys our characters would be too. The problem that Noddy investigates is a tin wind-up hen's eggs have gone missing so has the Easter Bunny's chocolate easter eggs that he has to hide for the hunt. 

Douy's Bunny Design

Rachael's Wind Up Tin Hen Designs

In the first image, the teal dinosaur's house is an egg so we thought it'd be a good idea for all the eggs to be found in there, we designed a child for the dinosaur that would be the one responsible for all the egg snatching.

Jess's Dinosaur Design

My characters below are toy plants that are made of plastic and to move they bend on their hinges. Plants don't move by themselves, so these two toys are an act together, staying in the same spot for a while they see a lot of things including who took the eggs, when detective Noddy questions them they bicker over details and only provide Noddy with hints rather than answers that would progress the story further. I chose a daffodil and a tulip as those are well known Easter Flowers/Spring flowers. Whilst looking at flower toys I noticed a lot of them where faces put on flowers but in Justin's drawings he shows how flowers can be designed into characters rather than just putting a face there.

My Initial Flower Toy Concepts

I struggled with putting eyes on a flower, the daffodil is supposed to look down at the tulip as they bicker to express a know-it-all attitude but getting eye direction and their perspective right proved to be a challenge.

My Character Development

Rachael's merchandise toy chair of the dinosaur character

Character Design: Beast Design

Combined of several animals I have designed the beast that my Knight will interact within the story instead of a sidekick.