artist toolkit 3d - research and character proposal

Research and Character Development Document

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For this project, we were tasked with creating a character to create concepts and orthographic for, 3D model, texture and render. The first portion of this project is focused on our creative design progress, idea generation and making our 2D orthographic. This blog will be used to document by idea generation and art progress on my model!

Idea Generation and Moodboards

For this project, we were told we could create and design a character of anything we liked and had full creative freedom. With that, i already had a few ideas of my own.

I started by creating a simple mindmap of different themes, ideas, styles, colour palettes and other selections of ideas that I could use a s a starting point to help me generate ideas. Since we could create anything we wanted for this project, I was automatically drawn to the idea of creating something silly and cute, as I feel that is the area of designs I work best at and knew I would enjoy working on the most. Many of our previous topics have followed guidelines and restrictions that disallowed me from making something I'm more comfortable with and enjoy making like magical girls etc. so I thought that this project would be a great chance to work on something along those lines.

From the ideas i initially came up with, I began to link a few of the points I had made together. From there, I came up with the idea to make some type of cute waitress for a type of dessert diner, as a lot of my ideas could be tied into this theme and I thought that it would be fun and unique in comparison to the work I'd done previously!

After coming up with my base idea of a type of dessert waitress, I needed to start making a moodboards to understand the direction I wanted to go with this design. I knew I wanted to make something cute and fun, with exaggerated clothing that could be food themed. I ended up settling on waffles as my food reference, and decided I wanted to make an outfit based upon the food.

 I gathered a selection of images that I could use as a base for my idea, such as big frilly dresses. I found a lot of great references on Pinterest of different Lolita style dresses, which commonly have themes of food and other cute things. I also looked up ideas for hair styles I could use, as well as some existing characters i found with a similar style and design that I wanted to go for. 

I also gathered a few images of actual people to use as face references. For this model, i wanted to do something a little less cartoony and chibi styled unlike my last model, as I wanted to challenge myself and work on something a bit more complicated, while still keeping a stylised feeling to it. I wanted to use these face references for my design and create a model with a face inspired by them.

Concept Sketches 

With my idea and moodboards curated, I began to work on my first concept sketches. I wanted to initially just get my idea drafted up so I had an idea of what type of design I was going for, and quickly sketched up y first draft. I also added colour to imagine what the design could look like better. 

I liked this initial sketch and i felt that it got my concept idea across, however I defiently felt like it needed to be changed and improved upon, as I felt that certain aspects of it were too crowded and it didn't flow properly. Lots of the aspects of the design overpowered each other and the design also felt a bit too complicated to model. Still, this would work well as a starting point for me to go off of.

I also started to create a profile and front facing view sketch of the face for my model. I wanted to use the images of people I found on Pinterest as a source of inspiration, and make the proportions and features inspired by them, while also still drawing it up in my own style. These will be used on my final orthographics, and give me a way to practice and help imagine what my characters face will look like when she is modelled.

After drafting up a sketch of the face I was happy with, I used it and drew a body template to create a few variants and concepts. I created a dress that was similar to my first sketch but a more refined version, keeping the design much simpler and much more cohesive. I also tried to keep the shape language throughout these designs relatively similar, using softer and rounded shapes and patterns throughout. This is evident in places such as the hair, where instead of using sharp edges and strands I made them more rounded and soft to give the design a sweet and cute feeling to it!

I created 6 more refined concepts, keeping the outfit the same as I was happy with it but changing things such as her had and hat/head accessory as I was unsure which looked best. I wanted to experiment with making her hair also look like a waffle/dessert, and made a few concepts with her hair resembling syrup, the top of the cream on the waffle images i used as references, and strawberries too. I also tried a few variants with a waffle hat as well to tie the whole theme throughout the outfit as her head felt too empty without some form of accessory.

After reviewing my concepts, I decided to colour 4 of the ones i liked the best out of my 6 total. I decided not to colour the version with strawberry accessories, or the version with the syrup hair and the messy bun as one felt too simple and lacking and the other felt too cluttered. I messed around with the colours, using my original concept as a starting point but slightly altering and changing things to make the design look more cohesive and work well together. I also slightly adjusted some of the colours to be warmer and work better with the browns in the colour palette, as opposed to the original sketch colours that felt too strong against each other. The difference was subtle but I think it makes a lot of difference in the overall final feel.

I also created a slightly different colour palette variant of the waffle hat and syrup design (bottom left and right) to see which would look better. Ultimately I decided i like the pink better than the brown shirt as the brown blended too well into the sleeves and made the design feel busier.

Feedback

After creating these 5 coloured concepts, I needed to ask for feedback and opinions on my designs. I wanted to gather others opinions on my designs to know which one to use for my final design or if there were things I should changed.

(These screenshots were taken before my coloured concepts. The numbers are in reference to the colourless line art designs not the final versions.)
I asked a few of my friends what their opinions were on each of these hairstyles, and got pretty opposite results. One said that the the asymmetrical design with the syrup hair looked the best, and other said the simpler short hair with the strawberry headband looked best. However, both did mention brining the syrup design in in some way, which I will take into consideration.


I also conducted a poll via my Instagram story, where I asked which hairstyles and final designs people liked the best. I chose the 4 designs I thought were the best and let the poll up for 24 hours and got 138 responses'. 
Overall, the most popular designs were 3 and 4, two of the simpler styles. Personally, those two were also my favourite designs as I felt that despite being simpler, they worked better.

I also received some feedback about the silhouette and overall design of number 3! Personally, I agreed with what this person said and felt that design 3 was a bit more unique and fun to look at. However, I also had to think about how difficult it would be to model. Since I liked both design 3 and 4 and 4 was the most popular anyway, I decided design 4 would be the best to go with. I felt that while i preferred design 3, Modelling a detailed hat that resembled a waffle and a messy bun for the hairstyle might be a be too time consuming and complex. I want my model to be more detailed than my previous work, and I felt that the hairstyle of 4 would be easier for that.

Final Designs

Here is the final design I ended up going with! I really like this design and am glad this is what i went with, as I feel that it is the most cohesive and works the best. Her hairstyle and accessory isn't too overbearing and complex drawing away from the rest of her design. I also think the cream and bows on her hair tie the whole design together. I think that the colours also work well together and are nice to look at! I'm excited to begin creating a model for her!

I also created a orthographic/turnaround sheet for her. Her design is relatively symmetrical except for the design on her socks, So I only drew one side view as the other would be the same. I drew this version with her arms outwards so that they were not covered by her big skirt, and also added a back view. To make sure everything matched up and looked proportionate to the front facing design, I constantly referenced and made sure certain things such as the skirt and hair etc were the same length!

Here is my finalised design sheet which I will be creating my model around. I am excited to work on her, and practice my 3D modelling skills much further. I tried to keep her design relatively simple, which I think i did an okay job at. The main complexities of her design come from the patterns which will be textured onto her clothing anyways and the frills on her sleeves, but I'm excited to practice and model her!