Weapons Research

For this next character i'm going to mix it up a bit and design the character based off weapon designs, this was a method i looked into at the start of my project when looking at how developers like Riot games create their characters. I never made a specific area that would be based off this method so i makes sense to implement it as a trial method during my visual design section.

So far i have been designing character concepts and adding a weapon i thought looked appropriate, i never put that much thought into the weapons as they were pretty much just window dressing giving a some visual cues. The weapons would be more fleshed out in the final concept anyway but this method may yield some interesting results and will be a nice change in the meantime.

So first i gathered a bunch of images showing weapons from various cultures and time periods, i got a historical warriors book of a tutor a while back which made me think of looking at more historical weapons opposed to modern, it also seemed more appropriate because my characters are supposed to be warriors of varying degrees pulled from their worlds and times.

The character i am creating now that this weapon will inspire is also intended to be a historical character, she started off as a kind of pirate but i don't want to constrain it to just a pirate as pirates often look kind of naff when you take them out of their setting.

Speed concepting

In an attempt to test some speed methods during concept creation and part of the feedback from my latest peer presentation i took my original character silhouette for character 3 and gave myself 15 minutes to get as far as i could in developing the silhouette using my colouring and line art method against the painting method.

I really don't have a talent for painting, i can do it paint in shapes and put in some basic lighting but as soon as i need to put details in i just don't know how. If i go through this method it will have a better sense of depth, as that is what lighting does but i really don't enjoy it and i don't think there's much of a benefit to it,  i don't have the skill to follow up so the end result is this mussy detail-less blob. I will paint the end results as i want them to have a better sense of texture and depth but unless i can find a way to mix the two in a fast process that doesn't just look like i drew on a max of messy grey blobs i don't see me using this method.

Design Character 2 concept

This is my cleaned up and finished concept for my second design character, from the previous thumbnail designs i picked number 5 to develop and incorporate elements from the other thumbnails. I tried to mix the wasteland look and the sci-fi elements from design number 5. I got feedback in my interim presentation yesterday and i agree with what people said. This design got a little too far away from the wasteland side of the other designs and went a little too far with the sci-fi elements. Now i like the helmet, it looks good and functions as a kind of rebreather since the character has gone from damaged air which his body has become used to, into this new alien air which is much cleaner. The helmet with it's gas mask qualities makes the new air breathable to this character. If this character get's chosen i will develop him slightly to look more like he came from a damaged wasteland.

Next is character 3 which i am currently making concept thumbnails for, this character has so far been based of of a character coming from the pirate era and being thrown into this new world. My only reservation is that i have seen pirate characters in other MOBA games and i have never liked their designs. I've done some research to help with the thumbnails which i will show in another post one they are done. I will at that point assess how the character is looking and if i may want to change the direction.

Character 2 development thumbnails

Here are my development thumbnails for design character 2. As always i kept the first design pretty similar to the original and then went in other directions for the other 4 concepts. 

I quite like the unusual stature of character 1, he's that kind of strange misfit junkyard guy. All of his weapons will have either been made from scraps, salvaged or rudimentary weaponry. I would like to change up the shapes in the characters i use, introducing some slightly less average looking people would be good but i don't want them to just look completely out of place amongst the other characters.

Character 2 is a little more traditional in size, he is the kind of wastelander, scavenger warrior type character,  all of these character branch from the junkyard aesthetic of the original concept. I think this character is one of the more visually interesting out of the 5, i think he could be developed well but at the moment i think he may look a little too cliche. He is definitely a contender for my pick out of these but i may just take some elements to create a new final concept or incorporate other design elements into this one.

Character 3 is my least favourite out of the 5, it was the last one i made and as always it's my least favourite and frankly the one that looks the worst. This design really has nothing going for itself and i won't be using it. I was attempting to ad another character with a different body type  but he just looks deformed.

Character 4 is a slightly more interesting one, though a bit confused at the moment i think. He has the whole scrapyard warrior thing going on but also this mechanic kind of look with the pockets, baggy pants and wrench. I quite like the shapes that the character has but wouldn't take his forward as he is.

Character 5 is an odd one, i really like the large coat and the kind of gruff, raw, semi futuristic look he as going on but i really don't like the helmet, it looks way too Daft Punk. I do like the crude weapon though, just a chunk of scrap on a chain.  This character would need work but i do like it.