BA2 & BA5: Digital Sculpture. Character Design Brief: Seven Virtues

The Seven Virtues. 

1. Chastity (Castitas)

Purity,knowledge,honesty,wisdom. Vice: Lust.

2. Temperance (Temperantia) 

Self control,justice,honour,abstention. Vice: Gluttony.

3. Charity (Caritas)

 Will,benevolence,generosity,sacrifice. Vice: Greed.

4. Diligence (Industria)

 Persistence,effort, ethics,rectitude. Vice: Sloth.

5. Patience (Patientia)

 Peace,mercy,ahimsa,sufferance. Vice: Wrath.

6. Kindness (Humanitas)

 Satisfaction,loyalty,compassion,integrity. Vice: Envy.

7. Humility (Humilitas)

 Bravery,modesty,reverence,altruism. Vice: Pride.

Here are the seven virtues and the traits for each of them. After looking at each Virtue and the traits I'd have to embody within my character I decided to personify Temperance as it has the more sublime traits I believed would be a challenge to portray. 

Temperance.

Wikipedias' definition. 

Temperance is the espousal of moderation, marked by personal restraint. It has been studied by religious thinkers, philosophers, and more recently, psychologists, particularly in the positive psychology movement. Upheld as a virtue throughout time and across cultures, it was one of the cardinal virtues in Greek philosophy, being believed that no virtue could be sustained in the face of inability to control oneself, if the virtue was opposed to some desire, and was subsequently incorporated in the Catholic catechism's Seven heavenly virtues. It is also one of the six main categories of the VIA character strengths. Temperance is generally defined by control over excess, so that it has many such classes, such as abstinence, chastity, modesty, humility,prudence, self-regulation, forgiveness and mercy; each of these involves restraining some impulse, such as sexual desire, vanity, or anger.

Representation of temperance (painted wood sculpture) dated 1683

Temperance in the Tarot.

A selection of Temperance portrayals within Tarot Cards. I've always found Tarot cards fascinating in the way they personify an event or a single word. Be it death or jealousy, any human trait can be embodied within an image in Tarot Cards.

Initial Ideas.

Below is a list of Ideas I've gathered to portray within my character and to, maybe, further research.

Temperance Character Traits.

·          No Gender…shows sexual abstinence. An empty shell.

·         Honour, Honour of the sword. An Honour Sword?

·         Justice, Stereotypical symbol: Scales.

·         Self-Control, calm statuesque character.

·         Calm face all the time.

·         Tarot shows cups, passing of water between cups. Shows purity and balance, as the         scales do. Another sign of justice.

·         Judge Wig, wore by people who apply justice.

·         Armour with robes, god-like.

·         Justice/Abstinence through religion??

·         Chains, bound by abstinence and Chains of Justice.

·         Statue of liberty, symbol of Justice and Law.

·         Personal restraint.

·         Greek philosophy?

Photo references/Research

For the first few photos I looked through my list and gathered images of some of the props and ideas I'd had.

The Sword Image below is a sword from the film and book trilogy 'Sword of Honour' which was about a soldiers experience during world war 2. For my sword however I would keep the blade sheathed as it is a virtue and I want it to look non-aggressive and calm.

Next I looked at game concepts of Gods and Judges (more to come)

Below are the gods from Guild wars 2, I liked how each one is a portrayal of its traits and powers.

Next I looked at the judges from Final Fantasy 12. The judges in this are heavily clad in Armour which was something I wanted my design to have to show no humanity, an empty un-bias shell. I also like the decorative, divine like design within there armour. Another thing that 

brought me to look at this was the obvious connection of Judges.

Then I got some images of more divine, heavenly artwork. This was to follow on from the very obvious religion theme across the virtues.

After looking at these it started me thinking about other religious orientated fantasy characters. I thought to look at 'Paladans' (a class in many fantasy genres of games). Paladans are  warriors to the gods, they use heavenly powers of the divine and light to battle what they consider the 'forces of evil and darkness.'  I felt this applied well to the virtues as they're the counters to the 7 sins.

Paladans

I looked at various portrayals of Paladans to see whether I could use any concepts within my design of Temperance.

Alchemy Silhouettes.

I wanted to try out Alchemy as was a new program to me and I figured it would be a quick way to create unique and wild silhouettes. For these I turned on Mirror, opacity and I also turned on blindness so the silhouettes where completely un-influenced by me. This allowed me to create shapes and ideas I would've never came up with by myself for challenging and interesting designs.

For the last 2 I turned off the mirror function as I thought trying something less symmetrical would come up with new results.

Alchemy proved to be a very efficient way of coming up with some really interesting Ideas for a character. The blindness function really helped make it more a creative process rather than a strategic silhouetting. 

Alchemy Values

I chose a few of my favourite Alchemy silhouettes to start adding some value and roughly outline any props and details.

Value 01

Value02

Value03

I'm relatively happy with the outcomes, however they're all a little too sinister for the image I want to portray within Temperance. I also need to add legs to all of them as the way my alchemy silhouettes came out rendered my designs legless. Value 2 and 3 are my preferred ones, next I'll look into designing armour, props and accessories to make it more Temperance themed and a less sinister apparel. I'm thinking of adding masks to cover the strange, non-gendered being beneath. I was told the Ideas I've been having and have been adding within my values resembled influences from the enemies within the game 'Bayonetta.'

Bayonetta 

After being told my ideas could take influence from Bayonetta I decided to research into the game. I'd never seen anything from Bayonetta and after researching the enemies I realised this mutated being beneath an angelic shell could really influence my work. Below I found a boss design I liked and discovered it was also called 'Temperantia' (the Latin of Temperance).

Life Drawings (Part one)

Photoshop Rough Silhouettes. 

I done another few scribbles in Photoshop to form loose silhouettes. These where a bit less blind to me and came out with much more similar results, which I felt left me with not much in the way of unique, imaginative results. As such I chose to value the most jagged one with lots of access lines as I thought it could become the more interesting result. 

Photoshop Values

Here's the silhouette I chose. It took me a lot of imagination to think of what could go where within the scribble and it made it a very fun challenge to value. 

The jug-like water feature on the back and the chains I wanted to include within my character reminded me of a summons (esper) from the game 'final fantasy 12' called Famfrit. This summon is the water element characterised, within the game its said it's a creation by the 'Judges' I studied earlier and it carries a large jug on a chain upon it's shoulder as well as being heavily armoured and ornate. The large jug can be associated with the cups, a very large part of Temperance within religion and Tarot. 

Famfrit Study. 

Life Drawings (part 2)

After lothars' outside drawing session of studying the water I decided to do some of my own life drawings whilst out and about. I done a very quick sketch ( had to be quick as sun was almost gone and train was moving..a lot) of a sunset outside the train window on my way to Cambridge for valentines weekend. Whilst at Cambridge I done another quick sketch of a dagger from the Fitzwilliam museum. The Fitzwilliam has some really interesting medieval warfare items, it's a very good place to study interesting props and armours. 

STOP! C-S Time. (Can't touch this)

I done a rough MindMap to show which roles effect each other, mainly based around the 3D modellers job. I really learnt a lot about how roles work within industry during my research, I had no knowledge about industry before and had no idea about how many 'cogs' made up the 'game creating machine' (metaphor). Here's the MindMap all ready to present in a CS lecture for Sharon. 

Accessory and Prop Studies.

I took my favourite value study and worked on some more Temperance appropriate armour pieces and accessories. I took the cup theme, the most prominent feature of Temperance, and applied to pieces of my character. 

I wanted a more heavenly mask for my character so I took what I'd studied from Bayonetta and applied it to a mask. I added etched stitching to show that behind the mask the creature is a silent and controlled being. I then decided to make a gully down the face and I'll have water flowing from the top of the horns down and into the cup in his hands. I also added a water feature to the shoulder-piece, this was to try to show the passing of water between cups.

Final (rough) Value

I took the accessories and put them on my favourite value. I'm much happier with the feel of this then the original value. It's more a calm presence and the flow of water and cups theme I think makes it a bit more noticeable as temperance.

Finished Temperance Design.

After the values where all sorted, I jumped into Zbrush and started having a play around with concepts to see what I could realistically achieve within the program. I found out I didn't have to make my design as simple as I originally thought so re-designed my virtue a little. This is a sketch of my final Design. 

I tried to heavily outlined the cup theme within my design, which was a big part of Temperance in the Tarot. I've added chains to the cup to show being chained by self control, the cup is almost this hollow creatures life-force and the water that flows through it  and around the being is its blood. He has very little stumpy legs similar to Famfrit and is very top heavy, I've done this to show the beings great self control in balance. The very straight face Indicates inner piece and no mouth shows silence, another self controlling trait. I added some etchings on the armour for that divine, virtuous look, and I tried to create the same feel with the cloth in the way it now flows. I made the horns of the being a less harsh, more rounded shape and generally rounded up the whole character to create a less violent outcome. I haven't added the water to the design as that's something I'd add at the end of the sculpt over it and don't want the water to take away the details beneath the water or get in the way of the sculpt itself.

Colour Studies. 

Now I've settled on a final design I decided to test out some colour options and a range of themes. I tried to use some complementary colours in my designs and looked at colours based off paladins and crusaders. I wanted to use very 'good' and virtuous colours for the outfits. But a more 'monstrous' colour scheme for the horns and underneath of armour. I also wanted to include colours associated with water. 

Model Sheet.
From my colour studies my favourite colour scheme was the gold and blue look, however I liked the idea of incorporating the purple trims and platinum colours within my final. I pieced together the first and second study and here's what I came out with. 

ZSpheres!!

Started sculpting out the basic shape of my character using the zsphere function.

Sculpt01.

I then started the sculpting process in Zbrush. This is the outcome (Shame I had no process pictures but my undo history got lost somewhere along the way.)

I'm pretty happy with my outcome however I don't like the cape on the back and I feel I should add some extra details within the model, particularly the shoulder plates and the belt. I think I'll try to do a less covering back design using the chain theme and maybe some little cages to show control and inner captivity within the being. 

Sculpt02.

Thankfully I had enough time to carry on making adjustments to my sculpt so I made adjustments to the issues I had with Sculpt01. I added a satchel to the belt and re-done the back design. I also added some gems socketed into the shoulder plates and a few extra engravings and details. I also painted and assigned materials to my design. This is pretty much my final outcome now, All I would like to add is a base and the water is a necessity. 

Final outcome In Statue Form. 

After going to the Fitzwilliam museum and studying the marbel statues I really liked the way they looked and thought it'd be interesting to have my model in a statue form. Below is a picture I took from the museum of a very clean statue which was the look I tried to achieve in mine. 

I added the final touches and am really happy with my outcome. Having never used Zbrush before or having any real knowledge of 3D it was a real experience and a lot of fun learning all the tools and producing a finalised 3D model.

Final Outcome Video.

 I set up some lighting and created a transparent render on the water and here's the finish product. This is my turntable of the model, all rendered.