Zbrush Personal Project (Valzythe Character Creation)

So...Project Hand In. Now what? 

I really enjoyed using Zbrush and furthered my skills in the program an awful lot throughout the project, However my final outcome was something very crazy and I figured it'd be more a challenge to produce a person with very realistic elements. So I set myself the task of creating a 'super realistic' character. 

Personal Project.

I've always had a personal avatar as my 'on line identity' since I first started designing armours. This was known as Vozzlak but has been changed over the years to Valzythe. For this project I want to design a super realistic version of this Personal Character to be 3D modelled and used to re-claim some on line presence with a, now dead, game design name. 

Step 1.

I've had a rough idea of a armour design I wanted to create for a while now so I went to put these ideas on paper but I soon realised my anatomy and proportions aren't so great from the top of my head and I don't want to keep using on line templates for my designs. I sat down on line and I studied a bit of proportions and Anatomy and I done myself a reference page in my sketch book. Here's my outcome (it's rather rough and not 100% but it'll greatly help me in the future.)

Research Time. 

After a trip to Cambridge and the Fitzwilliam museum I found out a lot more about the way armour plating works and that medieval warfare was far more elaborate then I had thought. I knew after seeing such great wonders that I wanted to include the realisticness (Making up words now) of all the plates and I also really liked all the hinges, straps and buckles all over the armours. I'd also been playing dark souls and really appreciated the realism of the armour in that game, it added a feel to your character not many fantasy games have. I looked on line at some armour designs and (as not allowed to take photos in the Fitzwilliam) I used what I could remember/ learnt from the Items in the museum.

Also Some (beautiful) Dark Souls 2 Concept Art. 

 The Ideas Behind The Design. (Brief History)

I first started getting really into character design years ago and I've had, for almost as many years as I've been designing properly (on flash), a personal avatar. This started out as 'Vozzlak' and never really had a unique look until I started creating a personal look to me. I've always liked the assassin types and magic (particularly the blink spell) so I took the 'spellcloak' idea from 'Kingdoms Of Amular, The Reckoning' and applied that class to my own, personal character. Below is a design history of 'Vozzlak'. 

First Vozzlak Concepts (Un-themed)

First Ever Flash Drawing. (Vozzlak Concept 01)

Next was an animation. (Vozzlak Concept 02)

The Start of Themed 'Vozzlak'. 

Started getting towards a settled design. (Vozzlak Concept 03, never finished)

Developed on this design in a new style. This was a design for the website of a game I was working on, the end image was used as my profile picture for posting design updates on the thread. The website was completely designed by me but I didn't see the point in paying for it when it was up for renew-ell so unfortunately it is now gone. (Vozzlak Concept 04, Again...never finished.)

'Vozzlak' now 'Valzythe'!?!

I'd had a good run with flash and learnt pretty much all I could from the program. I knew I wanted to get somewhere so wanted more diversity. I'd seen some very nice concept art so I thought I'd give photoshop painting a go as I knew this would come in handy. I also wanted to get out of 2D games and into 3D games for a more secure future and just to know as much as possible. The change of styles and new direction also brought about the change of Vozzlak. I decided A: the name was too friendly and B: I hadn't been doing any armour designs for a while (blame full time work) so my on line identity had pretty much disappeared. This was a chance for me to come back to designing with a new outlook, direction and finally a new (improved) On line Identity. And so the birth of 'Valzythe'! I done a new design in the style of 'Fable 2'.

(Valzythe Concept 01) Oh, Look. Once again...it's un-finished.))

And Another design, this one took influence from 'Torchlight 2' and I tried to include that style in my sketches. I also concentrated on a dagger design that I could use for Valzythe throughout the years. I believe this dagger design will stick, obviously there'll be a few variants as time goes on the dagger will 'Evolve'.

(Valzythe Concept 02, Sketches)

Designing, Finally. 

So with my proportions improved and head filled to bursting with studies and ideas I cracked on with the design. The design got more and more added as I sketched it out in my sketchbook and this is my finally rough sketch. (You may notice random doodles round the edge of some details and parts I wanted to see more of or correct how they'd work in 3D. )

Digital Design Process.

Once the Sketch was done it was time to start the design on Photoshop. I chose to put him in a slightly more dynamic pose and have been improving the proportions of my character. I will eventually have a finished model sheet for me to then sculpt in Zbrush. Here's the rough digital sketch so far. 

I'll be posting progress as I go more for this personal project as I want people to see the design processes I went through and so I can refer back to it whenever. 

Progress.

I added some more details in the digital painting then the hand sketch. I decided to add a sword to the character and integrated a strapped on sheath into the original belt design. I also added a different design for the random trinkets hanging off below the fur covered shoulder and basically tried to make everything as realistic as possible in the way it's all held together. I also done a concept for a optional helm the character can wear and showed how the upper part of the boots attach and detach to my character. I'm really happy with my progress and am feeling ambitious about what's to come. 

After briefly showing how the leg armour held together I thought It'd be best to show how the gauntlet worked as the forearm piece of it looks unusual in the way it stays on. I also liked the idea of designing some of the pieces of armour in separate parts as it'll help my understanding for the modelling process.

Sometimes, less is more.

I looked back at my design and decided it was almost 'cluttered' with information and details and there was almost too much going on for it to be a clean final design. I removed a lot of the details and I decided the random design around the 'V' buckles was unnecessary and took away from the main 'V' theme. The belt is far less a clutter and allows more clear components and the 'V' to stand out. I also wanted to make the fabric look like woven cloth, the metal to be nicely tarnished and to focus on surface textures so I removed many of the etchings, as they where too large anyway. This allows me to focus more on the texture detail within the armour and not have so much pointless detail get in the way. 

Further Development. 

I really liked the look of the helm so I decided to place the helm on the design and see what it would look like. I was pretty happy with the results but I've always been a fan of that emotionless, faceless mask look and it's something that has been persistent throughout all my Vozzlak/Valzythe designs. Due to this I decided to remove the nose piece and keep it a straight mask, the main focus of the design is a hood and mask look but within a single helm. I will however look into some nice texturing and maybe some battle damage/wear into the mask along with the rest of the armour. 

A Few Variations Later... (Belts!)

I decided there was still too much clutter in the belts, they looked messy and I didn't like that (not one bit). So I decided to try out a few variants in belt designs. Already having done a few variants on this character to start with I'm hoping this will be the final piece that I feel needs adjusting. I took the original design (left) and started cleaning it up, first with a design themed similar to the belt and then with something a bit more realistic and practical. I also added some throwing daggers to the design I was most happy with.

I think I'm all settled on the final belt design and I should really get on with this before I end up having to run this side project along too much set project work. For the model sheet I shall make the belt ring slightly thicker though. 

"At Last"

Zbrush Practise

Zspheres

Before I started on this project I done a few tests using the zsphere function in zbrush. I sculpted them a little, but most of them are un-complete. The primary function of this practise was to produce something that could be sculpted on to easily produce what I was after more than coming up with a final model. I started with something a little crazy and un-planned, the idea was to just add spheres and see what happens. My next one I had a character in my head, I thought could be easily made via zspheres, and wanted to see if I could re-produce it. I then went on to a character with weird proportions and using subtools of Zspheres to add winding vines and details on-top of it. Then finally I wanted something a bit challenging so tried to scuplt something with several arms. This process really allowed me to learn a lot about zbrush and how zspheres can be used to easily create a rough character for you to work on. 

Spider Test. 

Nights Test. 

Golem Test.

Demon Test.