Entry 7: Overlord Work

In this post I'll be showing the work that I have done so far for the Overlord.

So basically the Overlord is a huge monster that bosses around the other minions and makes them gather the fear from humans for him, in order to give him power and gain access to the human world.

However, the Overlord is so huge, only his eyeballs will appear before the playable character. Since i got assigned the task of designing, I started by doing thumbnail designs of various eyeball concepts.

As you can see I experimented with different sized irises shapes and vein designs. I wanted to make sure their was a lot of variety to play around with, and also to give the team a lot to chose from. Each team member had different favorite eyeballs, which in the end got whittled down to the first concept, however giving the eyeball the ability to morph into some of the other shapes I had created.

With this decided on I quickly created simple 3D models of eyeballs in 3DS MAX. I originally tried to create yes based off my own idea and workflow, but found that they didn't work particularly well. Also, I wasn't sure how to model the outer eyelid in case we ever needed one.

So after this stage I decided to look up a few tutorials to do get a better idea as to how to model it properly. The results came out a lot better than my first attempt did. To make an eyelid all you need to do is create a sphere, select the slice modifier, and angle it as you want it to be.

After this was done I started trying out manipulating the eyeballs shape into a evil expression. I also made an eyeball as if it had be freshly plucked out of someones socket.

I was also told to create a series of eyeballs with different shaped iris in order to test animation target morphing techniques. So I created a series of 10 eyeballs, one set in low poly, and the other set in high poly, so that the animators could have selection work with.

I sent them the files, but in the end it was discovered that there were some issues with vertex ID's, so the animators are working on a solution and will get back onto me as to what's to be done next.

So with the 3D Model on hold for a little while, I decided to create a final concept for the Overlord in the setting of his HUB world. Since we don't have a established environment a design for the hub world, I decided to design my own set piece based off the selection of images from our design documentation.

Step 1

 For the first attempt in Photoshop I drew up a very basic scene which includes the overlord, the monsters and some scenery. I didn't really like the composition of the piece and was using it more as a rough first draft rather than a proper set construction piece.

Step 2

 So for the second iteration I focused more on the images from the design doc, got a rough idea in my head, and drew it out in a red color brush. I did this so that when I draw over it in black, I can still see how the original looked, and change it up as appropriate.

The idea for the scene was a rocky pathway leading into the distance towards a giant rising tower, where the overlords eyes would look angrily down upon the monster before him.

Step 3 

For this step I focused on the main pathway and the two pillars either side of it in the foreground. I mainly made use of reference from a skeleton temple artwork from the game Darksiders 2. I used a different concept piece for the rocky, jagged path. I also added in stone touches, so that when I get to the colouring stage it will help to add a little atmosphere to this piece. 

Note how the red construction lines our still in place and noticeable, showing you how they both work together and changing with the design at the same time. 

Step 4

 For this step I added in the main pillar for the middle ground. For its lower center I added in a small door to make it look like the corridor stretches on for a long time. The design again mainly inspired by the darksiders concept art. In addition I added in the background pillars to give the piece a sense of depth and work out the basic components.

Step 5

For the last step in this post, i added in the background pillars and the bridges that connect them up to the main tower. In addition roughly added in where the overlords eyeballs will be, although their size may change depending on how much of the background I want to display. But for now their current size give them the sense of menace and imposing nature that I've been aiming for.

For the next blog I will most likely be showing a mixture of further work to this concept piece, as well as the NPC turnarounds, and possible 3D development on the Puppet Master. 

Entry 6: NPC Character work

This blog entry is a little late due to deadlines in other modules as well as this one. For this blog entry I will be presenting the work that I produced for the NPC Mum and Dad characters.

Sticking with the look from Grabbed by the Ghoulies, I drafted up rough colored versions for both parents. The look I was going for was a disgruntled parent who has just woken up to check on disturbances in the house that have woken up their children. Their tired, grumpy, and want to go back to sleep as soon as possible. 

For the dad, I wanted to really go for the tired look. Bags under the eyes, a cheesy shirt they quickly put on, and a pair of mismatched slippers that he slipped on. He's also got a mug of tea in hand to motivate his search. Alongside this criteria I wanted to stick to the general colour palette of blues, green and purple hues that we decided upon within the art bible. I produced 4 variants of the work to get a little variety for him, giving him different styled clothes, weapons, slippers and mugs to play around with. 

For the mother I had a much stronger idea of how I wanted her to look. I looked up online reference for the dressing gown, applied a few colour schemes, a drew them up. I wanted a tired, action mum, ready to beat up any monster on sight. I also followed the same idea that I used for the dad and did variations to elements like the weapons and slippers. 

When these were done I showed them to my team. For the dad they wanted the top half of the thrid design, combined with the bottom half of the first design, but having the cat slippers with a pink colour scheme instead. For the Mum the 1st design was quickly chosen, and with this done I went on to create a concept with both of them in it together. 

This next section explains the process I went through to create this piece.

Step 1

 To start with I drew out the rough poses for where I wanted all the elements to be in the scene. I wanted Mum and Dad next to each other in order to give a sense of unity and defense. I also decided to include the monsters to give a sinister feel to the piece, but also to show what they are actually looking for, hiding behind the door waiting to cause chaos.

I used a general size 13-20 brush with a 74% opacity to work out the basic posing, not worrying too much about the neatness of it all and more about getting the construction lines into the scene.

Step 2

 In the next stage I drew up the rough outlining for the characters, and then neatened them up. Obviously as you can see parts didn't match up so I readjusted and moved the designs around as needed. I also changed the positioning of the monsters, due to the fact I was drawing them purely in black, and the silhouette looked a little off with one sitting on the others head.

For this step I changed to brush to a smaller size of 3-5 with opacity ranging fromk 50 to 84%. This was done in order to get the finer details into the linework. Also putting the characters and monsters lineart on separate layers made it easier to edit and move each part around the concept.

Step 3

Generally happy with this I went on to colour in the scene. I started off with roughly 3-5 selected hues to paint each area in, but then as I went along mixed it up to suit the shading where needed. I also looked at real life objects, like for example with the mum her dressing gown and rolling pin weapon, in order to get their colours correct. I decided the light source would be coming in from the top let, but not too strong so as to completely lose detail in the work. For the door I colour picked from a image reference and played with it from there.

For this scene I used brush sizes ranging from 10-20  for the bigger details and 5-8 for the smaller details. This helped to give me a variety when it came to painting in details for certain areas.

Step 4

 All this step required was to provide a thick outline for the parents. I used a size 8 brush with a solid 100% opacity. I also rubbed out parts of the lines in order to keep the outline shape flowing nicely.

Step 5

For the final stage I added in panels to the top and bottom in order to focus the scene on the parents and monsters. I added shadows to give everything a grounding, added a light colour to the background, and finally added my signature to the artwork to finish it off. 

I've since uploaded it to my AGD group page and have had it approved for our presentation on Tuesday.

For the next blog entry I will show the work that I have done so far on the Overlord character, who rules over the playable character monsters in the game.