The Teahouse

These are some of the final images from my UDK level that I've spent the last months producing. I feel as though I've kept to the concepts I've had well, as well as the colour palette I wanted to keep true to. I don't feel as any of the colours stand out against the each other. I've kept the colour palette pale, gentle, and atmospheric. I've also managed to make my own trees, as well as provide blossom particle systems for them. Now when the level plays, blossom petals fall from the flowers on the trees and land on the ground below.

Final character

Here are the final images for my character design. I have the blueprints, the final image and a character sheet. I've kept the blueprints overly simple so they can be open to interpretation in theory to other designers. The colour-scheme has been set in stone, however. It's something I've provided on the character sheet, along with variations of her hair and helmet. In the end I gave her a softer expression, and kept her outfit a lot more simple than I had initially planned. Overall I'm quite pleased with the final results, as I feel I've given done the concept justice. I've managed to keep to the brief, as well as quirks I wanted the character to have, such as dark hair, cat eyes, pale skin, Egyptian symbols, and as a pyromancer.

Further Character Development

This is where I've begun to take on a painterly style whilst drawing up further concepts for my character. Here I'm already carefully considering colour schemes for my Egyptian theme. I'm careful not to make the colours too bright, and take into consideration the smaller details such as cat eyes, her Pyromancer skills and her armour. I haven't decided on which colour of fire she'll wield yet. On the last image, I've already started to draft up the final image that'll represent my character. I've decided on a dynamic pose as I feel this will help get across her personality more. I also feel that by showing her in action it's more believable and her character will feel more real.

Grass UDK

The texture for the floor was something that I was particular proud of. The image consists of over six layers, combined to give the illusion of a grassy floor, with mud, rocks, daisies, and some areas dryer than others. I had to use my tablet to give the areas around the mud a softer look, and drop shadows were needed to give the illusion of depth. I've also used bevel on the rock areas to highlight where the rock might be sharper, as I feel this will help the bump map to bring it to life, which I feel it did in the end. However, despite the size of the image, the tiling can be seen clearly within the level, so I'll have focus on adding ground clutter afterwards.

Cubie Final Piece

This is my final Paper Craft template that I've printed out and made. I've kept the design of the outfit simple overall and true to the colours of the Spellbreaker uniform. I've also made ears for the piece, as well as allocated extra slice slots for them to be fitted where the ears should be. I've tried to base this design off how I think I'd look as a Paper Craft child. I've kept the freckles, skin tone, and hair colour vaguely the same. The eyes, however, have to be green. Because Blood Elves are dependant on fel energies to survive and stop themselves from decaying massively, their eyes across the whole city have taken on a shade of verdant green.

Cubie Inspiration

For my paper craft child I've decided to focus on Spellbreakers, which are a elite class within World of Warcraft. They are a race speciality class. Spellbreakers are a warrior class that wear cloth armour and robes. They fight with a wall shield, and a glaive. This glaive is magical and the Spellbreaker can throw, before resummoning the blade with precision into his hand. Spellbreakers are also immune to magic, which makes them the best anti mage class in the whole of World of Warcraft. They also have the abilities that a mage would have. They can teleport, blink, cast fire and arcane based spells. They are also very versatile and deadly, yet cannot hold well against a warrior class. Spellbreakers became extinct in an earlier expansion, and only in the more recent one have they made themselves known again.

I'm going to be focusing on recreating the colour palette within the robes. The red, green, and golds are very patriotic to the race of Blood Elves. In the game World of Warcraft, the Spellbreaker doesn't exist, but the Warcraft II model is my prime example. The closest look to Spellbreakers can we find in game as reference is the Royal Guard within Silvermoon City.

Models Models Models

At this rate I've started texturing more of my assets and putting together my level. I'm not focusing on any particular area of my level, I just want to get the main bulk of the assets done. I'm still focusing on the bigger assets, rather than the detailed ones. Once again I'm still sticking to the same palette for my level, careful not to make any assets brighter than others.

Blocking Out The Level

I've starting blocking out my level at this point, taking to account how sizing will effect the end result. I can't afford to make the assets too big, as they'll stand out. At this point I've also starting making simple textures for the barrels, walls and flooring. I need them to share a harmonious palette so that one doesn't stand out any more than the others. I've also started to unwrap the main assets for the level so I can texture them at a later date. 

Lineart

Once again I've started looking at other inspirations for my character. I've started to pour over Egyptian themed films, as well as other comic books. The style I want to go after is comic book because I have a love for line arts. I also want to follow this through with the colouring aspect too. Below I've started to focus on different variations of the helmet and how I wanted her face to look.

Level Concepts

When first asked to create a level, and given a design brief, my first thoughts went to the Blizzard Entertainment and Wildstar art styles. I wanted to approach texturing very different to the next generation gaming realism, by hand painting the textures myself on Photoshop. I’d always admired the cartoon look, which echoed real life but was far from a replica of it. It almost meant I had a chance to study textures up close, such as wood, metals, grass, tree bark, and leaves. To get the textures close to realism, and yet keep them themed around other cartoon games, I had to make sure the textures were recognizable to the human eye as organic surfaces.

My biggest inspiration came from World of Warcraft’s most recent expansion, Mists of Pandaria, where the company chose to theme the new zones and armour on an oriental theme to appeal to their Asian market. This expansion also saw the upgrade of graphics and artists bringing HD textures to the assets, something that hadn’t been previously done. It’s clearer that the textures are painted when going through the expansion, and when I first discovered them I knew that this is what I wanted to do for my level. I wanted to recreate a calm garden atmosphere, and give the scene some soothing music that suits the oriental theme, much like World of Warcraft has done in places.

Wildstar, my next inspiration, is a much newer game that’s still in beta development and only a handful of players have access to. I’ve been following the development blogs for some time, as well as asking friends for screenshots for the game, so I can browse the textures within the game. The game has less detailed textures compared to World of Warcraft, but the style remains the same and the company have chosen to hand paint the textures. I love the bright colours feel and how the game also looks cartoony, compared to next generation graphics. It’s a style I prefer, and find easier to get enthusiastic about.

Concepts

These are the beginnings of my character concepts, I've started to explore Egyptian fashion and the different styling I could achieve by viewing what females once wore. I wanted to then combine this with super hero-esque fashion that Squirrel Girl and Super Woman wears in comic books.  Many of my earlier concepts aren't completely covered up, skin wise, but I've tried to achieve a unique look with each one. The outfit in the end will also need to be practical, but unique to a sci-fi environment.

Character Inspiration

When drafting up a character, I began to think about what sort of structure I wanted my Demi Goddess to have. My main inspiration for her figure was wonder woman, because of her athletic and powerful figure. However, I didn't want to follow the typical route of her wearing so little clothing. I've decided to give my character a full body suit because of this. I feel that it'd be more protection to begin with.

Night Elf Drawings

For the past few weeks I've been working on linearts of Night Elves, because they're a race I've been playing in World of Warcraft for six years. For these pieces, I was inspired to recreate the style of Alphonse Mucha who creates beautiful pieces of artwork of women. These were both only practice pieces, but I intend to continue my work and take it further at a later date. Some practice will help to further my skills and then when I get around to a final piece, I'll feel much more satisfied with it.

Character Concept Research

For my character concept project, I've chosen to work around the Egyptian Goddess Sekhmet. My reason for choosing this theme was because I'd never approached such a topic before and I thought it'd be a challenge. So, before I got started on drafting up concepts, I began with a profile to help me picture a brief outline of the character better.

Name: Halima Sanura (Egyptian for Gentle Kitten, which is Ironic considering she is a Priestess of War.)
Age: 1203
Profession: Pyromancer, High Priestess of the Temple of Mosque Greens.
Home: Temple of Mosque Greens

General appearance: She has long black, typical Egyptian hair. A fringe of some sort, long or straight - hasn't been decided as of yet. She'll have a stern expression, one that shows she takes her work very seriously. Since her Goddess is a cat, I've decided on cat eyes, something I think that'll suit her persona very well. I've already decided to style her clothing about historic Egyptian fashion rather than modern day. I also want to include Egyptian symbols throughout to show that she's passionate about her roots and also to show her dedication to her Goddess.

Personality: I know for a fact that she's going to have a stern personality, and a naturally fierce nature. She's spent so much time basing herself around war, that her first instincts aren't to be approachable, but merely diplomat. She deals with most issues swiftly and won't hesitate to strike down a traitor.

Drove All Night

This is the end result of my Citroen DS model that I've been working on for the past month. I've taken screenshots of every angle. I found that I really struggled with the technique at first, and it took several attempts to even get to a place that I was content with. I found that the bonnet and the rear end took up most of my time, as well as the lighting.