My Character designs for Frank

Using the reference images Chris gave me I came up with my interpretation of the character. I spent some time sculpting some Zbrush busts of the character to get an idea of the facial features. This will hopefully give the character some appeal. I focused on the large eyebrows and stylized jawline like the one the wolverine had. I wanted to get the facial features right before I got bogged down with the main body of the character. By creating these character busts I was able to adjust their features quickly and easily according to Chris's instructions. This would save huge amounts of time when designing the character. I referred to Chris's drawings for reference to reach a middle ground between his designs and the reference images. Here are some of those sculpts.

Looking at all the character busts I am definitely more happy with the most recent designs. This is due to a couple of reasons. While going through the development stage I picked up some new techniques and also looked at real human beings to understand the structure of the face. With the basic knowledge of how muscle tone and bone structure affect the facial features I was able to create more interesting and stylized concepts. Looking at the earlier concepts they lack character appeal and the first one looks a bit to heavy. Taking the advice of the director as well as several students I began to focus on character appeal.

There was a lot of trial an error in coming up with the right facial expressions and build for the character but as I gained more insight into how the face works as well as Zbrush itself I was able to create better quality images. I can defiantly see a progression throughout the process. Not only was this a good exercise in character design but also in understanding the program of Zbrush itself. Although I have a long way to go i can definitely see some improvement here. A large part of Zbrush is experimentation as well as knowing what tools to use and where to locate them. Once you have the right tool for the job it makes the whole sculpting process far easy and you can produce better quality work.

The most recent images I had produced lacked the character appeal I was looking for and there was no sense of desperation on the characters face. The facial expressions would sell the character, so it was important to get this aspect right. The process took some time, however the zbrush allowed me to make changes easily according to the specifications of the director.

Although my first images were undesirable, they were necessary in my development in both character design as well as understanding the program.