I have completed my character set up and this time, I will be looking for some reference drawings to complete the design and three views of my FMP project character.
A brief review of my FMP character set up.
FMP’s character design.
Name: Amodei
Gender: Female
Age: 22
Characteristics: Has a broken demon horn on her head
Character Backstory: Amodei was born into a tribe of demons. Amodei’s father is the chief of the demon tribe and uses his power to protect the tribe, and he has always taught Amodei to grow up as soon as possible so that she can take over the task of the chief. But Amodei prefers to be an adventurer, exploring the interesting things around her, and she doesn’t like to be tied down to anything, preferring to live a life of freedom. An enemy attack killed Amodei’s father and there was no one left to protect Amodei and her tribe, but Amodei grieves as she remembers her father telling her to grow up and defend her tribe. As she watched her tribe suffer, Amodei’s anger made her more powerful. As Amodei fought her enemies, she managed to repel all the attacking tribes, but she also lost one of her demon horns. The horn is the source of a demon’s power and with the loss, Amodei was no longer the strongest demon in the tribe. But Amodei realises her responsibility and is ready to take her tribe with her to find a new home.
I found some references:
Because I wanted to create an anti-hero character, the hallmark of (most) anti-heroes is that the character doesn’t look like a good guy or even like a villainous character. So I will focus more on designs that are more criminal or unjust for my material collection.
I will focus on the demon characters. I like the design part of the demon horns in this part of the reference artwork.
I think the second of these images is more appropriate for me to refer to the one-horned demon. I could design the character as if the hair covered the other side of the broken horn.
I really like the hair on this character. She has ornaments like cat ears on her hair. If I design a character that needs to hide the broken horn, I can use this hairstyle to help hide her weaknesses.
But worn hair can easily cause little problems for the character during their adventures. For example, tidying up their hair can become more of a problem. So I would prefer a neater hairstyle. (But I still want the character to have a long hair design.) I found a reference picture that I really like, which shows the character with her hair braided to make it look easier to move around.
The forehead ornament style of this character’s design is magical and mystical, and I could also add a gemstone ornament to the character’s forehead.
I liked these characters’ styles and felt that something in their design had a sense of conviction alongside the evil villain. (I felt that way). Through the different character design styles, I had more ideas on how to portray my character. I designed my character as a man who needs to lead his people on migration to find a new place to live. So for my character’s costume design, I wanted to make her wear something easier to move around in or a less flowy costume. I didn’t want to design a character who would go on an adventure in a dress. I would also focus the costume design more on trouser suits.
I have found two reference images of demons in trouser suits. This costume obviously makes the character look more adventurous or makes the character look less flashy.
Final design draft:
The character design retains a few of the most important elements I wanted: broken horns, long hair, and trouser suits. For the reference of the character’s colour design, I decided to refer mainly to the following images:
The purple skin with the silvery-white hair looks more like a demon with great power now. But the broken horn reflects the character’s weakness or imperfection in power.
Summary:
I was always thinking over the process of designing the character and felt that this anti-hero character was set up to be more of a villain in terms of image. Elements such as demons, for example. The anti-hero nature is brought out more in the character’s own experiences or growth. I have discussed a lot of research on anti-heroes in the thesis, including anti-heroes’ behavioral and linguistic manifestations. For the FMP project, I would like to focus more on the whole process of 3D animation (character design, model creation, binding, animation, lighting, rendering).