Independent Practice Week3:Chris Character Design Part1

As i am doing research for my ship i was asked by fellow classmate Chris Rhodes if i could do some character designs for his project and the reason why i had agreed had been because as i do my own project i feel that taking some time away to design characters for Chris would give me a breath of fresh air. So Chris had sent me over the general overview of his project as well as what he wants from me, here is the email i had received-

The idea of game is that in the not too distant future the Earth is pretty messed up, no fuels, running out of room, pollution etc.
For the past 50-100years the main Government of Earth has being looking into space for possible new locations too set up a "New Earth", two were found and missions were sent there to test how it suited for us, oxygen/water/soil samples. The search was narrowed to two main planets but one of the scientists wasn't so sure about one of them, the samples seemed too good, had some anomalies but the Government looked over as nothing major and ,this as the planet was far larger than the other and closer.

This scientist was sacked after he started to cause trouble with the proposed planet move in the media and trying to get fellow scientists too agree.

Work started on the "New Earth" on building new cities, planting forests and jungles too get the planets oxygen level up to a better standard to meet our needs.

Every now and again a new group of people were brought up to help carry out work, scientists, builders etc.
The Planet has alot of Bio-Domes around, as outside of these the oxygen isn't very good so you have to wear mask, and when a major new piece of work is happening bombs go off around different parts of the planet, sending out waves of gas.

At first there is no real major sign of anything, but after a few months changes start to happen, the plant life start to grow larger, stronger, faster.

People become infect from the air supply and start too change, insect bites start to alter the genes of the people, they mutate and attack one another.
 
Contact with Earth is lost before any "major" changes are seen. The government get wary after the final report wasn't a very good indication of what's going on. They start to form a task force to go up and examine what actually happen.

One of the men on this team has a wife who is a scientist up on the planet and he is worried what has happened too her and her team.

......................................

So that's the general back story of the game.

The main character is your general good looking tough guy.
While the creatures I am thinking of a mixture of zombies and insect mutations!

So i understand that i am to create character designs for the main character, zombie and insect mutations. Having that as the goal and Chris telling me he didn't go into much detail but instead allow me enough room to design. I designed each of the character designs for Chris in the form of a T-Pose to allow, if chosen a simple transfer into modelling with the T-Pose as the basis.

I started off designing the characters for the insect mutations and began that design by researching specific types of insects that the audience will be able to know about. Looking at insects such as butterflies, grasshoppers, fireflies, ants i started to develop the characters by basing key limbs that make an insect, an insect. Wings, shape of the insect, the variation of the limbs these are the main parts of the insect i took into developing the characters. Using the key parts of the limb from the insects that i was using i started to develop the characters varying from the shape of the insects and the majority of the parts of the insect that are used.

The first design that i created i had taken the insect mutation aspect of the design as far as having only a few distinct areas of the body that show the human side. I designed the character to be affected much more by the insect mutation, showing that the legs of the character had bonded together, the arms being mutated further and wings being grown, insect limbs coming out and the stomach corroding to the point where the skin forms around the spine.

The second design went into 50/50 of the insect and human mutation as there were only a few areas of the body that mutated. This design was developed to show more of a human characterisation but used insect portions that were used to make the character unique and more of a weird look where the designs is not mirrored but instead have certain point of the body that stand out.

The third design that i had done was one which i took to the extremes and showing how the insect muattion had affected the character to the point where he could be a boss type enemy. As i had started creating the third character i previously sent over Chris the first two designs to which he replied stating to look at insects such as scorpions and beetles. So along with my previous research, i researched into these specific insects and used the scorpion in the development of the third character to where the design show what was left of the human as part of the tail of the giant scorpion and the character to have very limited amount of human bodyparts.

The final design i had come up with was again from the feedback i had received from Chris was that the insect mutated character having much more of a human aspect of the visuals. Using the design of a beetle i developed from that insect the character design to have a hard exterior across his left arm as well as the right leg and to have distinct insect areas added to the sides, shin and head. These type of design where the character retains much of his human side but certain areas are mutated to best suit its attacking and defensive duties.