Games Art Pipeline – Aaron McGuigan

Category: Development

  • Retopology

    I’ve started on retopology – to help with this I installed the ‘PolyQuilt’ Blender add on. It helps me more efficiently place and edit quads over my high detail sculpt.

  • Blocking out

    This week I moved onto blocking out my model. In class we were shown one method of making a base using zspheres – I couldn’t quite get the hang of it so I moved on from this attempt…

    In blender I created my initial block out, looking to map out the primary shapes/ largest forms. Next I will need to block out the secondary and tertiary forms and then bring out further detail with some sculpting.

  • Finalised character

    I didn’t settle on a final design in my last batch of sketches so did another page to try and find an outcome I would be happy to move forward with. I decided to do a mash up of the two female designs I did last time. I feel like this direction took the best elements from all my designs so far.

    Now that I had a finalised design I could work from, I created a polished illustration/ splash art of my character, sanding down any unnecessary detail and determining my colour palette.

    From this I made detailed turnaround drawings – these will help me when I come to 3D modelling.

    I settled on her name – Almena – after the ‘Almendro’, a tropical tree resilient to lightning strikes.

  • Narrative Development + Sketches

    From my initial concept I wrote a rough narrative for my character. So as not to harm my creative journey I kept it quite open ended, not going into too much detail – I’ll explore the specifics in my drawings.

    Here’s my short narrative:

    On a stormy evening a carriage races down a thin cliff face track – a pack of wolves in hot pursuit. With a jolt the carriage partially swerves off the road spilling a number of its contents, including an intricately decorated cot; down it fell into the cluster of trees below.

    The cot fell a great distance, thankfully cushioned by the forest canopy. Inside, there lay a child – fever stricken and missing an arm (a feature from birth). The child was happened upon the forests protector and their spirit companions – to save it one of the spirits grafted itself together with a branch to the small person. From that day forward the child was raised by the spirits and animals of the forest becoming one of its prominent guardians.

    Together with the forest spirit in their wooden arm the druid defends the great wood from anyone who would do it harm.

    From this I developed a number of rough sketches, exploring silhouette, shape and form.

    I developed a few of these rough sketches further – out of these I’ll be going forward with one.

    I did some more detailed sketches of the wood prosthetic as this is supposed to be the main hook of the character.

  • New project START!

    This week I’m starting on my next project – creating a 3D character in the style of an existing IP.

    Out of the suggestions provided I decided to go with League of Legends (specifically it’s spin-off game 2XKO).

    Here were some initial ideas I wrote down for my possible character, including what I could animate them doing after their model is rigged:

    I made a mood board and brainstormed a list of words which could help me choose a clearer visual direction for my character – at the moment I’m leaning towards the ‘Druid’ concept.

    Alot of the refrences I collected for my moodboard can help to inform my characters anatomy, proportion and costume design. I chose to look at many designs from Capcom as they are experts at designing iconic fighting game characters – I intend to borrow elements from them in my own design.