Rookies 2021

Over the past year, I've worked on some projects during my studies through some exciting opportunities to further develop my skills as a concept artist, and here is a collection of those works! All work is mine.

John and Mary - Counsellor Character Design 

In the second half of 2020, I had the chance to work on a collaborative short film project at Flinders University to utilise the new motion capture and virtual production suite. I was tasked with designing one of the characters, the Counsellor, who would then be modelled, rigged and animated with motion capture data. The challenge was to design a character who could be moved through the pipeline quickly and could meet the brief provided. 

My process began with some designs of the character based on the brief provided, from which a design was approved by the team and then used to create some colour passes. As this character already had an established environment she would be seen in, the team felt it was important to keep her colour scheme similar to the tones of her environment, hence why it was decided to go with the blue in option A.

This was then used to create a model sheet to then be passed down the pipeline! 

Kronos - Personal Project

In early 2020, I designed a character, Artemis, as an extra project for that year's Rookies entry, but after looking back on it and remembering some of the ideas that were attached to that character, I decided to have another shot at it. The character was originally meant to be designed with her brother Apollo, as the two were meant to be duo that players would face in a video game, so to have the chance to design him alongside Artemis was important to me to give this idea the quality I felt it deserved after learning new techniques during my studies. 

The final look for Artemis took a more sleek direction, as well as featuring some more armor in her look. This interpretation of her design felt more successful in what I wanted to achieve and also was a chance to show my development in the span of a year as I continued my studies.

Apollo's design was intentionally made to be similar to Artemis to show their connection in mythology as twins, yet still reflect his own key motifs such as gold being a symbolic colour often associated with him. I added the small touch of their ties being the colour representative of the other character to really drive home the link between them as well, plus a nice little accent colour never hurts?

The Last Fantasy - Character Design

One of the largest projects I did in the tail end of 2020 was for my character design class at Flinders University and CDW Studios. The task was to design four characters for a Final Fantasy type game, a Mage (the main character), Warrior, Ranger and Ruler (the villain) and how they all fit together in a world.

The Mage was a challenge as the character had the one rule of being a magic caster without a wand or staff. My solution was to base the magic system of the world in magical dust and minerals that few could have the ability to wield. This also then governed the rest of the characters' weapons and designs as each character could use the dust and minerals in creative ways. 

One key staple in Final Fantasy is a big sword, and what better character to give a big sword than the Warrior? But why just stop at a big sword? Why not make it a mini-gun sword? This was one of the first designs that clicked once I knew the magic system was going to be based in dust and minerals, as I then thought of gunpowder and how that could be utilised by characters in the world.

The Ranger also followed a similar path as the warrior, as her weapons of choice were based in the same gunpowder thinking instead of going for a bow and arrow. The character also had a particular challenge like the Mage and could not be human, but humanoid. I decided to make her a crystal elf who was native to the homeworld of the setting, and had a particular understand of the dust magic yet is unable to wield it, to then act as a bit of a mentor to the Mage.

The Ruler was one of the most challenging designs I had done. To design a full set of armor and try to add crystal and dust elements to it was tough, as the Ruler was once a noble king who fell victim to a volatile new mineral capable of corrupting anything that makes contact with it. Overall the project was one of my favourites throughout the year as I felt I had developed so much whilst creating the characters, and my skills had progressed immensely in that time.