OMAR GAMAL's Illustraion and visuals Entry

CGMA CHARACTER DESIGN FOR FILM AND GAMES COURSE WITH MARCO NELOR

When I first started off the project, picking the brief wasn’t the easiest thing, which eventually led me to start research on scouts. I started reading about war scouts throughout history and the kind of equipment they carried around throughout battles.  I envisioned my character to be a female scout, more of a survivor than a tanker or a frontline warrior. When I imagined what kind of equipment she would have, I thought if she can survive in extreme conditions, then she needs to also have a way of communication with the mother base to teleport the news. There were a lot of keywords running through my head at that time; like agility, stealth, slyness, elegance, beauty, and I also wanted to add a touch of masculinity that the character must have acquired throughout her service. My first stop for inspiration was Pinterest. I started with gathering anything that my eyes could lay on, be it a word, a bracelet, or even an artistic weaved rug.  At that point, I didn’t have a clear idea of what my character would look like or how her attire will turn out to be, I was just gathering ideas and inspirations. I still remember Marco telling us to clear our minds and just search for things that may inspire us, and that was the key to everything that was created from this point onwards.

By the time I approached the second week, I was starting to have a rough idea about the outlines that define my character, especially when it comes to attire. After narrowing down my research to 4 main ideas, each idea would be translated into a sketch that carries characteristics and manners of the character.  I wasn’t yet thinking about the materials in which her attire would be made of, especially that at this stage, she was still wearing only weapons and gadgets. One of the main attire ideas of the 4 sketches was to dress in a military prestigious way, influenced by how Renaissance warriors looked like, with a bit of a mystical depth to the character. I wanted my character to look both firm yet gypsy; to serve the idea of her being a scout, and I wanted to show this in the way she styles her hair and in her attire, which had to be lightly armored to help her movements, with bits of heavy ornamented pieces to give the needed depth to her cultural background.

By the time Week 4 approached us, I had almost everything figured out the attitude of my character. I had to go through a lot of inspirations to grasp what I want as a facial expression, and that was my next challenge. My character is a high military rank scout, she is not just firm and sharp; she is also a sneaky roamer. Being a gypsy nomad, she may not see her lands for months; she spends most of the time in solitary. If I’m being frank, I wasn’t very lucky this week with my 1st trial for the facial expression. The face is always the hardest part when it comes to character design because you always need to tell the story of a character only by its face. I had to sketch a lot of facial expressions and dig more through my character to see which features and values should illustrate her face.

ECOLEKO 

is an Art Related event that is being held yearly o the Easter break along the coast of Sinai in Egypt I was asked to do the posters for the Event with the concept of back to the roots.