Zalong

Zalong is a big, friendly serpentine dragon descended from the Lóng dragons of the ancient orient; unlike most of them, however, she spends most of her time on land, and is rather heavy in build.

Zalong was designed as a mascot character to replace my current "winged serpent" logo, and to eventually star in a short animation representing my brand identity and my interests and influences as a creative person.

My main intention in creating Zalong was as a learning exercise to address technical and artistic weaknesses in my previous character models, so an emphasis was placed on developing a good topology with distinct anatomical details, and by giving proper attention to areas I usually neglect, such as the mouth and eyes. I do not specialise in texturing, but I made an effort to imbue Zalong with a realistic(ish) scaly skin and other surface details. The unfortunately unfinished colour pattern is associated with my as-yet-obscure abstract artwork. Zalong's colour palette was chosen to fit in with my existing branding.

As I only had time to develop a few design ideas (note that I am not a specialist concept artist either), I tried to compensate by creating several variations to explore different colours and surface textures. More attention to detail was afforded during the 3D portion of the project - a good example is seen in the creature's realistic reptilian eyes. I added a simple background to present the finished character.

Although I certainly could have done better with more time and resources available, I believe that this project was a good landmark for me in terms of future development. I learned about some of the major limiting factors that currently stand in my path, and above all was reminded that I still have a long journey ahead. Nevertheless, I feel that Zalong is one of my best character models to date, and I look forward to using the lessons I learned from this project as a basis for future improvement.

I would be deeply appreciative of any constructive feedback and advice, but even the fact that you have taken the time to view this project means a lot. Thank you!