Character Concepts by Kristian LaGrange

These entries are the some of my work in Character Design Howest DAE. 

We were tasked with making a series of character concepts fit for use in AAA video game production. We followed a modular pipeline in which we had to go through all the steps of coming up with interesting concepts and presenting them to the public.

1.

My first assignment is a concept illustration of an old confederate soldier. The theme for this image is "Wild West" .

I chose this character because I felt that the war of the North against the South over the abolishment of slavery has influenced today's view of the "Wild West" landscape in popular media, such as the 1966 film "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly".

I went through multiple ideas for a character before settling on the final, drawing quick portrait sketches until I found an  ideal face. I wanted to see a history in their facial expression so I focused primarily on older figures.

After finding the perfect face, I moved onto the clothing. The Wild West is filled with many colorful wardrobes, most predominantly in native tribes, but the roughness and wear-and-tear of more urban dress ware, I felt, gave the clothing more history, which Is what I was looking for.

Lastly I went through combinations of different faces and wardrobes before finally settling on a finished concept and refining it.

2.

My second assignment was themed "The Creature". We were tasked with designing a humanoid figure and combining it with elements of a different species of animal.

This assignment was split into three parts where each set of three-to-eight designs would be based on a different species of animal. Lastly we had to pick our favorite design and refine it into a detailed standalone concept.

The first species was Fish:

The second species was Reptiles:

Here we were also told to humanize the concepts more by turning them into warriors.

The third species was Insects:

Here we played around with the almost extra-terrestrial look of some of Earth's exotic insects and morphed their form into aliens from another world. For added plausibility, we put them in space suits :-)

I've chosen to refine the concept of the yellow insect in the red space suit.

3.

My final assignment was themed "Cyberpunk Gladiator".

We had to make a character from a dystopian future, where  most people are born into poverty, with only a small percent of the wealthy keeping luxuries to themselves, and so they take part in deadly gladiatorial championships for the promise of a better future.

We had to make the look of the character tell the viewer something about their backstory. Whether they were heavily struck by poverty or the privileged wealthy was to be seen in their clothing, figure and posture.

We made three slides: One for male designs, a second for female designs and a third for variations on a favorite.

Lastly we picked our favorite iteration and revised it into a complete illustration.