BENKEI

Hi!

My name is Dylan Bradford, I'm a modelling/texture artist from London. Super excited to present the latest addition to my portfolio - "BENKEI". Allow me to walk you through it! 

"BENKEI" was my third-semester project at Think Tank Online. Usually at this point in the curriculum you start to get a good grasp of things, and so I really wanted to challenge myself with a full character project, with tons of hard surface modelling and some cool texturing opportunities. The great concept by Shinku Kim provided just that - I knew I had the opportunity to make something cool with it. 

I imagined a futuristic public servant for this project, patrolling the streets of whatever techno-centric dystopian utopia he lives in. I wanted his kit and gear to feel grounded in reality, whilst also obviously being a product of his futuristic surroundings. 

Whilst the design was primarily influenced by Shinku's great sketch, I went to great lengths to create something that made sense construction-wise, including a ton of familiar components, such as capacitors and different sorts of rubber cables. The aesthetic of the project is definitely form over function, Benkei has a job to fulfil after all, and so making his gear feel useable and legitimate was a big mountain to climb. 

A big part of "BENKEI" is all the little lights and screens scattered across the asset. This was a really time consuming part of the project, and I had to really wrack my brain how to figure them out. It's mainly a lot of masks and layered materials in order to make sure that the lights look as though they're shining from behind glass, and also finely tuning the colors and intensity to make sure they don't clash with the rest of the texturing. 

                         Some lookdev tests I did to test refraction and light strengths

Speaking of texturing - my favorite part! I made this asset with the texturing in mind, and it was a real treat to slap some color on this guy. I had a lot of fun creating decals that told a story, and generally translating the vibrant, colorful nature of Shinku's concept into something that felt realistic and believable. 

Variation, and interesting masks were key to getting the job done, as well as thinking about the how the different materials were created. For example, the painted armor is metal, sprayed with primer, sprayed further with paint, with dirt and dust making up the top layer. It's not necessarily hard to tell a story with all the great tools available to us artists nowadays, but it does definitely take time and patience. 

Finally, topology was super important on any project, and this one's no different. Some pieces were really hard to get right, like the helmet, but I ultimately ended up with something pretty clean. 

Thanks for checking out my project! I hope everyone has a great rookies 2023 season - this community and space is very special and should be celebrated as such. Take care!