Skystrider + Sci-fi Character

Skystrider Player Character

This was the player character I both concepted and modeled for a much larger team project at SCAD: a 3D action-platformer called Skystrider. I was the art lead on the project and so I got to really push the direction of the game's art style - an experience I learned so much from and continue to learn from. 

Additional Credits: 

Joshua Ruggeri for the mechanical claw model/textures, John Arters for the sword model/textures, and Breanna Weightman for the rig. 

These were some of the original concepts and value comps. The character was always going to be masked to reduce technical demand. I took a lot of inspiration from voiceless protagonists like Link from the Zelda franchise, or the player characters in Journey and Abzu. Skystrider is very momentum-based, so I wanted the character to have elements to their design that would create more movement and flow as they were running around the maps. Their scarf, for example, simulates cloth physics in engine and will drag in the air behind them dynamically. 

The character isn't meant to be seen up close in game very often, so when I retopologized their high poly to a much lower resolution model, I was able to heavily optimize areas that the player was very unlikely to ever see. The character model itself sans claw and sword is roughly 10k tris.

I recently modeled another character important to Skystrider's lore. He's presented on my ArtStation as well, and having made him after the player character, there was a lot I was able to learn from the experience and apply to him. 

Skystrider is available to wishlist on Steam!

Realistic Sci-fi Character

I really wanted to push myself to create a fully realistic character, and to break out of my usual fantasy interests into something more sci-fi. It was a fun challenge to make all of his armor, and both his props being the knife on his belt and the sniper rifle on his back. I took a ton of inspiration from Mass Effect and studied the game's artbooks. I had done hair cards for a character before but this level of realism was super fun to tackle.