Character Art Portfolio 2019-2020

Dishonored Inspired Tyvian Overseers and Wolfhound

In this project I researched the Abbey of the Everyman from Dishonored and the culture of the Isle of Tyvia to design what overseers from Tyvia may look like. The style is based on that of Dishonored 1, but influences were taken from all the games and literature. 

I created one overseer who disagrees with the destruction of bonecharms and instead takes one of the confiscated charms for himself. This leads to the Outsider eventually gifting him with his mark after putting him through trials to prove that he will be "interesting" enough. The main ongoing trial is that he must continue living and working under the Abbey. He is successful for a while, but is eventually caught, branded and interrogated by his brothers. This is the scene that I created in Unreal.

The concept of the Abbey, music box, heretic's brand, sabre and censer are all from Dishonored, but all models seen in the images were made by me for the project. The human and dog characters were designed completely by me, just taking the symbol of the Abbey and mark of the Outsider from Dishonored.

I was responsible for: character concept art, modelling characters, modelling props, texturing, rigging, posing, Unreal material and lighting setup.

Software used: Sketchbook, Zbrush, Maya, 3ds Max, Substance Painter, Unreal Engine.

Retrofuturistic Cosmonaut

This is a character that I designed and produced for the Rising Star 2020 character art competition and it made it through to the finals!

The concept I created is a scenario where the space race is taking place in the future and the goal is to colonise the moon. My character is a Soviet who was encouraged to relocate to the moon through the government's use of propaganda posters. In my project I created a realistically rendered scene in unreal that depicts how the character is actually unhappy on the moon and a contrasting unrealistically rendered scene that depicts what he thought being on the moon would be like based on the propaganda. The style of this scene reflects the style of real posters from the Soviet era. The character's design is based on real-life retro spacesuits but mixed with some futuristic elements.

I was responsible for: concept art, modelling, texturing, posing, Unreal materials, lighting and post-processing.

Software used: Sketchbook, Zbrush, Maya, 3ds Max, Substance Painter, Unreal Engine.

Moon terrain by Sebastian Sosnowski.
Earth model by Hisham Hamid.
Sandy gravel texture by Dorian Zgraggen.
Solar panel material by AcidZenith.

The Winter Gunslinger

I designed this character inspired by Red Dead Redemption 2. He's a gunslinger from the Wild West era who likes to show off his custom engraved revolvers. With this project I wanted to take a wild west character but put them in a winter environment to create something a bit different. The concept art in this case was more of a rough guide to show my uni before I started production, so I did choose to change a couple of the elements during the 3D phase. For this project I tried a few techniques for the first time, such as making hair by baking xgen hair onto hair cards and making clothing in Marvellous Designer. I used Mixamo to generate the rig and then made a couple of changes in 3ds max - I created the pose myself.

I was responsible for: concept art, character modelling, gun modelling, texturing, posing, Unreal materials and lighting.

Software used: Sketchbook, Zbrush, Marvelous Designer, Maya, 3ds Max, Substance Painter, Mixamo, Unreal Engine.

Current Project WIP

For this project I designed a sci-fi character who is part of a religious faction on a planet in a different star system; the group he belongs to go out on raids to forcibly convert non-believers, hence the need for armour.  My goals for the project are to continue to improve my artistic and technical skills with creating realistic game characters, especially in areas that have been highlighted in feedback on my previous projects such as lowering tri count,  straightening and aligning UV shells, splitting the model into multiple smaller texture sets and exaggerating the coloured zones of the face. As personal goals I also want to create much more realistic eyes, hair and cloth in the project.

Email: [email protected]
Artstation: https://www.artstation.com/tristanmcguire