Forest Knight

Early Sketches 

i started out by sketching out my ideas into my sketch book  such as knights in the same pose in variation of clothing designs but simplistic and a deek mask wearing warrior with fur cape, i started developing in Photoshop and on paper at a similar point as i can gain a better look of the character and style of clothing if i drawing it in two different methods ill be able to adjust my designs better in future with a physical reference to look back too, some elements such as the deek skull and knights armour ill be developing further in Photoshop along with the iterations I've already started.

Iteration 2 Pages

At the same time as my sketches i began the process of iterating upon my ideas i had  and trying to present them into a physical form on Photoshop. my main idea and drive on these designs was a knight in bulky armour, but it went through process of a basic knight working with my ideas and it changed into a undeadish knight and into my sketches i did while iterating  into a forest knight/ spirit design.

During the development i tried to keep my designs simple and bashing together different elements of each character to get a varied results and ideas for my end design

Mask and Face iteration

After i settled upon my final idea of a knight with a Deer skull styled helmet/mask, i wanted to expand upon the original design and started to developed some possible alternative designs i could using for my character in future, one idea i had was a partly destroyed mask with a missing antler and hair showing to give a aged battle warn feel, another design was a half-human, half-deer skull inspired idea that is stitched together. in the end i settled on the basic skull mask as i thought it would work better, as simple works best sometimes

I also expanded on the characters face under the mask and what they could look like if i wanted to do my model sheet and concept without his mask on, i kept the element of stitches on my characters face, as seen on the masks, as i thought it would give the character a more interesting narrative, if their face is shown.

Model Sheet 

After i selected my required design i developed a more cleaner version of the character onto a model sheet showing its front and back, during my refinement i edited my design a little by adding better shoulder armour to look more anatomically correct for ease of movement, and changing the upper blade on its forearm to dual wielding side blades  with grips to add a bit more interest onto the character, as i went with a more simplistic mask design it was easier to adjust the design on the turnaround as i found straps are just as good as a whole head mask, also it means if i can i can do a de-masked character to show the difference  

I've added the height element with a human composite to give a better feel of the character and height difference if in game the character is fighting against a smaller character.

During the development of the model sheet i found it was difficult to get a side view of the character even with the front and back done, as the front angle was angled itself the side of the character was already showing so i couldnt trans last the side on a flat side as the angled look gives it a better look.

5 Thumbnails For Character Concept 

After the completion of the model sheet i started upon the designing of in-situ piece for my final character concept, i started my development by combining and photo bashing images mainly of forests to create the look and feel of the environment my character would be living in world, during my development of photo bashing i used and adjusted the level, hue/saturation etc. on the photo-bashed images to get the correct colour scheme for the atmosphere, once i manged to get them at a good enough point, i used the Mosaic pixel effect in the Filter tab, to break up the scenes so I can go in to the photo-bashed images to blend with the smug tool and adjust the colours via the use of the colour picking tool by adding and subtracting the needed and unnecessary colours and changing the layer filter to create a base image to work on upon and develop further in my final concept. i added in a rough placement of the character to work out rough composition and perspective to the scene which are all subject to change

I decided to use the bottom image as i felt this had the best use of colours and depth within the scene and basic light source and it was the most simplistic of the designs that didn't require much editing or colour adjustments, as i found out from the mask development simple works best. 

End Piece 

My overall end result is very strong and it works in perspective, composition and lighting. During the development of this piece from the selected thumbnail by going into the image and adding more depth by applying more detail in the foreground with more foliage using the blend tool and colour picking colours soic get the scene i was trying to accomplish, as i felt the original design looked a bit barren, i did add a secondary character to the scene but i felt the second character would've taken away from the scene and the atmosphere  as the forest knight is the main focus of this piece, after this i pushed the development of this piece by adding a strong light source from above the character using the colours in the scene to add to the creepy atmosphere of the forest, because if this i lost some of the detailing of the character which i rectified by adding shadows and defining some of the detail in scene. At the end of this pieces development i added mist in the foreground to help with the perspective and composition of the scene and the character