Jasmine Steer - Rookies 2020

Cyberpunk Street Racers - Character Design

In this brief that started off as a university project, I wanted to design some characters that simply looked cool enough to feature in a music video reminiscent of Riot's recent music videos for KDA and True Damage. As I have an interest in cars and vehicles, as well as a like for the cyberpunk aesthetic, I figured why not draw some cyberpunk street racers? 

I started off with one character, the risk-taking novice who has just joined the scene, and began the thumbnailing process of working out his style to suit his personality. I wanted to have the cyberpunk look but also have a grungy aesthetic to his look as a way to show that he's not a top player (yet).

Once I had the design locked in for the character, I moved on to drawing a nice polished hero shot. My goal of the image was to convey to the viewer that he is a street racer, however I realised the pose and design alone weren't going to cut it. To drive the visual concept home, I decided to add in a line drawing of a Peugeot 205 T16, his car of choice, to the background.

The overall  result was one of my best yet at the time in regards to how I was able to realise my vision. However the feedback I got from teachers and classmates led me to do a second attempt.

Cyberpunk Street Racer 2

I decided to design another street racer character to go with the first one, but really push the cyberpunk aesthetic further. This time, I went for a character who is one of the best racers in the game and has racked up a few sponsors from her career. I also wanted her colour palette and shape to be different to the first street racer as they weren't on the same team, but still have some similarities to show that they're not rivals or enemies.

It was a challenge to pick a colour palette for her that contrasted the first racer but also complimented him but eventually it got there. I knew her car of choice was going to be a Nissan 370z so I put the Nissan logo on her jacket and hat, as this also showed she's a racer good enough to get major brand sponsorships.

Once again, I went in and gave her a final hero pose.

To maintain continuity I used the same background styling as the first street racer, but did a much better job finishing the image. The character is much more cyberpunk-y and it is more clear what her role is, a street racer. 

University Work - Character Design Project

During my time at CDW Studios, we were given the task to design a line up of characters to our own briefs we made, however within limitations. 

My brief was set in WW2 Germany, the same setting as The Book Thief. The town has become victim to an unknown creature that lurks in the nearby river and forest, a result of horrific experiments on prisoners in camps nearby. Two children and the newly adopted boy from the camp eventually fall into the plot of a rogue Brigadeführer and his mission to perfect a bioweapon that will end the war and make the world fall to Germany's knees. 

Henry is the first of the ordinary children. A boy who wants to be the man in the group but also relishes his childhood as much as he can during the dark times. His role in the story is to help the adopted boy from the camp, who they discover to be the power child, and help put an end to the Brigadeführer's plans.

The second ordinary child is Anja, neighbour to Henry and adoptive sister to the power child. She's a young girl who has to quickly adapt to the new responsibility of being an older sibling. Her role is to also help and protect the power child and stop the Brigadeführer.

William is the power child. He was adopted into Anja's family after being released from the camp. However, he was also one of the victims of terrible experiments in an effort to create mutant creatures capable of wiping out soldiers on the battlefield. William has a young creature from the experiments linked to him, and is able to control it like a Jeager pilot from Pacific Rim outside the creature's body. He's prone to tantrums and understandably distrustful of anyone, but eventually grows to care for his new sister and neighbour.

Brigadeführer Dietrich is the antagonist of this story. He watched over the cruel experiments in the camp but it was shut down due to perceived poor results. He still believed that the ultimate weapon could be made and proceeded to continue the work in secret, taking one of the first victims and further conducting his own tests.

The last character is Erna, William's mother and Dietrich's prisoner. She was one of the first patients of the experiment and has her own creature she can control that also haunts the town the children reside in. She suffers at the hands of Dietrich, sustaining injuries that don't receive the treatment they need. Unaware of her son's whereabouts, she's merely a husk that only exists because Dietrich says so.

Character Design - Artemis

This was a personal project that I wanted to tackle because it was different to what I had done in the past. 

The brief was to design a game boss character for an isometric action RPG. The setting was a cyberpunk/futuristic city controlled by A.I.s that are named after the gods of the Greek pantheon. Somehow the A.I.s become infected with a virus that makes them hostile and the city turns into chaos, leaving the players to fight their way through the pantheon and restore order to the city. 

I wanted to design one of the AI bosses the players would encounter and ended up picking Artemis as I could envision her fighting style and aesthetic. I saw her as a part of a boss duo with her brother Apollo, and the players would have to fight the both of them at once. 

After doing some research to find key motifs for her mythological inspiration, I began doing rough thumbnails and designs, wanting to combine a robotic and business woman aesthetic, whilst also making her design work in a battle scenario. 

Key motifs such as her light moon halo were important to help make her identifiable, as well as maintain her title as the moon goddess.

Her weapons in the mythos are her bow and arrow and her spear. I wanted to keep those weapons as they are unique to her known character. However knowing that I wanted her to be seen with her brother Apollo, I changed the bow and arrow to a crossbow gauntlet, as Apollo is more known for his bow, and her light crossbows could simply be worn as a bracer when inactive.

Once I had everything designed, I drew her final hero shot. I wanted her to look intimidating and capable of wiping out an army, but still sensible and able to do a presentation. Overall I am proud of her look and hope to develop this brief further in the future.

Thank you for viewing my entry into the Rookies 2020