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Contents
Preproduction Pages 3 - 32

Production Pages 33 - 48 Post Production Pages 49 - 57

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Pre - Production
The process of taking early initial ideas and turning them into visual concepts

Synopsis
Santa has been missing from his workshop for the past few days on the lead up of the Christmas season. The elves have been working away in his absence to try and make Christmas possible but Dylon, an elf who hates a Merry Christmas has hatched a plot to trap his colleges and mass produce new experiments of evil toys brought to life as weapons. Ralph was late to work when Dylon assumed control and discovers that the atmosphere has changed. The machines and toys warped into sinister forms and the other elves are missing. It is up to Ralph to restore the factory and elves as well as Santa to save Christmas in time.

Ralph Bio
Name: Ralph Age: 6 Height: 60.96 cm (2 foot) Gender: Male Bio: Ralph is a young elf in training, and he works hard to learn the trade of making traditional toys and understanding what Christmas entails. He carries a candy cane which is the source of his magic. He also has a set of wooden tools to create the toys along the factory line which is then assessed by the head elf before the final decision from Santa. Ralph is sometimes a little careless and makes a few mistakes that costs the particular line to remake a set of toys again but Ralph lets his determination drive him to keep improving his skills and abilities to hopefully become more respected and work on bigger and more complicated projects.

Dylon Bio
Name: Dylon
Age: 8

Height: 75cm (2.5 feet)

Gender: male Bio: Dylon is also a young elf in training but hates the traditional sense of Christmas and all it represents. Dylon is also Ralphs main rival as he despises Ralphs merry attitude to the Christmas season and trying to be a good elf so uses any opportunity to sabotage his work. Dylon doesn't participate in any of the traditional roles that is expected of an elf and instead works on his own deadly experiments. Eventually he creates a whole army of toys with his power tools to dwarf Santas traditional view and they help Dylon take over the factory and create his own Christmas.

Influence Maps

I looked at many references for a style to visualise my game concept and what sort of characters would feature. I decided Elves would be a good option because there was a lot of potential to create two very different variations that were clearly the hero and the villain.

Other references include colour schemes, shapes and toys. The toys took more time to think about and were originally characters in their own right but later became props for Dylon to use in the game as he became a playable character.

I looked at further props to look into the idea of how Ralph is traditional with his candy cane and wooden tools but Dylon had to be something to contrast this so I looked at Industrial uniform, metal and power tools.

Ralph Silhouettes

Ralph had friendly circular shapes to express his positive personality, the left hand side were a set of experiments that I later developed by mixing ideas together and narrowing down the best selection to move forward with.

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Dylon Silhouettes

Dylons shapes took longer to decide on as I wasnt sure if he was going to be plump and bully like or the classic thin and spiky look, this was before I knew his character fully but he become much more spiky as I experimented with silhouettes further.

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Ralph and Dylon Dividing Shapes up

I picked three Silhouettes for each character and drew some white lines to indicate where the parts end and begin and to start thinking about finer details such as bells and buttons. This was a useful guide to break up the full black silhouette and start thinking about pulling a character from it.

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Feature Designs

These are some alternative feature structures that I would later apply to the faces and decide on what could work but I later decided that this didnt work because I had to define the head shape to work out what features could work.

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Ralph and Dylon Grey Scale Part One

Grey tones were then applied to fill the spaces and work out further details and then continued with white lines to mark out how shapes could shapes and where further details might work.

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Pose Gesture Studies

These were a series of studies to understand the action of a happy and negative action pose, I looked at different images and drew quick body line studies.

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Ralph and Dylon Grey Scale Part Two

The gestural drawings and more guide lines to work further to develop the characters as a whole especially in the case of Dylon, transforming into an industrial and High Tec elf as his new purpose in the game.

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Ralph and Dylon Grey Scale Part Three

Once the grey layers were developed and ready for the next stage, I put them together on a separate image to visualise how they contrast and to show how they are beginning to look more like the characters I envisioned.

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Colour Palettes

The colours were selected from research and what represented Christmas or winter, it was then a case of choosing the bright and warm colours for Ralph and the cold icy colours for Dylon.

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Ralph and Dylon Colour Part One

I experimented with some colours in the palette and then decided to look at the shapes again and define everything more clearly and strengthen the body and head for each character. The outlines were then used as a guide to create better grey toned characters.

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Ralph and Dylon Colour Part Two

These were experimentations of using the colour palette and work out what combinations define the character. Also making a sensible decision about what would work with both characters to keep the contrast between them.

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Ralph Final Concept

There were some final alterations and further details to finish the character. I also thought back to the style choice and applied graphical decisions such as inside the ears and strips on the clothes.

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Dylon Final Concept

Dylon had similar alterations in terms of graphics and adding further detail. Dylon became a very interesting character in his own right so was decided that he also would be a playable character to look at Ralphs side to save Christmas and Dylons side to wreck it.

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Toy Silhouettes

The process of the toys began with deciding on what function they have and how they would move so two variations were decided, a toy that could move on wheels and a toy that is constructed from wooden blocks.

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Toys Dividing Shapes Up

The same process was used as the characters, to divide up the silhouettes and decide more clearly what the toys would look like, the purpose of them as Dylons creations became clearer by deciding on weapons.

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Toys Grey Scale Part One

Grey tones were applied to the six designs to try and decide what was possible, further details were added to decide the overall look and make sure it keeps to the same style and fits within the context of the game.

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Toys Grey Scale Part Two

One idea was selected and then drawn over as with the characters to clean up the shapes and make something of the design to fit alongside Dylon.

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Toy Colour Tests

The colours from the toy colour palette were used to create variations of what might work together. The Roller skate was a range of bright colours and the wooden block toy was a selection of dull browns to represent the wood.

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Toy Props Final Concept

The final details were added to enhance the design and to understand materials they are made from. The Toys were originally going to be characters but as the idea developed it was decided that they would work better as props for Dylon to use when the player selecting him for the journey in the game.

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Ralph and Dylon Block Modelling

These were early block models that were made before the final concept but they didnt help to truly define the characters and what they would look like in 3D so made a decision to scrap these trials.

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Turnaround Sheets

These turnarounds were much more useful to analyse the character in different views and more of a guide of how to model them. This took a few tries to get accurate but it was worth getting this stage right to move onto an accurate model.

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Expression Sheets

I thought about which expressions would suit each character to make their descriptions and personality, as well as face expressions, this also made me think about body language such as how the head and body would tilt and where the arms would be. This would prove useful for posing and the walk cycles in terms of acting and placement.

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Toy Turnarounds

I made a turnaround for the toys to guide the modelling process and to know where certain details would need to be placed on the models. I didnt need one for the candy cane because I knew I would use a cylinder and bend deformer so was more simpler to imagine that as a 3D object.

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Production
Turning the 2D ideas into 3D Characters and Props for the game

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Modelling Ralph

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Modelling Dylon

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Modelling Props

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Ralph UV Map and Texture

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Dylon UV Map and Texture

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Props UV Map and Texture

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Ralph Colour Map

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Ralph AO Map

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Ralph Normal Map

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Dylon Colour Map

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Dylon AO Map

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Dylon Normal Map

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Props Colour Map

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Props AO Map

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Props Normal Map

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Post - Production
Adding refinement to lighting and rendering, also marketing the game concept to appeal to the target audience

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Final Render Stills One

These were the first set of renders for the character turnarounds and walk cycles, These worked quite well but later decided to stylise their lighting and improve these further.

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Ralph Lighting tests

Ralphs stylised light become like a warm glow to much his positive, beaming personality so I played around with light colouring positioning and even the type of light

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Dylon Lighting Tests

Dylons stylised lighting was theatrical horror to contrast with Ralphs lighting and to clearly indicate that this one is the villain. As with Ralph I played with colouring, type and placement.

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Final Render Stills Two

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Marketing

I Produced different versions of the poster until I got the composition and the right images that could sell the concept because it gives a clear message of what the game is about. This took me several attempts but eventually created something I felt could appeal to the target market.

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This Art Of looks at the process of a Character Design Pipeline from early initial ideas and concept art to the final stages of fully resolved 3D characters and branding.

Adam Webb thevistor.blogspot.co.uk

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