Year 2 Specialism Project - Emily Annear

When looking at the Guinevere model, one thing that was very noticeable was the oddly shaped neckline. Because this didn't match the typical design of a medieval dress, I felt like it needed to be fixed. In order to fix it, I had to completely re-construct the neckline area as no matter what I tried to fix it, it didn't straighten. I removed the polygons around the neck and found that there were hidden polygons which were the reason behind the strange shaping when I turbosmoothed the dress.  With the hidden polygons removed, I began to work on building the neckline again and this time got the turbosmooth to look correct. 

Merlin's model sheet was the most difficult to do. I want his model to be hunched over and I had to work out how to straighten his body from his concept art in order for me to model him. When looking at his concept art, his arms are significantly longer than a normal person would have so I also had to work out how long to make him arms I also had to increase the amount of detail around his knees to make him appear more mechanical and to also give him more support for when he's made into a 3D print. I tried to keep the design as close as I could to his concept art as possible with his shape and size along with the many features that he has like his hat, gears and chimneys.   

  My Guinevere character is now practically complete. Since the last post that I did on her character, I have completely finished off her head and added the pipework that goes down her torso.  Her head was certainly a challenge as I wanted to make it as realistic as possible. The hardest part for me to do was probably around the mouth. Whilst I was making the head, like with the rest of the body, I kept going back to Turbosmooth to check if everything looked okay. As I kept checking, the mouth never really looked correct. It took my a lot of time to get it to it's current state. The pipework was also more difficult than I thought it was going to be. Because the dress was enlarged from the body, it meant that it no longer matched the model sheets. This led to the pipework now being moved out further as well. I still kept referring back to the model sheet. Also to make it similar to the model sheets, I followed the breasts and allowed a large enough gap between them for the pipe...

 The last character that I created it's concept for was Merlin. Merlin was substantially harder to design than the other two as for them, I had ideas on how they would look. Merlin was the complete opposite.  Because he was a mix of android and transformer-styled robot, I found it difficult to find the balance between the two. I had to create a few different designs but never landed on one that I liked. Eventually I decided to go back to the start and look back on reference images and any other images that I could to get inspiration.  I wanted Merlin to have an old appearance so looked at "old robots" on Google and saw a few that I thought would be good as inspirations. I also liked the idea of having him either hunched or bent over. One of my mood board images had a robot with a similar posture which I wanted to base Merlin off of however when I drew from it, it didn't look how I was imagining him to be. Whilst I was looking for more inspiration, I came across anothe...

So far I have completed two model sheets. One for Guinevere, which I have already started modelling, and one for Arthur which I will also begin modelling soon.  I drew both of them on IbisPaint and made sure to have a side and front view of each in order to make the modelling easier.  For the Guinevere model sheet, I did some of it by eye which made it more difficult when modelling the character. I learnt from this and imported numerous grids and support lines for when I drew the Arthur model sheet to make sure that everything was lined up, especially with him being the most angular character that I plan to make.  I will go onto drawing the Merlin concept and model sheet and get everything ready to model him as well.  (for the blog post, I have edited the side and front sheets together for convenience)

With my concept art done, I went on to making the model sheets for Guinevere. I created a front and side perspective for the character. In order to create them, I used IbisPaint and was careful with measurements and tried my best to make sure everything was lined up. When drawing the model sheets, I used both the concept art that I had already done and a basic model sheet to use as a base.  Once I had finished the model sheets, I wanted to get straight into modelling her. To start off the model, I wanted to get a basic shape so used the base model sheet that I used to draw mine. With it, I modelled the overall shape of Guinevere’s body which I would later alter to what I wanted.  I started off her body at the ankle, then finishing the feet before moving up the leg to the torso and arms.  The only thing that I changed about the model was the lower leg as the model sheet's version made it look strange. Instead, I made it wider to make it appear more natural.  After I f...

Arthur was the next one that I designed its concept for. Being the more mechanical character that I plan to make, I have used quite a lot of cubes and other angular shapes to design him.  For his design, I wanted to use the basic shapes that a medieval knight would have had on their armour. I looked at numerous amounts of armour designs from the Middle Ages era to get his overall idea.  My main inspirations I had for his design were Optimus Prime from the Transformers franchise and also the numerous robots from Tower of Fantasy. Both of these are quite bulky in appearances and I believed that would work well towards the Arthur character. His head primarily consists of the helmet’s bevor (mouth guard), crown which will help emphasis his position as king, and an eye.  Designing his body was the hardest part as I had to keep his robotic appearance but also integrate a knight’s armour into it. I’ve intertwined gold around the body as another symbol of wealth and power. The go...