New Character Design, Female Motorcycle Racer

dwgagner

Working on a new character design for my portfolio, she's a motorcycle racer on an over-sized bike that runs on clean energy, setting is the future. I will be modeling both the character and the bike. The bike is longer than a typical motorcycle with a front heavy chassis to counterbalance the extreme speeds. Tires are treaded to deal with outdoor terrain, races occur on salt flats / canyons etc, fairly flat environment.

Here's the concept I designed, next update will be some zbrush sculpting.

JERIX

Cool!!! I like the concept you have here sir!

Steve Schulze

I'm not sure about the practicality of the bike. Based on the postion of the seat and handlebars and the height of the girl, she's going to be pretty uncomfortable with her arms stretched right out and her chin pretty much resting on the gas tank. That's going to be particularly problematic if she's going over rough terrain. She's also probably going to be unable to actually see where she's going or steer particularly well.

It's an aesthetically pleasing design, but I think you need to take another look at it and work out how it's actually going to work. You've obviously got a little freedom through suspension of disbelief as it's a fantastical design, but I think as it is now, it's going to look a bit wrong once you get the mounting her on the bike.

dwgagner

I actually drew a rough form over the bike when I was designing it in her size, she sits just fine, rides more like a crotch rocket even though it visually looks more like a harley.

garriola83

I'd like to see her riding the bike, to see if your measurements are spot on

dwgagner

Here's a quick rough for scale and rider position. As you can see there is plenty of room for her to operate the vehicle. Obviously in RL a girl that size could not operate something so heavy but the over-sized bikes is a stylistic decision. While there may need to be a cpl adjustments they are by no means going to be major, nor do they need to be completely solved in the concept. The measurements are close enough that it should work once modeled.

Drav

The problem i see with this is that the rough style of the bike is fairly chopperesque, so looks a little like a harley, looks like youd sit on it like a harley, but then you want to put her on like a racer.

In short, it looks cool, but this bike would suck to ride

Her ass needs to be more up in the air, mosre towards lying than sitting. All imo of course.....

If you fancy a redesign, have a look at racers posture, and where their centre of gravity is. While you have some creative leeway with it being a futuristic design, I think understanding how bikes work will hlp to create something more convincing....

SA_22

love the style of the character!.. think you could shrink the seat part of the bike tho and bring the back wheel forward. that should raise her up a tiny bit 2 so she can see over the front

dwgagner

Drav wrote: »

The problem i see with this is that the rough style of the bike is fairly chopperesque, so looks a little like a harley, looks like youd sit on it like a harley, but then you want to put her on like a racer.

In short, it looks cool, but this bike would suck to ride

Her ass needs to be more up in the air, mosre towards lying than sitting. All imo of course.....

If you fancy a redesign, have a look at racers posture, and where their centre of gravity is. While you have some creative leeway with it being a futuristic design, I think understanding how bikes work will hlp to create something more convincing....

I actually spent a lot of time researching bikes so I do know how they work. However my goal was not to design a bike that you could see in the store down the street. It was a conscious decision to design something different. If I lifted the seat up and did what you're talking about the design would fall apart, it would become segmented evenly, splitting the weight down the middle rather than pushed to one side. The reason it looks good atm is because it's designed using the principles of the golden rectangle. While I appreciate your feedback your current suggestion would break that principle. Also I'm not really concerned with how comfortable it would be to ride, (look at tron lightcycles, they are about as uncomfortable as you can get).

There are some elements that have to stay (this is for an indie game not just my portfolio so I'm working with other artists).

Those elements are this:

Over-sized, long design
Large back tire
Weight pushed to front
Racer posture

If you have suggestions that don't break those elements I'm open to hearing them. For instance I can play with her posture, lay her down more and reduce the amount of weight that's towards the front. I'll do some quick experimenting and throw some changes up soon.

Low

Drav wrote: »

Her ass needs to be more up in the air

That!


I think I would be cool to have something from the design of the bike that would be reflected on some way onto the design of the character without going overkill-mirror-style, just a little subtility.

Nice drawing skills btw.

dwgagner

Moved some stuff around.

dwgagner

Update, so I've modeled out the bike and the character, I am currently polishing diffuse and spec then I will be finishing up with normals followed by rigging as she will be going into unity.

Here's a turn around gif of the character currently and a shot of the bike.



and Bike



So to reiterate I am not finished with the diffuse, feedback welcome on ways I can improve diffuse / spec as that's where I'm at atm.

dwgagner

Need feedback plz bump

dwgagner

bump

Aga22

i like it! however your materials are totally matt. have you made normal, spec maps etc?

kodde

Yeah, needs material definition.

I'm a bit late to the party here, but from your early 2D work it seems she can hardly see the road ahead of her due to the big hump in front of her. Did you try posing the character on the bike?

Can we get another angle of the bike? How does the handlebar turn? Is there room enough for it to turn?

dwgagner

Yes it can turn slightly but most steering on motorcycles comes from leaning, in fact you push the opposite direction you want to go, very odd mechanics. I'll post some better angles of the bike.

I'm still working out the spec maps and no normals have been applied yet so I totally agree I need to work on the material definition quite a bit still.

I really appreciate the feedback guys.

erroldynamic

That turnaround gif is too low rez to show off the materials very well. You should post some higher rez stills once you add the spec and normals. Looks cool though, really like the design of both the character and the bike.