Beast - The Innkeeper

MichaelSchwarz

Hi everyone,I'm joining the party a bit late, but I'm definitely in.

So, going through the story of The Beast, some of the stronger themes we see are "contrasting appearance", "loyalty", and "hospitality". This combination made me think of the Geisha Hostess archetype of feudal Japan, so I started out with some quick brainstorming sketches.


Refining it further, I did some costume and face exploratory sketches.


I realize the more obvious beast would be a male character, not to mention a far more beastly one, but if you look at the original: the beast had been a beautiful prince to begin with, so that duality had always been a part of the character. As such, this concept depicts both "beauty" and "beast" in one.

C&Cs are always appreciated.

Yoji

 I really like the A + D clothing concept plus the F head cause of its beauty, but for me, it needs a bit of betrayal to show, a bit of malevolence like A (maybe just the eyes to the side). You can copy the html link from imgur then delete the ahref part closed in the brackets, then press the < / > button in the window twice, then it inserts.
Good luck in the contest! Will be watching the progress!

MichaelSchwarz

Hi Yoji, thanks a lot for your feedback! I didn't quite get the explanation for posting links, but it suddenly started working now, so I'm happy. The help is much appreciated though.

And here is the current state of the base mesh. Still needs work. Much of it would be obscured by clothing, but I need to figure out how the clothing would drape onto everything first.

MichaelSchwarz

Some progress on the overall anatomy. I want her to display a certain measure of strength, but hopefully I didn't go overboard with the musculature.




I've also done some experimenting with the overall feel; trying to find the right ratio of beauty to beast. Plus playing around with Marvelous Designer to see how her clothing might fit.





And this polypaint test haunts my soul

Yoji

Creepy skin xD Creepy hairshader too.
I think she looks real sturdy for an older woman.
I like the tattoo on the back, but not the scars, at least not like this, they really need the blood and poison leaking
Also, even if I think the tattoo is really cool, is the rising sun representative of this person? I mean, isn't she evil? Isn't Amaterasu's rising sun the symbol of hope or mainly positive? Will you somehow, destroy the positive concept? I mean in the good way.
Got any good tuts for MD? I really suck at it. I changed my mind so the cloth will be the last thing I do.

Keep up the good work! We're watching.

MichaelSchwarz

Thanks Yoji. Yeah, MD is hard to find good tutorials for, but I found this channel pretty useful:
https://www.youtube.com/user/WildWebWorks/videos
You might have seen it before, but it's a nice starting point for making sense of everything.

About the character, I don't actually plan on depicting her as evil. I'm exploring some of the extremes in my sketches there (cause really, you never know), but the design will almost certainly be of a normal human. Think of her more as a former Yakuza enforcer turned innkeeper and you'll have a clearer picture

You're right though, the rising sun tattoo might be a bit too much, though I imagine it's the kind of self-indulgent tattoo that lots of people would get in her position. I still want to do a Yakuza-style tattoo running along her arm and onto the side of her neck.

Yoji

 I totally get the feel now, yeah. I thought you were going for the mermaid-esque "beautiful geisha ghoul secretly attracts fools to her lair and devours the poor souls". Yakuza in their early days may not be the most eloquent,polite or smartest people so yeah, any "badass" tattoo should do then, as I remember they always have fullbody en-route and fullsleave tattoos, especially if this lady is an ex boss she should really not give a fuck about her posture so I imagine she would be like a laid back bosuzoku laying and walking around for show *spits grass reed from mouth* shit's about to get down kinda attitude. Like, "the russian" from Black Lagoon only with less discipline. 
Thanks for the MD link, really needed it, that lady was between the first tutorials I did in the past too but I didn't find her again
We gotta pick up the pace man, or at least finish with a boom! ( I may be speaking for myself though cause I think you're way ahead xD )

MichaelSchwarz

That imagery works pretty well Yoji. I might have to play around with where she stands on the Elegant / Beastlike spectrum to try it out.
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Not too happy with how it's looking so far. The Kimono was really tough to figure out, whether using Marvelous, or directly with ZBrush, so it ended up landing a bit far off the original mark.
My intention is to push the animal theme with the clothing. Not sure how well it reads at the moment, but the sleeve hanging off her back should mirror a tail in the silhouette. The other sleeve, similarly, mirrors a bird's wing.

TophT

A very unique take on the story. I like the direction you are taking. I like the colour pallet you chose for the costume, though, it could use some finer details. The forms seem blocky and shapeless at the moment. The fur trim is a nice touch, do you have a plan for how you will be reducing it down to game resolution or is it simply a stand in for the lower resolution? I think you could use another pass on the face makeup. When I think Geisha, I think of the lily white paint contrasted by brilliant reds, either framing the eyes or along the cheek bones. You'll want to stay clear of it just looking like a dead face.
Keep up the good work, can't wait to see more.
T.

MichaelSchwarz

Thanks a lot Topht. Yeah the face was bothering me in overall readability. I think I mostly resolved it in the recent versions though, so hopefully it feels more convincing now. But yes, I still plan on having some bright red accents breaking up the flow on the face.
Yes, the fur in ZBrsuh is just a placeholder to see how it works - I plan on using a relatively small number of alpha cards to get the low poly proper.
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I keep forgetting to update, but here's some progress. I'm going back and forth between "too far" and "not enough" on many of these details
Fingers are still giving me trouble; I wanted to show that one digit had been removed (as a common Yakuza tradition of punishment), but I think it just reads as a weird mishapen finger at the moment




I also tested out another color scheme. I think it might be a little stronger than the last one.