Game Character - Hera, Divine Paladin || Full Creation Process
polycounter lvl 17
Ho' there- it's me!
Been working on this character for a smaller game project for the past few months.
Her name is Hera- a Paladin who follows the God of Justice. As one of their chosen agents, she's been granted a boon- the Divine Aegis.
It's an ability that grants her supernatural armor that defends her body, making armor unnecessary. She... Dresses down a bit more than usual, because she loves showing off the power of her Deity (She's actually a huge fangirl for her). She'll even go as far as giving her opponent a free shot before fighting them, as a display of her Deity's might.
I decided to be smart this time, though, and actually iterate on the design BEFORE I started the modeling process. This is me learning from 9 years of redoing model after model due to design after design.
Here's the concept process, from late January all the way to last week or so:
Started off with a random idea based on some designs from Bravely Default and such:
Iterated a week or so later with some ideas I had to make the design more consistent:
An iteration with altered proportions better for sprites. At this point, I'm still trying to figure out exactly how the shoulders/shawl area works:
Had an idea and gave her a full surcoat with a front-flap, and a big 80's hair foof- an attempt to bring back the heroic confidence of the first one after a friend said she was starting to look a bit villainous:
Said friend later mentioned that the headdress didn't really fit with the rest of the design, so I did some concepts.
I eventually settled on a combination of 2 and 5, since I really liked the segmented spikey bits.
This is also where I tried out a bit more simplification with super stylized eyes:
This was just a rough action sketch I fleshed out- I ended up really liking the bold outlines and general presentation, so I settled on that idea for the art style:
As you can see in the final render, I eventually abandoned the stylized eyes in favor of the old ones, as they better fit the character's personality.
I then began the modeling process after drawing up some orthographic layers:
I decided to use an interesting method I saw on Twitter that used a base of side-view silhouette meshes:
It turned out pretty well:
The modeling, itself is completed
I add the secret ingredient: Vertex colors and hand-drawn lines:
And then I adjust the eyes and compete the rigging process:
And the final result is as you've seen:
Been working on this character for a smaller game project for the past few months.
Her name is Hera- a Paladin who follows the God of Justice. As one of their chosen agents, she's been granted a boon- the Divine Aegis.
It's an ability that grants her supernatural armor that defends her body, making armor unnecessary. She... Dresses down a bit more than usual, because she loves showing off the power of her Deity (She's actually a huge fangirl for her). She'll even go as far as giving her opponent a free shot before fighting them, as a display of her Deity's might.
I decided to be smart this time, though, and actually iterate on the design BEFORE I started the modeling process. This is me learning from 9 years of redoing model after model due to design after design.
Here's the concept process, from late January all the way to last week or so:
Started off with a random idea based on some designs from Bravely Default and such:
Iterated a week or so later with some ideas I had to make the design more consistent:
An iteration with altered proportions better for sprites. At this point, I'm still trying to figure out exactly how the shoulders/shawl area works:
Had an idea and gave her a full surcoat with a front-flap, and a big 80's hair foof- an attempt to bring back the heroic confidence of the first one after a friend said she was starting to look a bit villainous:
Said friend later mentioned that the headdress didn't really fit with the rest of the design, so I did some concepts.
I eventually settled on a combination of 2 and 5, since I really liked the segmented spikey bits.
This is also where I tried out a bit more simplification with super stylized eyes:
This was just a rough action sketch I fleshed out- I ended up really liking the bold outlines and general presentation, so I settled on that idea for the art style:
As you can see in the final render, I eventually abandoned the stylized eyes in favor of the old ones, as they better fit the character's personality.
I then began the modeling process after drawing up some orthographic layers:
I decided to use an interesting method I saw on Twitter that used a base of side-view silhouette meshes:
It turned out pretty well:
The modeling, itself is completed
I add the secret ingredient: Vertex colors and hand-drawn lines:
And then I adjust the eyes and compete the rigging process:
And the final result is as you've seen:
Replies
In-game!
No irises yet- I'm just going to hand-draw them in due to angle issues.
Experimenting with smear frames.
It was an... ExSMEARiment, if you will.
It might be personal preference, but her concept kind of resembles to me a bit more "animalistic" or "wild" of sorts, so I think that a run animation that resembles more of this would fit her better, like a bent run or occasionally on all fours a couple steps would be kinda interesting to see I think, up to you though was just an idea I imagined looking at her hehe ^^
The smearing animation looks sick! you're onto something pretty cool there, keep it up
I feel you- initially, she had a more hunched over run where she leaned further in, but it didn't feel right for her base travel speed.
I'll probably use such an animation for sprinting.