Overwatch Fan Character - Project Chimera
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Hello Polycount!
Time for a new project and this time we're heading for the beautiful world of Overwatch!
I've been wanting to tackle a full Overwatch character for some time now. Considering how close that game is to my own natural style it's actually kind of surprising it took me this long to hop into it. I just wrapped up a little 'test sculpt' of Soe, one of the Overwatch League hosts and commentators, to test a few things out so now is the time for a full project so lets dive right in!
Welcome to Project: CHIMERA
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CURRENT PROGRESS:
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For this character I’m picking up a concept that actually in the Overwatch artbook. There's a ton of amazing work in that book (buy it, it’s good!), but this one definitely caught my eye. She’s a neat early hybrid between what later became Mercy and Symmetra. I’m going to take this design and develop her a bit into a fully fleshed out hero.
Lets cover a little backstory!
Meet Belle Ferron, or as she’s more commonly known: CHIMERA
Although Belle was born only a few years before the end of the Omnic Crisis, it nonetheless left it’s mark, losing her arm in the same omnic attack that robbed Belle of her parents. It was Overwatch's daring raids on the omnic strongholds just a few months later that finally ended the Crisis. As the choas subsided, Belle taken in by a foster system that cared for her well enough, but she was just one more orphaned child in a world that itself was still recovering and rebuilding.
As Belle grew older she threw herself into her studies to escape her trauma and people began to take notice of this brilliant (if somewhat emotionally compromised) young girl. When Typhon, a gifted doctor working in refugee settlements, learned of her history he sought Belle out immediately. He offered to replace her lost limb with advanced cybernetics and teach her how to help other victims who had been hurt or displaced by the global conflict like her. Unfortunately, the fact that Typhon also happened to be an omnic did not escape Belle’s notice and she furiously rejected him. But eventually Belle's empathy for the plight of her fellow survivors became too much to bare alone and she begrudgingly accepted the robotic doctor’s help and guidance.
The two set to work healing the wounds of a post-Crisis world. Together, Belle and Dr. Typhon ventured boldly into a new frontier of combining human and omnic potential, re-discovering and adapting lost omnic technology from all over the world to better the lives of others. As they worked, what began as a strained, contentious relationship between student and teacher evolved over time into profound respect. After nearly 10 years working together, Belle even began to consider the eccentric omnic as an adoptive father - she had found a home.
Sadly, the peace would not last.
Human and omnic relations have become strained in recent years. While Belle was abroad attending a robotics symposium at the academies of Oasis, Dr. Typhon’s medical lab was raided by an anti-omnic terrorist group. Typhon managed to successfully evacuate the facility, but the safety of his staff and patients came at a tragic cost: the robot doctor was the lone casualty. Once again, Belle found herself without a family.
In spite of the loss of her mentor, this time Belle found strength in the legacy that the two had built together. She now actively campaigns all over the world as an advocate of omnic rights, combining her cutting-edge technology with human ingenuity to help defend those in need, robotic and human alike.
I apologize for the wall of text. Normally I don’t write everything out, but I always tend to develop my own head-cannon or story for the characters I work on. It’s important that a character’s design choices supports the narrative of who that character is at their core. In a game like Overwatch, the functionality of that character plays a major role in what they ultimately look like, but that character’s origins and lore can also inform the final design in other ways (ex. Tracer’s bomber jacket calls back to her pilot background, D.Va’s e-sports sponsorship patches, etc.).
So for Chimera, I’m using her namesake and the idea of combining ‘species’ to add a bit of a twist to some of her design elements. I’ll cover those later, but just keep in mind: lion, ram, snake. I’m not planning on changing the concept much, but I will make a few minor additions to support a concept.
I started work on this a few months ago, but I’m going back and re-tooling her a bit. I’ll go ahead and post the two WIP’s I have and then move forward from here.
Haven’t quite started the cybernetic arm or much of her lower body yet, but I’ll be tackling that shortly. Dunno about those pants from the concept though... Right now they look kinda goofy. Might have to alter that.
added to my favorites c:
How does she attack?
Thanks man! I actually ended up developing a really excellent skin shader technique in Marmoset that matches the Overwatch skin tones almost exactly so that should really help nail the style when it comes to that part.
@Brian"Panda"Choi
Hah, I know right?!
I've seen loads of interesting fan ideas for OW characters, but a large number of them lack some critical planning when it comes to gameplay design. Rest assured she does have an attack method that utilizes her cybernetic arm - think along the lines of Iron Man. It would also make her Overwatch's first 'lefty' too. I won't bore you guys with the details, but she does have an ability write up waiting in the wings. I think this concept from the artbook would have eventually gotten something along the lines of Symmetra's bubble thrower...but screw that noise, I wanna do something more fun!
Thank you man! I'll try to keep it entertaining both here and on Twitter.
Alright, another update with some breakdowns. I need to work on documenting my process better, but I hope this covers at least some of how I approach clean, stylized clothing and parts. Hard-surface I'll block out in Maya/Max, but the lion's share of the highpoly is purely done in ZBrush.
(Let me know if anyone is having trouble reading my wildly inconsistent handwriting, I can type this out instead and re-upload)
You can ignore the hand for now (it's just leftover symmetry), but the arm itself is giving me trouble. I just realized that I'm trying to re-create what I'm seeing without taking into account the forearm rotation in the concept. So I'm gonna have to change a few things up. Might bulk up a few parts and sell the asymmetry better. I will also be departing from the concept on the hand for "lore & gameplay" reasons, but it's not every well defined anyway.
Nothing it set it stone yet. I already know I'll have to give a couple full passes at her face and hair. Still haven't started blocking out below her belt-line either, but that's on deck - time to give her some legs.
Thank you both so much! Dunno if I'll have an update ready to fire off by tomorrow, but certainly by Monday. Got a lot of work to plow through to get her lower body at least blocked out. One of these days, I'm going to have to create a full step-by-step process for a full character. That way I can show off some tips and tricks...but mostly so other professionals can tell me what I might be doing wrong.
I did some initial block out of her lower half (she has legs now!), but I very quickly ran into some design problems with the original concept. I had take what I had roughed out for her skirt and pop it into Photoshop for some paint-overs to plan out the back patterning....and that kinda spiraled out into tackling a whole bunch of other things I was procrastinating on as well. Took a stab at her 'lion's paw' combination arm + weapon, played around with her 'horns', figured out the belts, and tackled some iconography.
Aiming at a midpoint somewhere between Sombra and Symmetra for proportions.
There's a few problem areas I'll need to experiment with, but I'm mostly happy with it. I'm also using Mercy's default outfit as a guidepost for costume detailing, so I'm borrowing a few visual ques from her. I'm still not sure about the "horns/halo" thing though. The concept isn't super clear so I think I have some room to play with them. I just don't want to push them too close to Mercy or Moira's headgear.
Keep on kicking butt!
I think the lower body is pretty much blocked in and placed roughly the way I'd like. I ended up deviating from my paint-overs above to simplify the design somewhat as well as solve a few flow problems from her original concept. Overall I'm pretty happy with her direction so far so I'm going to start finalizing parts here and there. I'm also going to stop procrastinating and actually handle that arm and her face and hair need small overhaul too.
Her headgear is one of the only things I'm undecided on so I blocked the two stronger options. One is closer to the concept, but I actually kinda dig the 'ram horns'. I may still just nix them both though and stick with just the smaller floating pieces.
Thank you both! I'm definitely going to try and pull the horns up and forward a bit. Got a really solid list of feedback points from a couple people focusing on her face and hair so that'll be a good opportunity to figure out and finalize the horns too.
Finally getting around to editing her face from based on feedback. Not sure why I had her jaw thrust so far forward, but pulling it back definitely helps round out her features better. I also have a weird habit of placing the ears properly in the earlier stages...and then not fixing them later after moving other parts around it, so they start to slide down. I'll keep nudging her in the right direction, but let me know if I missed something or need to push further.
I might need to pull the ears up a little higher still and push them a further forward on the skull.
hope this helps