Project Character Development

After changing my idea (and with the possibility that it might change further), I looked at roughing out a character that I could use as my protagonist. I started off with an inspiration board using images I'd been collecting for the past few weeks. This included a little of the environment, but mostly of the character, focusing on the character's role and outfit.

From here, I sketched up some designs just using pencil and paper to see what kind of route I wanted to go down.

At this stage I wanted to just keep the body shape semi-realistic without pushing the forms too much but as I keep developing the character, I'd like to see what I can do with shapes and silhouettes. In hindsight, I don't like the protagonist carrying a gun of any description as I think this takes away from the idea of her being a helper and trying to find the 'cure'.

I tidied up the lines a little in Photoshop before adding some rough colour to help work out where I wanted to go with the character's colour in the future.

As well as outfits, I looked at face shapes and designs, sketching out some ideas here as well.

I really liked the first design as she looks both modern and friendly and her styling is in line with my own aesthetic so I could work further on this using my own experiences. I have to say, I really liked her design and kept sketching as I added some colour to see what I could do with her.

I've already spoken about how I'd like to avoid the cliches as much as I can and as such, I think giving the protagonist colourful hair helps pull away from the de-saturated palettes that we often see in post-apocalyptic settings.

I have a lot more to work on and a lot more to develop in terms of story before I finalise the character. I also know that this character is going to be simplified into a very low poly model for the final film but I want to add enough detail to be able to take it away while still leaving enough so that the audience will be able to understand her.

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