The Difference A Feature Can Make

 Over the reading week, I have been experimenting with creating a stylised character without use of reference just to see how well I can do. Overall I was fairly happy with how the sculpt turned out, and so decided to take it further by adding a moustache and hair. After doing this however, I noticed that if I hid one or both of them, they the character would give off a completely different look, and made the sculpt feel as though it was a different character all together. Because of this, I sculpted two hair styles and three facial hair styles to mix and match, which produced many different looks for the character, proving the point that a simple change can have a drastic effect on a character or model.

This character is the original, with the long hair and handlebar moustache with the intent of him being some sort of western sheriff or villain.

After removing the hair and moustache (and sculpting some ears), I noticed he now looked like some sort of monk or wise old man rather than the cowboy I had originally planned. This is what prompted me to test out the variations I could come up with without changing the facial features in any way.

The secondary hairstyle I made gives the impression of some sort of punk that you'd see in a game set in a pub, the character doesn't look like a protagonist and instead gives off a generic enemy vibe, that a player would fight in waves.

Next I put the moustache back onto him, and sculpted a soul patch, which I feel has instantly given him a sort of viking jarl sort of appearance, or some kind of enemy leader.

I then wondered what the character would look like with a simple beard, and found that he looks like a harder to defeat enemy or a lead bad guy in a game, or even a survivor from some sort of apocalypse. The beard was a special addition to the character, as it has brought the shape of the silhouette of his face to a more rounded angle, giving him an entirely new appearance without actually changing the shape of his head at all.

Finally, I decided to have a mix of the beard and the moustache, and add the long hair to create this sort of cult leader type look, or even again some sort of survivor of a desert island. 

While I originally did not see myself doing another head sculpt, this idea is something I wish to further pursue as it is extremely interesting to try out small different changes to alter the whole appearance of a character. Going further, I wish to try this on multiple character sculpts and also on regular models to see if the same effect can also be applied. For example, a street light with moss or plants on it would convey some post apocalyptic scenario, while simple graffiti or stickers on it could either convey a punk type theme, or just a regular busy area full of people. I also would like to experiment in the same manner with texturing, as I feel sometimes I could portray a model in a warm inviting tone, or in contrast have it appear cold and decrepid looking simply with a colour scheme.

The Pirate part 4 + More

 After a long time painting and rendering to get this looking right, I have finally finished the stylised realism pirate from Sea Of Thieves. 

While this model is lower poly than the original sculpt, it is not as low as it could have been, as this model is roughly 280k tris. I feel like for a head however, that this is not a bad amount to have, as the head of a character is what a player would be looking at the closest and most often. I chose to keep the hair in the Sea Of Thieves style rather than render actual hair on the model as I felt that because the model was staying stylised, the hair should be too. Due to rendering in sketchfab, I have been able to include subsurface scattering on this sculpt, allowing for further realism for the head.

I have also finished the realistic shaped head and attempted to texture it in a stylised way. I feel however that this model has not been as successful as the Sea Of Thieves head, as it still looks like I've gone for realism, which I feel is down to the rendering options I chose for Sketchfab. As seen on the character's cheek, I have included scars that would normally appear on a Sea Of Thieves character to try and emphasize the stylisation that I have been trying to achieve. I have a theory that the sculpt itself is also to blame for the non stylistic appearance, as when sculpting in order to add realism, I included wrinkles and age, and even skin pores, which made it difficult to mix into a less realistic style while still retaining the detail of the model. In earlier sculpts, I had included fibre meshes for the stubble and the eyebrows to bring the realism of the sculpt up further, yet it drastically increased the poly count and would have made the final appearance way too realistic.