CAGD 331

Stylized Character

    When it came to the stylized character project, I cannot simply express in words how excited I was for it...little did I know how difficult that it would be...

I immediately knew what I was going to do because it has been a character that I have been thinking about since high school. My Spanish teacher always believed in my future in CGI and entertainment and she, like my mom, fell in love and married a Chinese man. What she wanted me to do was to create a story (and eventually work at Disney to make a movie) around a princess that was both Chinese and Mexican. This was also something that gave me huge passion because this is a character that identifies with my cultural background. That being said, the character that I was creating was a Disney-style princess with elements that gave her identification with both Chinese and Hispanic cultures.

This character is dedicated to Sra. Alvarez and her daughter

The first step in this process was making a modular base mesh. Though initially, I didn’t quite understand what it meant, I was able to get a little bit more of a grasp when watching the video from Shane Olson; this was also helpful in the stylization that I wanted to go after in the final look of my model. Once I had put that base mesh together, it was time to make the head...also in a modular way. The idea of making things modular was that later when there is a need to make proportional or stylization changes to the mesh, the overarching task is easier to accomplish. The biggest challenge that I ran into in the whole project was actually in this particular stage, more specifically in the modular head part. I kept carving out the mouth bag and leaving the Dynamesh on and my lips kept fusing together...and then I would need to keep carving out a new mouth bag. Needless to say, it was the most aggravating thing ever, but I guess I can say that I got a lot of practice in making mouth bags.

The next step was giving some more sculptural detail to the model. Since a lot of this was already done in the modular stage, this was a relatively easy task to accomplish! I had to make some more minor adjustments to the proportions and where the skin was hanging (in the least gross way to say that as possible), so the biggest challenge that remained was making the face look like...well, a face. I kept running into the consistent issue of the eyes looking like they were protruding too far out of the face, but I was able to solve this dilemma not in this stage, but in the final paint stage. However, more on that later!

After making some sculptural detail happen in the body, it was time to put clothes on this lovely lady. I take back what I previously said...if there was any part that was super challenging, it was this stage of the project. The issue with doing something that has never been done before is that there is absolutely no reference to pull from. I wanted to do what I could to mix the two cultures together and that first started with the dress that she had on. What I went for was an Asian inspiration on the top and then a more Hispanic inspiration in the skirt. After that initial dress, it was about the accessories that went with it and I went for something very gold...and if you look really closely, there is a nice little touch of jade.

Once everything was in place, it was about the paint and the colors that went with it. Though the face was the hardest to paint, the other huge challenge came in the colors that I decided to select. Due to the fact that both the cultures had very vibrant colors, it was hard to pick one or a few in specifics that would really encapsulate the look I was going for. Somehow, I settled on red, after experimenting with tons and tons of different color combinations. The red seemed like it would work nicely. From there, the rest was history! It was a lot of fine-tuning and the final look was achieved! From nails to bracelets and the ornate crown, I am really happy with how everything turned out and I can only hope that I will be able to do other things with it later.

Stylized Character Inspiration

Bringing it back to the roots for this project! I sort of tried to do something like this in 2D last semester for 493 and it didn't really work out...but I am going to try it again!

I wish that I had a little bit more time to do this, but I wanted to draw a concept for my character. I want to go after a Disney-style character (which is heavily stylized in my opinion) and I want to do a multi-racial princess.

This has been a dream of mine to have a character that is such, so I want to make it a reality in this class for this project. Part of that inspiration comes from my own life and the want to see characters that resemble myself. 

In the board above, you can see a variation of some samples of the inspiration that I would like to see in the character that I have created. I wanted to gather everything from color palettes to designs, clothing, faces, and even the 3D stylization.

It's definitely going to be a little bit of a challenge, but I am excited to try it out! I want the final product for this class to look great, I figured that a challenge would be something that I strive for! :)