The Medieval Walking Tank

I started 3D modelling the first character for my miniatures board game that I started creating back in January. I wanted all the characters to be in a Clone Wars/Team Fortress 2 visual style, and I started with my tank character, a female knight.

Artwork for the knight.

The model's initial turnaround featuring the character's robust yet feminine proportions beneath the armour.

Although I intend this tanking knight to be female, I decided against showing any of the characters' faces in the designs so that the models would be androgynous enough to encourage players of any gender to pick their favourite to personalise.

The initial 282-tri low poly model.

Smoothing the model manually in Maya to try and maintain the desired visual style.

Altered to a T-pose for easier rigging and weight painting later on. Hands added, and the fingers are kept square-ish to maintain that cartoony visual style.

Additional armoured added. Being a model for print, as much detail as possible must be modelled, can't rely on textures.

All armour and main details modelled. Any further details will be added when the model is upscaled in Mudbox or ZBrush.

The model seen from behind.

Its current poly count is fairly average for most modern digital game characters, but it still needs to be UV mapped and rigged. Once it's rigged, it'll be posed and imported to either Mudbox or ZBrush (neither program I'm vastly familiar with yet) so it's smoothness can be improved for the print model.

I'll likely end up reusing the UV mapped 15k model for promotional artwork, adding a texture reminiscent of the Borderlands art style.

For now, I'm concentrating on getting all the models up to at least this standard as quickly as possible before moving to the next stage, which would be posing and smoothing in Mudbox or ZBrush. The remaining characters are the duelist, the archer and the grenadier. Not to mention the monster itself.