A Monster of Medieval Mythology

For the monster, I was worried that I wouldn't have the time to design, model, rig and weight a more extravagant like a dragon or something more spectacular with the remaining time I had. So, I looked into other creatures from medieval mythology. I was more attracted to the more humanoid monsters because, given the time remaining, it'd be easier to model and rig something of a similar shape to the hunters, having already had practise rigging them.

In my research, I stumbled across a monster called an Anthropophage, which is so commonly mixed up with another creature called a Blemmyes that the two have merged into one being. It was common in medieval mythology as well as others, and also referenced in Shakespeare's Othello. The Anthropophage is described as a tribal cannibal that eats human beings, and the Blemmyes appearance is a giant humanoid without a head, with its face within its torso. As these two creatures are often confused with one another, I combined the two descriptions for my creature.

Artwork of the Anthropophage/Blemmyes.

A turnaround for the creature.

A quick size comparison between the creature and the hunters.

The initial low poly model of the monster.

The low poly being upscaled slightly from the low poly.

The Maya model close to being finished and posed.

The Maya model having been UV mapped, rigged, weighted and posed.

The Maya model imported into ZBrush further upscaled and ready for print.

The Alchemist/Plague Doctor

For the last "hero" character, I wanted to pay homage to more traditional fantasy classes, but I didn't want to include magic in the game as it may have complicated the rules. Instead, I went for something similar, but leaned more towards medieval medical practises. I went for the plague doctor theme as the robes fit with the tabards of the crusader and the archer, and the beaked, bird-like mask further creates a link with the other hunters, especially the archer.

Artwork for the alchemist.

The turnaround for the alchemist.

The initial low poly model of the alchemist.

Upscaling the model in Maya.

Further upscaled in Maya.

The model having been UV mapped, rigged, weighted and posed.

The completed Maya model.

The model with a base added, taken into ZBrush to be upscaled and smoothed, ready for print.

The Archer/Bowman/Ranger

I wanted to have at least one specialist ranged character. The idea was to have a hooded figure with some sort of mask beneath. I started modelling with one mask, and then changed the mask on the model and the artwork at a later stage.

The artwork for the ranger after the mask was changed.

Turnaround for the ranger with the original mask.

The initial low poly.

The first stage of upscaling the model.

The model having been further upscaled in Maya.

The completed upscaled Maya model. 

The model being rigged, weighted and posed. The old mask had also been deleted to make way for the new one.

The completed Maya model of the archer including all props and the new mask.

A closeup of the new mask.

The model having been taken into ZBrush to upscale further. On the left, divisions have been added before smoothing. The right smoothed straight from the rigged model. Ready for printing.

The Medieval Crusader

For my second character, I wanted something similar to a knight but was lighter armoured and lighter on their feet. I also wanted to keep the character's face covered, to make them more androgynous.

Artwork for the crusader.

The crusader's turnaround.

The initial low poly model.

Adding more tris and smoothing the model as I go.

The model has been further upscaled, and is almost ready for UV mapping, rigging and weighting.

The model has been rigged, weighted and posed. 

The model has had all its props added, but will still need to be upscaled further before I can go to print.

A base is added, and the model has been taken into ZBrush. Extra divisions were added without smoothing the model. The model was then smoothed after so that the model maintained its shape. Now the model's ready for print.

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.

Choosing the Setting: Fantasy

With the rise in popularity of the dark fantasy genre, largely due to the titanic success of HBO's (Home Box Office Entertainment's) adaptation of George R. R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire novel series, I thought I'd try experimenting with another visual theme for my game.

I started by drawing influences from other game series like Dragon Age and Dark Souls, but then started looking at actual medieval knight's armour for reference.

These are just some of the sketches I've done so far. The variety of real medieval armour is pretty surprising, from helmets to the styles of plate and chain mail. I think I need to explore this a lot more. Real medieval plate armour is also very non-gender-specific, this may present a great way of including some androgyny into masked characters.

Here are some cool medieval armour styles:

Image source: http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3341/3326748507_eb44d597a0_o.jpg
Last accessed: 14th April 2014

Image source: http://milleonaria.files.wordpress.com/2011/05/3326747977_139f21f27d.jpg
Last accessed: 14th April 2014

Image source: http://www.ageofarmour.com/images/sigfront.jpg
Last accessed: 14th April 2014

Image source: http://organicarmor.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/armor-met.jpg
Last accessed: 14th April 2014

Image source: http://en.academic.ru/pictures/enwiki/75/KHM_Wien_S_XIII_-_Jousting_armour_by_Jörg_and_Lorenz_Helmschmid_front.jpg
Last accessed: 14th April 2014