Anti-hero
This will not be a guide how to create a perfect character with a deep background and detailed story, but it will be a good research blog and strong idea stash. From the previous experience in character concept art creation, I have found a strategy which will help me to success on anti-hero development.
Anti-hero as a being...
Many artists will start drawing their creatures straight away brainstorming the ideas during the drawing process and probably will do it quite well. I have tried to work this way and it doesn't suit me. Of course, I can imagine something and draw it without any problem...I don't consider my drawing skills at this point. To make this concept art stand out and demonstrate it in depth with the strong story behind it I need to find out WHO is this character, where he came FROM...
The best way to answer these questions is to start a research within an interesting field which would have fewer cliches than usually. What I mean by that is the fact that we have established a strong stereotype about the anti-hero, like - Dark, glowing eyes, armour with skulls hanged around, cool sword and so on...Also, the background of the character is often predictable. 100% bad, with lack of redemption and with only one goal - to rule the world. A bad character because of its past, for example, he was bullied in the school etc. To avoid these standardised cliches we need to look at something which transforms our ideas - interpretation. Interpretation is going to be the main guideline within this task, as it will help me to create an interesting character with a specific background and what is most important - purpose.
The best way to answer these questions is to start a research within an interesting field which would have fewer cliches than usually. What I mean by that is the fact that we have established a strong stereotype about the anti-hero, like - Dark, glowing eyes, armour with skulls hanged around, cool sword and so on...Also, the background of the character is often predictable. 100% bad, with lack of redemption and with only one goal - to rule the world. A bad character because of its past, for example, he was bullied in the school etc. To avoid these standardised cliches we need to look at something which transforms our ideas - interpretation. Interpretation is going to be the main guideline within this task, as it will help me to create an interesting character with a specific background and what is most important - purpose.
Who? From where? Meaning? Purpose?
There are a bunch of fields where you can start building the story of your character so I will get rid of some of them:
Futuristic
Future/Past hybrid
Future/Past hybrid
Mythology
Hmm, I will need to explain this I suppose. Why mythology? The answer is quite clear - it is a horn of plenty I would say. All previous options were banned because they have been used so much in the industry. They are so common that the mythology is kinda a way to get something more interesting than that. I will list Pros/Cons of this choice so it will be easier to work on the later stage.
Choice: Mythology
Pros:
Easy to define a bad/evil character
Huge amount of creatures to choose from
Well described and organic in terms of "Reality"
Numerous cultures to choose from
Infinite amount of "Attacks" and "Powers"
Cons:
Strongly defined BAD/GOOD characteristics
(My anti-hero character can't be pure evil, his actions are going to differ from a human interpretation point of view.)
Many of mythological characters have been used already so many times so it might be a cliche (Avoid them!)
Can be hard to manipulate with characters description as it can destroy the organic build in terms of the background and purpose
The culture: Latvia
I have chosen the culture from my country as a foundation for the character development. The reason behind this isn't patriotic, it's more strategical.
I don't want to create a character based on the well knows mythologies like - Greek, Egypt, Chinese, Japanese etcetera. And there is a reason behind it - these mythologies are worn out by the industry. I don't mean that these mythologies are a piece of a crap, no - I like them a lot and I know about them a lot. I just want to bring some fresh creature to show others...
Christianity only came to Latvia in 11th Century but was enforced completely by crusaders at 13th Century. So Latvians were one of the last people in Europe to convert to Christianity. So it means that mythological creatures were well defined and well known. It makes the research a bit easier.
Some text from Latvian Mythology overview
The first accounts of Latvian Pagan beliefs come from archaeological findings such as sacred objects, amulets and other findings. The written sources, mostly made by German Catholic chroniclers show rather subjective accounts. The bull (special Papal declaration) by Pope Innocent III tells about “barbarians who gives the God’s honor for dull creatures, leaf trees, clear waters, green trees and unholy spirits”. The 16 Century Jesuits reports that “everyone here around Ludza and Rezekne is horrific Pagans. They make offerings to Pērkons, Ūsiņš and other fetishes. Almost in every house a witchdoctor, shaman and other kinds of devil servants.” The geographer Sebastian Miller (1489.-1552) in his 22 volume encyclopedia “Cosmographia” with an unpleasant surprise finds out that in the ranks of peasants of Vidzeme “are many of those, who know nothing of God and his saints. One worships sun, other- moon, one chooses a beautiful tree to worship, while other a stone or whatever he pleases”. Chronicler Baltazar in his “Livonian Chronicle” (1578), reports that “Livonian Pagans were devoted to many dreadful fetishes, like Sun, Moon and Stars, just as snakes and other creatures. They hold some brushwoods as holy sights, which were forbidden to cut down. Their superstition was so great that one who would cut down a tree in the holy place would be killed immediately”. These are just some of the accounts who tell that Latvian peasants worship god Pērkons, Ūsiņš, and smaller deities. The sources make a conclusion that Latvian Pagan religion was based on natural and cosmic phenomena like Sun and Moon and other stars. The sources have however given no details about special priests who carry special rituals, the Latvians made rituals themselves. The holy sites were groves and trees. One the main Paganic celebration was Jāņi which takes place on the summer solstice of June 23 to June 24. Jānis is the most common male word in Latvia. Jāņi are officially celebrated today as the summer holiday and are one of the most active Latvian celebrations.
The list of gods and goddesses
DIEVS, DIEVIŅŠ (GOD)
SAULE (SUN)
MĒNESS (MOON)
PĒRKONS (THUNDER)
LAIMA
DIEVA DĒLI AND SAULES MEITAS (SONS OF GOD AND DAUGHTERS OF SUN)
JĀNIS (JĀNIS, SIMILAR TO JOHN)
ŪSIŅŠ
MĀRA, MĪĻĀ MĀRA (MĀRA, DEAR MĀRA)
AUSEKLIS
AUSTRA
JUMIS
 |
| LATVIAN AMULET SIGNS |
These mythological creatures represent a light force so we will look something from the dark side of this mythology. It is well known that many of these gods and goddesses are recorded around the world and might have different names and representations, although the main concept stays the same like Devils and common demons - bloodsuckers. I might be difficult to find a creature which is more or less unique...
One of the most interesting dark side creatures is called "Vadatajs" - meaning - Leading to nowhere. It has a very interesting set of abilities like a mimicry and psychological attack.
Demons who are responsible for making people lose their way in forests. They also send a traveller in the wrong direction on crossroads, so that this person's soul loses its way as well. The Vadatajs ("leading to nowhere") often assume the shape of an animal, but also that of a human being.
At this point, we have little of the description of the character which can be worked out in the ways we need.
I want to mention down his main abilities:
Ability to mimic
This section will need to be inspected in depth because I want to know why he mimics something and what is the range of possible shapes and creatures he is able to mimic. Considering the fact, that this "evil spirit"* inhabits forests I assume his range of visual memory is quite poor if only he is able to break into his preys mind to gather more visual information
*I don't want to consider this creature as a pure evil even if he makes people lose their way and die in deep forests. So again - it is all about the interpretation. We, as humans, always think that we are in the epicentre of things happening around, but what if no one cares about us and things just HAPPEN. At this point, I will think about the purpose of this kind of a behaviour of the Character and why he acts like that (the Purpose!)
Psychological attack
I know that I will run a little bit forward but I already think that this creature could be blind (At this point I am "tuning" the original creature to give him unique features, for example, to get rid of one of the most common cliches - EVIL = GLOWING EYES). I think that the psychological attack would suit this creature as If we could imagine that the forest spirit could be weak in terms of the physical body (I will come back later to discuss this). Attacking a person by giving him an illusion of something that this person desires, such as a beautiful female, rare animal, gold, food, love, strange and unknown things and so on. Why exactly these illusions? Because I think that this could make the person lose his mind if his fortitude is weak. Following the illusion, the prey is losing the path and gets lost very quickly (could be represented as real-life circumstances when people are losing their way and get into troubles etc). After the prey is lost in the forest, the illusion vanishes and leaves the prey alone with one's fear. All this time Vadatajs is following the prey until it dies. Vadatajs is not eating the prey - he is consuming the energy coming from the emotions of the person so it can die quicker in utter helplessness.
Soul/Energy consumer
Vadatajs is consuming energy to keep himself existing. He consumes negative energy to keep forests clean from it. It sounds silly as he makes people disappear and respectively - creates this energy by making people feel fear. So this is where the INTERPRETATION steps into the game. From the observer's point of view, this creature is pure evil and you need to be afraid of it. The observer will think that this creature is hunting people and wants to kill them. He will this that forests are inhabited with a pure evil and so on...which is true...almost and
I will explain why -
I will explain why -
The meaning of evil is coming only from our mind, we think that everything is happening for us like we are the centre of the universe. BUt what if this is a false point of view? I want my character to be good at his own realm, and bad in our world...
The rough idea is that Vadatajs is searching for the prey to keep forests alive, to keep the grow so the soil does not wear out. He is just a helper, although his techniques might look sinister. THe idea of the illusion creation using human desires makes sense if we will look into the animal world. Animals have no desires, except food. And what is even more important - they are always on the alert. They will always feel danger and will timely leave the odd territory.
I was thinking about the idea that Vadatajs is keeping the illusion till the prey dies so the prey can experience pure happiness when the illusion is reached, so it dies with no pain and fear. It is kind of interesting solution that makes the BAD/GOOD interpretation a bit easier.
The rough idea is that Vadatajs is searching for the prey to keep forests alive, to keep the grow so the soil does not wear out. He is just a helper, although his techniques might look sinister. THe idea of the illusion creation using human desires makes sense if we will look into the animal world. Animals have no desires, except food. And what is even more important - they are always on the alert. They will always feel danger and will timely leave the odd territory.
I was thinking about the idea that Vadatajs is keeping the illusion till the prey dies so the prey can experience pure happiness when the illusion is reached, so it dies with no pain and fear. It is kind of interesting solution that makes the BAD/GOOD interpretation a bit easier.
Manipulator
The ability to manipulate the human behaviour makes this creature a very strong anti-hero. The only way how to confront his power is to have a strength of mind and believe in God (As this is the way how you can escape evil forces in Latvian mythology)
Inhabit forests
Another reason for choosing this character was its place of residence - the forest. I like forests a lot and this will be a good benefit in creating a mood board related to the location of this spirit. This location also provides a better understanding how the creature could look like and what type of materials it is using to craft accessories*
+ We know that the forest isn't an easy environment to walk around so I need to think about the movement of the character and how he travels across his territory.
* I want this character to use a physical form so it could be physically visible. I also want him to make primitive accessories and clothing using the materials which can be found in forests like - branches, moss, leaves, bones, feathers, fangs, antlers etc.
WHY should this character wear anything if he is a spirit?
This is actually a good question. I will need to figure out the way of his outlook so it represents the clothing in some different way. It means that he needs to have a simple and effective gear as he can change the way he looks. I am considering him to use the materials which can be found in the forest to embellish himself.
Changing the shape
Vadatajs is able to change its shape - Animal or human. I am not very sure if I want to give him the ability to use any animal shape which inhabits the forest. The reason is - I want to keep this character quite realistic in terms of his abilities although he is able to create illusions in human heads.
Let's look at wildlife in Latvia
I have picked up these two combinations as a possible outcome for the concept art. I have decided not to use Bear, Lynx as both of them are quite strong and I want to keep the balance between PSY and PHY strength. Wolf is quite strong as well and mostrly exists in flocks. However, wolves and deer are careful enough to examine unwanted quests from a distance and they have some sort of "Mystery"
- Deer + human
Slim, elegant movement, long arms and legs, tall, antlers, careful, twitchy, bent, big eyes (if he will have some), big ears
- Wolf + human
Fast, distinct fur, black/grey/white colour, paws, sharp fangs, tactic, night hunt, long travel distance.
Similar mythological creatures in other cultures
Dryads
Lauma
Penghou
Faun
Pan
Fenrir
Minotaur
Windago
Herne
ApproxSummary
Forest spirit
The look of human+deer hybrid
Psy attack ability
Physical body
Using legs for movement
Crafts primitive accessories
Almost unnoticeable
A little taller than a regular human
A good posture
Now, when I have approximate characteristics of my creature I need to look for some references to create a mood board. I need both creature and location mood boards to have a better understanding how do they work with each other. What else I need is the mood board. These boards will be presented to show the overall Idea of the colours, ambiance and the visual aesthetics of the character.
Mood boards
Character
I've collected a small but extremely detailed collection of characters drawn by other artists. I focused on such aspects of the body as posture, height, amount of additional accessories, clothing and overall mood of the forest inhibitor. This collection actually projected the future design of my character.
I've collected a small but extremely detailed collection of characters drawn by other artists. I focused on such aspects of the body as posture, height, amount of additional accessories, clothing and overall mood of the forest inhibitor. This collection actually projected the future design of my character.
Location
The environment creates an atmosphere, which creates a huge influence on the appearance of the character who inhabits this place. I concentrated on pictures and drawings of a deep and gloomy forest. This environment should be associated with fear and simultaniousle fascinate.
The environment creates an atmosphere, which creates a huge influence on the appearance of the character who inhabits this place. I concentrated on pictures and drawings of a deep and gloomy forest. This environment should be associated with fear and simultaniousle fascinate.
Accessories
The world of fantasy is rarely complete without beautifully crafted things. This is why I've collected some interesting images helping me to see what could be used for my character. As a half-human, he still has a willing to create.
RENDERS
The world of fantasy is rarely complete without beautifully crafted things. This is why I've collected some interesting images helping me to see what could be used for my character. As a half-human, he still has a willing to create.
RENDERS
For light, color and shadow comparison for the future render piece.
These are my mood boards, most of the images are going to be used as a reference to my concept art. I have tried to look up for some distinct details in other artist concept arts and also a good pack of forest materials, such as leaves, bones, branches.
The RENDERS link is associated with images which are inspiring me in terms of color palette. I added some images from the "Hobbit" movie to show how the forest and its inhabitants exist together very organically. The main point is to play around with green and dark color shades to represent how my creature could use its outfit ass a camouflage. Every single forest creature is trying to merge with its environment so do my character.
The RENDERS link is associated with images which are inspiring me in terms of color palette. I added some images from the "Hobbit" movie to show how the forest and its inhabitants exist together very organically. The main point is to play around with green and dark color shades to represent how my creature could use its outfit ass a camouflage. Every single forest creature is trying to merge with its environment so do my character.
Concept art
I drew a couple of sketches of how my character might look. I started wit ha simple shapes which could be recognizable as a Human/Deer mix and added new details step by step.I asked my classmates about this concept and they said they like the color palette used on the character. I decided to stick to this particular combination of colors but also to change some of the character's features.
Both "Beta" sketches. At this stage character looks too tribal which is not really fitting the main purpose of its existence as well as the environment. I want to add more "Forest" details to him and probably change the clothes as they don't look comfortable for the forest walks.
This was a stage of the search for interesting ideas and solutions. I was mainly focusing on understanding how the general outline of bone could look like and could it possibly complicate bending and movement of the character. I also portrayed another idea of apparel, where the main part was a homogeneous piece of cloth covering the most of the body. The clothing is the problem if we are talking about the forest inhibitor who is not a human, although his moving and the shape of the body looks similar. This means that this character avoids any contact with people not located on the territory of the forest. The spirit of the forest can exist without clothing as he does not feel shame and asexual also.
But since the character is sometimes seen by survivors, he is described as tall, decorated with wooden decorations and clothing and plays motifs on the flute forcing a person to follow him. He is also very muscular and moves quickly and elegantly and his the most interesting ability - no sound at all. I tried to create a character relying on this "myth". I studied some of the national costumes of my country and identified the most popular patterns on the fabric. I will not use this for clothes in the final version, but I will use this for accessories. By using mood boards I became a final type and amount of the accessories. (Earrings, flute, broach)
Modelling
The head. I tried to distort the usual look of the deer's head to give a creepier feeling. I have also added symmetrical antlers to see how they will impact the scale of the whole body.
The body was made out of sphere and cylinders for limbs. At this stage, I was looking for a good ratio.
Blocking out the main outlines of muscles. Palms and feet are left for the later.
At this point I was a little bit stuck thinking how the legs should look like. I posted this image in the group chat to gather some feedback. Most of the audience noticed that legs look too skinny and have too many joints. Only then I realized, that his calfs were on the wrong spot. I also changed the shape of the head, as the old one didn't fit the body the way I wanted to.
The body was fully finished.
Previous antlers appeared to look boring so I sculpted a new design. I also added some randomness to the position so they don't look too symmetrical.
For the rigging, I have used the transpose master on the low poly mesh which I have made by using a projection of high-poly model to a low-poly one. This step was crucial as if I would have too many polygons (I found out that even 20k is too much) the model won't rig properly and the overall process would slow down the machine a lot.
As for the pose, I tried to give this character semi-relaxed pose to show how comfortable he is in the environment he is at this moment and the peacefulness he brings despite his appearance. The decorations for the antlers were made in C4D. To precise the location of each object which will be created in a side program, I exported the low poly model (as the high poly model won't work properly because of the number of polygons) as obj to use it as the reference for the scale and position purposes.
I was constantly thinking of adding clothes made of wood, not the cloth. I drew some quick sketches of the possible design to model the clothing in the C4D using hard-surface modeling technique.
The flute, brooch and forearm strap were created using the same logic.
The overall shape and elements are defined and now I can start the finalizing part.
During the detailing phase, I decided to tune the clothing as It appeared too flat in comparing the rest of the body. It was impossible to divide it as the original mesh (from c4d) did not have proper supporting edges to allow to subdivide the mesh evenly in ZB. I changed the flute as well to the older one, as the new one was too thin and the shape itself was boring. The base was created using the same techniques as the model itself. I have used a very tiny amount of brushes, such as clay buildup, standard and inflate and changed they alfas for scratching and a wooden texture effect.
One of the still renders using BPR. I did not like the shadowing here, especially in the chest area as the image felt overloaded. so I came up with a different render which is the final one:
Final poster
Modelling
After I decided on the idea and the overall look of the character, I started the work in ZBrush. I kept all the images from the mood board open relying on them during the sculpting phase. I used a minimal set of brushes because I wanted to try myself in this matter for real. It's like I'm really sculpting the character with my own hands. I have used move tool, clayBuildUp, Inflate and standard brushes. Each part of the body was a sphere and once the particular part was sculpted I drove them together, relying on the anatomy of the human body. The muscles had to be drawn longer and the basic ratio relationships were changed too.
The head. I tried to distort the usual look of the deer's head to give a creepier feeling. I have also added symmetrical antlers to see how they will impact the scale of the whole body.
The body was made out of sphere and cylinders for limbs. At this stage, I was looking for a good ratio.
Blocking out the main outlines of muscles. Palms and feet are left for the later.
At this point I was a little bit stuck thinking how the legs should look like. I posted this image in the group chat to gather some feedback. Most of the audience noticed that legs look too skinny and have too many joints. Only then I realized, that his calfs were on the wrong spot. I also changed the shape of the head, as the old one didn't fit the body the way I wanted to.
The body was fully finished.
Previous antlers appeared to look boring so I sculpted a new design. I also added some randomness to the position so they don't look too symmetrical.
For the rigging, I have used the transpose master on the low poly mesh which I have made by using a projection of high-poly model to a low-poly one. This step was crucial as if I would have too many polygons (I found out that even 20k is too much) the model won't rig properly and the overall process would slow down the machine a lot.
As for the pose, I tried to give this character semi-relaxed pose to show how comfortable he is in the environment he is at this moment and the peacefulness he brings despite his appearance. The decorations for the antlers were made in C4D. To precise the location of each object which will be created in a side program, I exported the low poly model (as the high poly model won't work properly because of the number of polygons) as obj to use it as the reference for the scale and position purposes.
I was constantly thinking of adding clothes made of wood, not the cloth. I drew some quick sketches of the possible design to model the clothing in the C4D using hard-surface modeling technique.
The flute, brooch and forearm strap were created using the same logic.
The overall shape and elements are defined and now I can start the finalizing part.
During the detailing phase, I decided to tune the clothing as It appeared too flat in comparing the rest of the body. It was impossible to divide it as the original mesh (from c4d) did not have proper supporting edges to allow to subdivide the mesh evenly in ZB. I changed the flute as well to the older one, as the new one was too thin and the shape itself was boring. The base was created using the same techniques as the model itself. I have used a very tiny amount of brushes, such as clay buildup, standard and inflate and changed they alfas for scratching and a wooden texture effect.
One of the still renders using BPR. I did not like the shadowing here, especially in the chest area as the image felt overloaded. so I came up with a different render which is the final one:
Final poster
Flute poster
EVALUATION
The ability to create something from the scratch is always a stipendiary work. Even if the outcome is not as good as expected. The whole pipeline of the creation exposes your strong points as well as weaknesses which you need to change. This happened to me during the sculpting phase where I found out that I might be too lazy to work on the little details as I want to finish the whole project as soon as possible. This aspect greatly prevented me from developing the model to the standard I am capable of. I can't say that the current stage of the model can be considered as "Finished" because I see that it is not. The body, its proportions and the pose is alright in terms of anatomical references, however, the clothing must be changed or at least finalised. The overall design of the skirt leaves loads of place for experimentation and additional object location. I would improve its detail level as well as a logical attachment to the body. Same applies to the flute, where I could add some more interesting details like the hanging plates or runes. There are many more issues which are preventing this model from becoming a PRO level work, such as lighting, sculpting skill (I think it is wrong to use alphas too much as they replace the painstaking work of learning nuances of the sculpting) I think that my time management was not carefully thought out and because of that I had no time left for the model finalising stage. I wish I could make this sculpture more detailed so It doesn't look so flat and boring. I would add a fur effect on the Head/Neck are to show a smooth transition from an animal creature to the humanoid body which would have much more attached objects relevant to the forest area. I feel that this model has a lot of a potential and can be further developed as well as painted.
While I was going through all the stages I realised that I need to become more organised and disciplined. If I would have a clear developing plan, my character would look way better, fully equipped and textured. I hope that this experience will change my mindset on how the things should be done in the PRO realm.
