3004 Character Brief: Soothsayer Pt. 1 - Concept and Modelling

Designing the Soothsayer character with a very hunched posture was partly because it's common for very elderly women to develop osteoporosis which causes the bones (mainly the spine) to weaken and therefore slowly hunches the back, but I also wanted the symbolism of her being burdened by knowing more things than one person ought to to be clear in her silhouette.

Understanding the Cultural Origin and Grounding the Character:

Initially I'm envisioning this character being from a place that's not too cold but windy and blustery, often overcast and mostly grassy plains. After a bit of research I realised that I was likely thinking of a vaguely Mongolian setting. While I imagine that this character is from a completely fictional region, I'm going to dive more into Mongolian and maybe also Slavic settings and clothing styles to flesh out her appearance.

Sculpting the Face (ZBrush):

A young or middle-aged face can be relatively wrinkle-free, but an elderly or even century-old character is going to not only have countless wrinkles but those wrinkles are going to describe who they are, where they live and how they live. A person from a sunny or warm country is going to have different wrinkles to someone who's lived in a cloudy and cold country their whole lives. I'm aiming for a person who's been in and out of cloudy, windy weather in a relatively cold climate - like Mongolia but less sunny or warm.

Collating reference:

Since I said imagined this character being situated in a place like Mongolia I also collated images of elderly Mongolian women. While their faces will have seen more sun than I imagine the Soothsayer would have, I want to borrow from the different heritages for her.

The last batch of reference was the one I ended up using, collated mainly from Pinterest, and included Native American, Mongolian, Japanese and Russian elderly women and a few elderly men whose faces I wanted to borrow from as well. Because this character is partially fantastical, I think it's important to distance her from pre-existing ethnic groups, just a little.

As far as physique goes, I want her to be quite skinny, petite even. So I'm not going to give her skin that's sagged too much. After researching elderly women, it seems that depending on the water retention of the face, the skin will either droop, become sucked in or somewhere in between. 

Beginning with dyna-meshing the low-poly model in ZBrush, I'm marking and blocking out the main forms of her withered face: sullen eye sockets, gaunt cheeks and shrunken jawline etc. 

I want to double-down on sculpting a petite stature, I'm going to give her a thin and frail neck, modelling the muscular cord structure mainly after that of Mother Theresa.

The greater area of the cheeks was a little difficult as it's a relatively flat piece of the face, so sculpting in wrinkles in a natural way was more challenging. Like the wrinkles, I ended up pulling from a few bits of reference to design the skin crease structure.

I happy with the outcome of the face, I think she does look vaguely Eastern-European, Mongolian and Nepalese, which is the effect I wanted; having her look like she doesn't come from any specific Eastern or Asian origin.

Roughing out the silhouette of the Headwear:

The hat/head-wear should be relatively bulky, since I plan for it to be woollen and to protect against wind and cold, but also to symbolise her heavy-hearted knowledge of people's truths, where they be tragic or not.

Researching Mongolian, Tibetan, Himalayan and Nepalese Clothing:

Nepalese Traditional Head-wear

I want the head-wear to roughly echo the silhouette of the one in the concept sketch, but as for how it's wound and arranged on the head, I want it to resemble a head-wrap of vaguely Nepalese or Himalayan origin, made of a similar woollen material.

I especially feel drawn to the wrapping pattern on the right, but I think I'm going to wrap it around more of her head than that. I want it to resemble almost a larger cranium in her silhouette, once again for symbolic purposes.

Head-wear Sculpting:

Despite searching for hours and collating a spectrum of reference of Eurasian headwear and other kinds, I could never find decent reference of how it looks at the back, arrangement-wise. I tried watching a few videos of how Arabian headdresses are wound, but in the end I decided I needed to make some sort of head-wrapping myself. I photographed it from every angle so I could actually follow the wrapping pattern and have it be appropriate for the headwear I want for the character.

Both the head and hat retopologised in Blender. The topology of the face is symmetrical for the most part except the vertices that I pulled around to better define the asymmetrical wrinkles and frown lines.

Hands:

Using the hands from the same low poly base-model, I thought it important to lay down fundamental forms like the tendons and bony knuckles before beginning on the finer wrinkle details.

Slimming down the tissue between the joints and especially in between the thumb and index on the top of the hand immediately made it appear more old and aged.

The creases on the palm and the insides of the fingers is likely going to be more difficult than the outside of the hand, since this area of skin would transform and stretch across the joints more dramatically, which isn't something I can easily translate to a mesh or a rigged and animated one. So my approach is to work out a neutral or 'resting' pose for all the wrinkles so it will hopefully look as natural as possible when posed or not.

Hands retopologised in Blender. I've decided to cut the palm sculpting short because I think it'll be more time-efficient to create them in Substance Painter during the texturing stage of the pipeline.

Trousers:

I want a generally baggy look to the trousers, what clothing style or culture I'm going to pull from specifically yet, I'm not sure, but I do know they should be at least shin length, loose-fitting and be cinched at the waist and hems.

Boots:

The boots I imagine the Soothsayer wearing are almost like foot wrappings in terms of looking a little improvised, but they also look built for the purpose, made out of leather or hide and probably lined with wool or fur.

It took a lot of searching to find the reference that resembled the kind of footwear I imagine the Soothsayer wearing, but after a while, I realised that 'medieval footwear' would likely yield the best reference images.

I started by appending a square and applying Dynamesh. I then pushed and pulled the shape, applied a denser dynamesh level and repeated the process until I had roughed out the fundamental shape, the greater creases and then the finer details like the lips of the boot's ankle and the seams. To make them asymmetrical I mirrored the first boot and then manipulated the second until it was fittingly different from its brother. I think I'm definitely getting better and sculpting from reference efficiently as this took less time and felt easier than it has in the past.

I've chosen not to pursue modelling the flat cord ties that are apparent in the reference. The cords feel too medieval European and I couldn't find any reference of Mongolian, Tibetan or Nepalese booties like this having laces of any kind. I think it's more culturally fitting for the boots to be left as they are as if they're old and have sagged over time with wear.

Retopology in Blender:

Coat:

Initial reference

I initially wanted to create a coat that was partly Cowichan and partly Saori weave. However, not only do I no longer believe that would be cohesive with the rest of this character's clothing, but I don't think the level of sculptural and textural complexity that would lead to is even achievable in the time I've allocated for making this 3rd character.

Developed Reference

I want the heft of her clothes to basically out-scale her to make her seem small and elderly, so I'm aiming for a baggy fit to her coat. I want to avoid it being a generic design of coat though, so I'm going to research more and collate more reference in hopes of creating a more inspired coat style.

Finally Finding Fitting Reference:

Traditional Hungarian Coats

I decided to go on a research image spree and search for 'traditional coat' preceded by every country I considered borrowing from: Mongolia, Nepal, Siberia, Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan. Searching Kazakhstan yielded some really interesting reference: Thick and stiff woollen coats (all ways I'd describe the Soothsayer's coat). Though after some reverse searching I realised that these coats are actually from Hungarian culture, but they fit well into the aesthetic I want to create and they do look like they could've come from a more North-eastern setting, so I'm committing to borrowing from the design. My way of justifying using it beyond that is that perhaps a people from an area like Hungary migrated to 'Cold Mongolia' and brought their clothing styles with them, so they're now embedded in their culture. If I slightly adapt the trousers and top to match this a little more, I think it'll add to the flavour and visual history of this character.

To make thicken the coat, I used the same method as I did when retopologising the gown for my second character in Blender and then removed the unneeded topology of the inside of the sleeves which would never be seen from any realistic angle.

Shirt:

There wasn't a specific style or type of shirt I wanted to pull from, but I knew I wanted it to be woollen and relatively thick. It'll be mostly occluded by the rest of the character's outfit, so it's not as crucial to her overall appearance to make it perfect.

It took a big of pinching and pulling to make the shirt's front creases readable and authentic to the material I was referencing (mainly thick woollen weave), but the sleeves aren't in need of alterations as I'm going to be removing the majority of their length once they disappear into the sleeves as well as some of the polygons from where it overlaps with the neck wrapping.

Trousers Pt. II:

I wasn't liking the trousers I'd initially made in Marvellous Designer, so after some browsing through my selected countries and cultures of inspiration, I discovered that traditional trousers from Kazakhstan or 'Kazakh Shalbar' are the perfect fitting to work with the rest of the clothing.

Using the same method in Blender to retopologise as I did when retopologising the hospital gown for my second character, I made the trousers into a mesh that was efficient in polygons and would deform well.

Adding the Neck Wrapping:

Since the modelled coat hasn't ended up being as bulky as the concept art, I think her neck might get a little chilly without a neck wrapping or scarf. After gathering some reference of Nepalese, and Tibetan neck scarfs, I'm ready to sculpt one in ZBrush.

I did consider making the scarf bigger and changing the way the coat sits on her shoulders, but since this style of Hungarian-inspired coat is very stiff and heavy, and I'm planning to make the neck wrapping out of a softer and less dense woollen weave, I think the coat would be the more dominant force over the shape of the scarf rather than vice-versa.

When retopologising in Blender, I chose to not model the greater shape and boundaries of the cowl except for extending it to just beyond the underside of the lapels as that area won't be seen. It'll also leave the topology more efficient and lessen the likelihood of mesh clipping when posed.

I wanted to add leg wrappings that wrap around the lower ends of the trouser legs as they go into the boots, so cold wind won't make her shins cold. I think it'll add some visual intrigue to her silhouette, but it'll also help describe how thin she is underneath.

Finished Retopologised Model - Triangle count: 45,959

I was initially concerned about how many triangles the clothes would take up, especially the solidified coat. But after retopologising efficiently and making sure to delete the redundant areas like the insides of the sleeves etc, the tri-count is actually a healthy and balanced one considering the maximum budget is 70,000.

3004 Character Brief: Gaia Pt. 1 - Concept Sketch and Modelling

 

In the time since I sketched the original idea, I've decided to make a few changes to the character's appearance. Firstly, I'm finalising the design of the drainage apparatus as a larger tube (which will read better from a distance). It's now held in place in her airway by a mouth piece that her teeth rest on (akin to how a pacifier stays in place). It's a marked improvement from a thin tube that is barely noticeable as a dominant form in the visual design of the character. 

Secondly, the plant is now going to be nestled in a papoose, or baby carrier. I personally love this change, because it not only shapes the silhouette in a visually intriguing way, but also emphasises the themes of a yearning for parenthood and having a surrogate child. 

Thirdly, the other end of the drainage tube is going to be feeding the plant through a hole she's made in the pot itself, after I learned a little more about plants, I realised that while rain and water fall on the top of soil, it's actually the roots that absorb the water. 

Lastly, the drainage tube itself (although it's not apparent in my sketch) has been changed. After brainstorming on the logic of how this prototype of a hospital-issued apparatus drains her air sacs (alveoli) of fluid, I've settled on absorption and air pressure control: The branching tube that actually snakes down into her lungs removes the fluid via absorbent ends. A conduit that's situated a third of the way down from the mouth-piece houses a small airlock-like control point which applies a gentle negative pressure to the mouth-piece end of the tube, pulling the fluid out and down through it. It then forces the fluid down through positive pressure to whatever drainage bag would previously have been there. The conduit also acts as an anti-foreign body barrier, ensuring whatever the bottom end of the tube comes into contact with does not enter the lungs.

Altering the pre-existing base-model:

To speed up the process, I'm using the same base-model I used for my first character, the Prophet. I am going to make a few alterations though, in the form of changing the face to be more individual and creating a more feminine chest and waist.

^ main reference                 ^ Prophet base-model    ^ alterations in ZBrush

Finished Base-Model:

Like the sketch suggests, this character is going to have slim joints, a thin physique and generally an ectomorph body type. This woman has been in and out of intensive hospital visits, or been an in-patient for a few months. She has a high metabolism, but she's not used her muscles properly for a while either.

Marvellous Designer - Creating the Hospital Gown:

The reference was especially useful when it came to mimicking the the level of stretchiness and stiffness of the gown's fabric.

First beginning with the back and front cutting patterns, the difficulty was adjusting the physical properties until it resembled non-stretchy cotton or linen. I decided to load a physical property pre-set, and experimented with a few and tweaked their properties from there.

To lay one side of the hospital gown over the other, I used a multitude of pins and pulled different areas into place and repeated this until the fastening sides at the back were nestled over each other properly.

Blocking out the Papoose/Baby Carrier straps for Authentic Gown Deformation:

I chose to create a mock-up of the baby carrier straps in Marvellous as well to organically compress the gown under them instead of attempting to proportionally edit it later, which I've made the mistake of doing before with my Professional Brief (it takes up far too much time and the results are never completely authentic).

I also adjusted and pinned areas of the gown's skirt until it was less bell-jar shaped and angling more outward at a straight angle as I believed a stiffer fabric like this would when compressed around the hip joints by a strap.

To retopologise the gown as efficiently as possible, I learnt a technique that involves exporting both the posed mesh of a clothing item in Marvellous Designer and the flat version (reset from simulation). I then applied the deformed version as a shape key to the flattened one. Once that is applied, I was free to retopologise as normal, as long as I didn't edit the original flat version itself. Once retopology is complete, I applied a Surface Deform modifier to the retopologised cutting pattern and use the original flat mesh as a target mesh to copy the deformation from. So in only a few steps, I retopologised the gown mesh without having to trace polygons from the posed model.

Adjusting the Feet:

The base-model's feet were not an appropriate shape for those of a slight, young woman. Copying my own feet in socks, I slimmed them down in preparation for the slippers, with the image of a delicate pair of feet in mind for this character.

Slippers:

When people see the footwear, I want them to think 'hospital issue'. I plan to model the slippers after the reference almost to the letter, I want them to look like she walked out of the empty hospital yesterday (a bit like the beginning of 28 Days Later). But I also plan to make them muddy and soiled, to imply that she's absent-mindedly passed through a few puddles when trying to avoid attention. Ideally I don't want them to look at all like they're practical footwear.

To make the soles, I imported one of my reference images and traced polygons on it directly. I then extruded an area to create the arch of the slipper and bridged it to the mirroring area on the inside of it. I also made sure to pull up the arch of the sole a little.

Papoose / Baby Carrier:

I think the addition of the papoose is going to bring the whole look of this character together. (As for the canonical reasoning for adding it, I like to think she picked it up at the maternity ward of the hospital after its emptied.)

I blocked out the papoose straps using the placeholders I made in Marvellous Designer as a base. I then set about bevelling some edges, scaling some edge-loops and subdividing some pieces until it resembled the recognisable insulated mesh fabric as seen in my reference.

One of the challenges of modelling the papoose was changing the design from the reference to fit around a plant pot without compromising smooth topology, but I managed to alter the way that the straps would originally have been sewn to the inside of the 'seat.'

Hands:

I never actually retopologised the hands of the base-model previously because I wanted to tackle some of the more difficult areas of the character first. I've still not acquired the skill to perfectly retopologise hands on the first try around areas like the curlicue (between index and thumb) or properly merging edge-loops between the hand and the wrist, but it is at least clean topology. I also decided to proportionally edit the hi and low poly meshes as I though the hands weren't elegantly enough shaped, particularly the muscle between the fifth finger and wrist.

Hair:

This will be my attempt to fashion hair using hair cards (alpha ribbons etc). There aren't a lot of tutorials that I could find online that were all that helpful, so I looked at pre-existing game's assets to observe how they were constructed (among the ones I already had installed which were made in Unity and Unreal Engine that my asset viewer software could access were Dead By Daylight and Pathologic 2).  After studying the hair assets for a while, I think I now have a clearer understanding of how dense to make the hair cards, how wide and roughly how to lay them to create the kind of hair I want.

I want the final body of hair to follow the silhouette of my original concept sketch, so I sculpted while having an overlay of that image in ZBrush and also followed my board of hair reference to make sure the hair would flow and sit on the character's head realistically.

^Reference in asset viewer            alpha I made ^

I feel I should ensure that the hair cards I end up modelling are the proper shape and layout for texturing by making a placeholder hair alpha strip and applying it to each hair card ribbon I make as I go. After looking through the texture assets of games I had installed, I found an alpha image to use as loose reference for my own.

I'm approaching this like laying the hairs for a wig, from bottom to top and space out the hair cards evenly up the scalp, while also following the greater boundary of the sculpted hair body.

I've been trying to make each tress of hair a little unkempt, but I went overboard and backcombed each one without regard for how their waves would (or rather wouldn't) line up with each other in a convincing or appropriate way. So I've taken a moment to proportionately edit them in bulk so the hair doesn't look so crazy. It needs to suit a character with a mild disposition, which the fiery arrangement really didn't. Ideally, I would like the hair to look as though it were in a pony tail and one point and it's now been taken out but not been wetted since, so it still has that kink there.

While the rest of the modelling besides the hair had taken 5 days, I'd assumed that since the hair didn't take up that much 3 dimensional space, that it wouldn't take long. The hair ended up taking 4 days by itself. It is the most tedious thing I've ever modelled. But it's finally done, and I'm actually quite satisfied with the results.

The face has previously been the base-model's face but I've now altered it to look less generic. I thought about sculpting from reference of specific people (mainly Olwen Catherine Kelly) but the face didn't suit the character when I attempted it, so instead I've opted to use my original concept sketch as tracing reference for the model and proportionally edited it until they roughly lined up. Her face definitely fits her more now.

Additionally I opened her jaw a little bit as a rest pose because her teeth would always be slightly agape with the drainage tube going into her mouth.

Finally, the Plant:

The big decision I had to make about the plant was 'what kind?'. Nothing with flowers was a chosen parameter, nothing that looked too much like a house plant. Something that looked appealing but also fragile and would look comfortable in a baby carrier. After browsing through pictures of plants, I think I found one that would fit the character very nicely: a Maidenhair fern.

A Maidenhair's leaves are thin and have beautiful shapes, their stalks are dainty, and it's a plant that requires a little more attention than average. An interesting footnote is that they apparently require small but frequent water feedings rather than larger feedings occasionally, which actually fits Gaia's fluid drainage apparatus perfectly.

Another reason this plant ended up being my choice was that I find it subjectively cute and fragile.

The fronds are relatively flat in their layout as well, so it'll be a simple job to model them.

I traced the basic shape of a frond from one of my reference images and then proportionally curved it. To flesh out the whole plant, I made 3 frond variations and duplicated them while angling each differently to avoid them looking like identical copies.

Adding Gardening Tools:

I decided to add tools and attach them to the papoose waist strap since I made the effort to model belt loops to it. I think it'll also change her silhouette from looking a little underwhelming. To fasten the tools in place, I modelled two leather strips similar to the ones you'd usually see attached to trowels and such.

Final Model :

Final Triangle Count: 69,725

Within a hair's breadth of the maximum 70,000 triangle budget, I think my final polycount should be smaller. However I felt uncomfortable removing any of her underlying body as the looseness of the gown would mean that you'd see holes in her through the sleeves or when the skirt reacts to physics in a game. I would sacrifice some of the horizontal poly-loops in the gown's hem but I don't want to loose cloth physics fidelity.

Since it is below the threshold, I'm going to leave her model as is.