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.