Weapon - Final Piece

 I had no idea how to pose and display a weapon for the final piece so I just did a close up since the bottom is identical to the bit at the top. I have no idea how to colour wood well so that needs work, I was spending too long on that part so needed to move on and accept it. I decided to make the gem more crisp in the final piece and I think it's looks nice like that. I spent a long time colouring the antlers trying to get all the shades in. Again backgrounds are not my strong suit but I wanted behind the gem to be dark so the colours would be more obvious. This could have been better but I was unsure how to present it and that uncertainty effected the piece. I like the top half of it. 

Weapon - Model Sheet

I was unsure how to do a model sheet for the weapon as the side view and 3/4 view wouldn't be much different to the front and wouldn't show off any more of the weapon. I showed a top view on how the beads attached since it is a circle. I decided the green stone on the handle would be jade as it's softer and I think looks more elegant. I also decided to add a few details like the beads and the arrow to make it more useful and add to who it's from and what it can do. I also thought that since it's polished pine wood that there should be some form of grip where it's held so it doesn't keep slipping down the users hand. I chose to make the gem emerald as it's known for having regenerative properties and also to have a calming effect on emotions but stimulation intellectual thought. Overall I thought it fit what the staff buffs and allows the player to do. 

Weapon - Variations

There variations were early on when I wasn't sure what it would look like at all, in the end I combined both the gem and the horns.

The top images I was deciding whether to go for a darker wood texture that looked more like it had just been taken from a tree, or a cleaner lighter wood with some embellishment to break up the wood. At the bottom I looked at putting just a gem or even just a whole skull on the top, in the end I combined the antlers and the gem. I decided to put a slight curve in the handle which would make carrying it easier.  

Weapon - Sketchbook Studies

I decided that I wanted to do a staff with the antlers on top as I thought it tied into being a staff from the forest and would feel more like it was part of it and made there, making it perhaps a rarer weapon to collect as it would only be available from one portion of the map. I looked at a few different antler styles including the thicker ones and ones that curved around.

Here I wanted to look at how the staff would look in relation to the human body. Because it was designed around my human character I made it his height and so anyone a bit shorter may find it unwieldy. Someone a foot shorter has it towering over them a bit. The handle may also make it harder to hold in some situations but easier in others. The bottom two images I was looking at poses that would be hard and easy to hold it in, because of the handle the use can rest it on the shoulder with relative ease but it will be harder to hold up like in the first one.

 This page I just looked at more ways it could be held, but also how it would look being held from the side and the back. I like the top image better but I think the bottom one looks more natural to hold and it seems unlikely the use would flip this upside down, I probably should have flipped it over, but then it would have just slid down the users arm. 

Here I looked at different jewel cuts but I think eventually decided on the trillion but but upside down. There are also a few doodles on things that could hang off it and that the pedestal on top is a circle rather than a bar. I also decided to put more 'traditional' antlers on it so as to not make it so ridiculously bulky. 

Weapon - Thumbnail Sketches

I tried simple shapes for this as I wanted the staff to not be too flashy as it isn't meant for showing off or melee attacks but merely giving the player buffs and allowing for spells to be cast, so the focus should be on the player in that case rather than the weapon. 

Weapon - Intent

For my weapon I decided to do something that would match the aesthetic of my human character, perhaps as like a quest reward item or something like that. It would be for a similar type of game and hopefully look like they would go together. 

Human Low Res Model - Final Model

I modelled the face, hands and feet separately from the main body and imported them in, it allowed me to make them with proper references and make sure they were in proportion rather than guessing them against the body. I haven't modelled a human head before and it was certainly an experience. I did it by drawing on a square and then extruding and moving around the pieces until it fit the geometry of the face. I only modelled half and then mirrored it so it would be symmetrical. The mouth was the hardest part but I like how the nose turned out. If I model a head again I'd like to find a more economic way of doing it, also perhaps sculpt it and import it rather than building it from scratch in Maya. 

I think relative to the quality of the model I spent too much time on the hands, although I'm glad I used a reference as it meant they turned out looking right rather than how I thought a hand looked. If i could spend more time on it I would focus on making the fingers less square and fix the end of the middle finger. 

The shoes were fairly easy compared to the rest of the model and didn't take as long as some parts to complete. I would have rather made the folds less square but in the time I had I didn't mind leaving it how it is. I did keep having to remind myself that it was a low poly model and shouldn't be too detailed or have to many triangles. 

 The human body I modelled against the turnaround I did for my first project so I'm glad the imaged matched up or it would have been harder. I kept it simple and all in one piece so there weren't too many polys floating around and I couldn't texture it all in one. 

This is how my final model turned out after being posed. He was modelled in the T pose for ease. For my first human model I am pretty pleased, I like how the had and the hands turned out the most. Considering my modelling skill I probably shouldn't have done a human and done a weapon or environment instead but I'm glad I tried it and pushed myself to do something I wasn't confident in. Next time I model a human I'd like to try it in a sculpting software like Z-Brush instead to see how different it is and have a go at high poly modelling.