Moving on to the next stage, I sculpted the model of the Fae in ZBrush, following a high to low poly workflow. I started the process with a rough blockout of the proportions using the concept I had drawn and then moving on to refine the limbs to be more anatomically correct. I then merged the limbs to smooth the joints.

At this point, I began to add in some basic surface detail of significant features. I marked in the area of the ribs and began defining muscles; particularly on the arms and legs. I sculpted the ribs twice because the first time I quickly added them in and realised afterwards that they did not look anatomically correct. I then went back to them with proper references and corrected them.

This then allowed me to move onto the hands. I found this part challenging as hands are quite complicated and detailed, but I was happy with the end result. I tried to mark in the shape of the bones in the fingers, to give them a creepy skeletal appearance.

The next challenging step was the mouth. I had not sculpted a mouth before and was unsure of the best approach to it. I used a mouth bag template from the ZBrush human base mesh and edited it to have pointed teeth, rather than trying to begin from scratch. I intend to research and practice this stage of character modelling more in the future, to discover the best way to approach it.

I sculpted the vines and twigs using cylinders and dynamesh to allow me to continue to stretch them and wrap them around the horns. It was a relatively easy, if fiddly, process.

Once I had added all the main anatomical details, I moved onto the texturing stage. I found images of bark and wood online, some of which I edited in Photoshop to make black and white, and used these as alpha brushes in ZBrush. This meant I was able to quickly apply texture to the Fae's skin. I went over areas with large brush drags to start with, to add the first layer of detail. I then went back over these areas with smaller brush strokes and on a lower intensity to add the high level of detail.

I used the same technique on the horns and head, using different alpha brushes. I tried to texture the head to look like a protruding bone growth that covers the head. I believe this looked quite successful with the small crack details and the texture around the edges.

Note: Image uploads not working - 14:37 - 06/01/2020 - will try to fix

This project is a part of my third year university Game Project. My team is creating a narrative-focused, psychological horror game wherein you play as a university student who discovers they are being stalked by a malicious Fae. I was tasked with creating a concept for the Fae, which I then went on to model.

I began with a few rough silhouettes to explore which shape language I felt conveyed the right feeling of malevolence, and then choose a few to carry through into a rough sketch.

I enjoyed the skeletal nature of all three, but the triangular shape language of the central sketch made a powerful and imposing figure, particularly with the exaggerated shapes of the horns, and so I choose this one to continue to work with and improve.

To improve upon the sketch I began by going back to the silhouette and greatly exaggerating the triangular shapes of its body for a clear first read. Many of the changes to each iteration were quite minor; raising the height of the hips to exaggerate the unnatural proportions of the legs, exaggerating the length of the arms, and streamlining the torso to create a more triangular shape and a thinner waist. I experimented with adding wings but ultimately decided that they added too much noise to the silhouette and would take away from the first read of the Fae when the player views it in-game. The final step was to adjust the size of the head and horns to create a focal point for the figure. The final iteration is on the right.

After this stage, I began to render in details. I wanted to keep the skeletal features I had used before, so I kept the protruding ribs. I also decided to attempt to make the face unnerving.  In the lore we had researched for making the game, the Fae were often referenced as having glowing green eyes. To add a twist to that I settled on only having the mouth visible and the eyes covered with a mask. To replace the eyes, I made the orb above the head glow green. For the rough three quarter view, I went into ZBrush and did a quick concept sculpt from the front orthographic, which I was able to rotate and screenshot, then draw over for the line art.

Although this was my final concept, after discussions with my team we decided that the Fae would have a natural tree like texture, and twigs and moss protruding from it's body and horns. My teammate, Adele Richards, did a quick mock-up of the alterations; shown below.