What’s needed to create digital concept art for games.

To start with let’s talk about software, the most popular and most commonly used is adobe photoshop, it has nearly everything you need to create concept art, stuff like different editing/drawing tools, layers, and possibility of adding custom brushes make it a perfect software to use for concept art. There is also a free alternative which is really similar called gimp, it has less tools than photoshop and editing feels a bit clunky, also photoshop is still developed by a multi millionaire company while gimp was created by a bunch of volunteers. This also affects customer support, photoshop has a steady customer service that you can contact in case of any problems, while gimp doesn’t and you are forced to search forums for solution to your problem. Although gimp has more flaws it’s still free and is a viable software for concept art creation.Moving onto hardware, the ultimate basics is keyboard and a mouse. As much as they are not preferable hardware for concept art, you still can produce somewhat decent pieces of art using only them. Keyboard is generally used for shortcuts like creating new layers, switching between tools etc. That applies to other methods of creating digital concept art where the mouse isn’t main controler. Mouse isn’t very accurate and feels unnatural that’s why artists never use it unless they have no other choice. The best and most common option is a graphic tablet, it’s also the most natural option. Graphic tablets come in different sizes and forms but generally serve the same purpose - to act as a digital piece of paper and pencil. It serves the same purpose as mouse but it’s much better for drawing as it feels naturaland changes size of the brush depending on the pressure user puts on the tabletwhich is really useful and makes art look much smoother. There are also typesof tablets that have a screen on their own which feels even more like a penand paper but digital but these are much more expensive and commonly used in bigger studios or by people that can afford it. A common tablet is still perfectly fine and more than enough though.

Concept artists - freelance vs contracted.

Concept artist is a job based mostly on drawing and coming up with fresh ideas for assets, characters, buildings and environments in the game. It usually starts by brainstorming and thinking of keywords and initial ideas, then it moves onto sketching and developing ideas until you achieve concepts you are happy with. In UK salary averages on about 25 thousand pounds for concept artists. All concept artists ultimately report to their boss, contracted concept artists usually report to main lead artists while freelance artists report to the client who pays them for their skills. The main difference between contractedand freelance concept artist is in the name. Freelance artists are free, meaning they work for whoever they want and choose their working hours to fit them, while contracted artist has set work hours by his boss and has to do whatever he is told to. As a freelancer artists you can negotiate your payment with clients, sometimes earning more and rarely less money than contracted artist, but sometimes you might find yourself in place where you don’t find any clients and earn no money at all, while contracted artist doesn’t have such problems as the income is stable. There is also more diversity in the work you produce asfreelancer because different clients ask for different art styles and themes, and those are usually quick commissions done for the client. In contrast to that a contracted artist can be stuck with a certain project idea following the same artstyle and the same theme for couple of years. Contracted artist has the benefit of working in a studio with different people what leads to opinion sharing and constructive criticism which will have a big impact on the final work produced, while freelancer artists arecompletely dependant on themselves and their client giving them feedback and pointing them in the right direction.

World of WarcraftThis is a concept from World of Warcraft called “Sha”, it was created by Mark Gibbons aka Red Knuckle in 2011 for purposes of Mists of Pandaria expansion. This concept is about Sha, in game Sha were embodiments of negative emotions such as fear, anger, doubt etc. In contrast to the monster we can see a humanoid silhouette which is much smaller than the Sha.This might be implying that our negative emotions areour biggest enemies and can be very intimidating andDangerous. The artstyle of this drawing reminds me of asian culture a lot, especially the clouds/smoke coming from the monster with the typical curves, itmight be a reference to japanese/chinese mythology.It is also overwhelmed by dark colours on a shadydark background what creates very gloomy and darkmood, almost intimidating.

StarcraftAnother one from Blizzard, this time from Starcraft, this is a drawing called “Marauder” created by Sam Didier aka Samwise in 2009. It portrays a unit from starcraft series called Marauder, in the background we can also see another unit from Starcraft - Marine.On the drawing we can clearly see a battle, in factprobably nearing the finale as everything is destroyed and the whole battlefield seems to be burning while ashes raise to the sky. Blizzard loves to over exaggerate their characters and weapons, and this isn’t an exception,both the Marauder and Marine are massive and carry unproportional weapons. I feel like the artist tried to builda very chaotic atmosphere to show that war is just pure chaos and destruction. The choice of colours for the background also contrasts with each other, the top isgrey and dark what could represent sadness and despairwhile the bottom is orange what could represent rage, fighting spirit and death.

DiabloThe last one is Diablo, another Blizzard entertainment game. This concept art is created by Peter Lee aka Drawgoon in 2008 and it’s title is “New Tristram” which is also a name for one of the hubs/towns in the game. At first glance of an eye we can say that this drawing is very spooky, and the location itself is made with purpose of giving the players shivers and make them concerned. There are birds on this drawing that look like ravens, usually in games, books or movies ravens suggest death and decay. Use of colour is quite worrying as pretty much everything is a shade of black, apart from the windows and red moon what could be a reference to blood moon or suggest insanity, death or maybe even hell.Speaking of hell, it is possible that Drawgoonwanted to make New Tristram look or feel like hell on earth. Everything also seems to bedamaged, abandoned and forgotten. As I saidall this creates very dark, worrying andconcerning mood.

HeroBase concept of the archetype: The hero is usually supposed to be the benevolent,amazing guy that always saves the world. Very brave and selfless, always helping others not caring about the price or his own safety.

Stereotypes: A stereotypical hero would be a handsome guy with perfectly shaped jaw, super muscular body and very often in a tight, colorful costume. If it is a femalethough it would be a fit woman, in either a very tight costume or a very revealing one, with long hair and beautiful face.

Example: As an example I will use Thrall, an orc shaman from Warcraft franchise. This green guy is a very iconic character, he is a very peaceful orc, what is very surprisingas orcs in warcraft very often look for fights, skirmishes and wars, kind of like vikings trying to conquer the whole world. But not Thrall, he doesn’t want any wars or grudges between horde and alliance. On top of that he played a major part in saving the world of Azerothcouple of times already, always willing to sacrifice his own life for the greater good.

Shadow/Villain

Base concept of the archetype: Villains are usually those selfish, power hungry ormoney driven characters that will stop at nothing to achieve their goal no matterwhat it takes. Often a villain is a counter of a hero so for example if a hero is a righteous light creature then the villain will be a devious creature of darkness.

Stereotypes: A stereotypical villain is usually wearing black, always willing to kill to gain more power or earn some dollar. Some villains tend to be foreign or at leasthave a funny foreign accent, that is rarely the case with female villains though.Female villains are very often a femme fatale type, devious and sinister but at the same time beautiful and charming.

Example: For this example I’ve chosen a fairly new villain - Hel. She is the sister of Thor, the first born of Odin, a goddess of war. She used to be Odin’s executioner but then was exiled. After Odin’s death she came backto take control over asgard and use its army to conquer the universe.

Trickster

Base concept of the archetype: Trickster is devious and sinister character, very oftena mad man. There is usually something wrong and shady about him, the characteritself is rarely a powerful being in terms of physical strength or super powersthe power that trickster wields is usually his brain that he uses to trick and manipulate people.

Stereotypes: When I think of a trickster I have in mind somebody who is very cunning, smart and sinister, a person who causes damage and achieves his goals via manipulation, good planning and cunning rather than by combat.

Example: As an example I’m going to use Joker as he is probably the most iconic trickster in the world. He is a mad character that stands out, and his purpose in life is not really known, he just wants to wreak havoc. He had a traumatic childhood what is the reason why he is such a psycho. Apart fromthe amazing trick with disappearing pencil he always tricks and tries to makefun of Batman.

Animus/Anima

Base concept of the archetype: The role of animus or anima is to act like kind of a goal or something to live or fight for. It’s supposed to trigger feelings and give purpose to the other character, if it’s somebody’s child, second half or just a friend.

Stereotypes: A stereotypical animus/anima would be someone who needs protection.Someone vulnerable and not able to defend themselves, very often captured by the character’s nemesis to play on his emotions and manipulate him.

Example: As an example I will use Mary Jane Watson.She is spiderman’s girlfriend, not much I can say about that, when you love somebody youdo anything to protect them, and this case is no different, Peter Parker has saved her manytimes.

Fool

Base concept of the archetype: Fools are usually portrayed as not very cleverand silly. They are very rarely main characters but quite often play a big role as main character’s sidekick, friend etc. A common thing for this character archetype is to be quite unlucky or very annoying.

Stereotypes: A fool is somebody that will make you laugh yourself to death(sometimes quite literally). Very goofy, and not very lucky, can sometimes be Awkward.

Example: The king of fools is one, and it's Deadpool, he is a straight outbadass who makes fun of everything in his path, if that’s fighting, death,vegetarians, even of people who watch him and play games with him,he also breaks the 4th wall very often and he does it very well. He isn’t the luckiest guy either, countless of times his luck was tested and failedbut he always managed to get out of every situation in style.

Mentor

Base concept of the archetype: Mentor is very often portrayed as wise and calm.It’s quite common for mentor type characters to be quite old as age gives experienceand experience is wisdom and knowledge. Mentor’s are rarely main focus of the game/movie, they usually take the role of teaching the main characters or givingthem advice.

Stereotypes: Stereotypical mentor is someone wise with a lot of experiencein given subject, quite often very old, with gray hair and beard. Very inconspicuouslooks fragile and weak but most of the time is completely opposite.

Example: As an example I will use The Ancient One, Doctor Strange’s teacher.She is everything you would expect from a mentor, inconspicuous, wise and Powerful, very calm and cautious.

Superman character analysisCharacters with square shaped face and details of the same shape often tend to be heroes. The squarerepresents stability, honesty, equality and order what is a common trait in that character archetype.As an example I will use Superman, his head is shaped like a square what suggests he is honestand stable, also the square shape is almost certainly there to highlight his masculinity. It also confirms his equality as he used to disguise himself as Clark Kent to lead a normal life with his girlfriend Lois Lane.The shape of his chest is very triangular what could suggest there mightbe something shady about this character.Speaking of his chest, it’s very massive, a bit unproportional to the restof his body so we can say that this character is aimed at younger audienceas the exaggerated body parts are common thing in children’s cartoons and movies.We can also learn a lot from the colours of his costume, the red coloured cape and bootshighlight his strength, courage and determination. Apart from the red we also have a lot of blue colour which in fact is the most used colour in Superman’s costume, blue highlights Superman’sintelligence, trust and honor. Little bits of yellow on his belt and chest could also suggest optimism and joy.

Robbie Rotten character analysis

Triangular shaped faces are commonly used for the archetype of villain, and as an example I will be using Robbie Rotten from the lazytown.

The shape we see the most in this character is triangle, starting from his face and really extruded chin and pointy hair, finishing at triangular shoes and sleeves.

This is used to portray him as a villain to children, a cunning and sneaky trickster.In terms of his looks he dresses in a very fancy costume like everybody in lazytown, andalso has a very funny looking hair, this tells us that lazytown is aimed at children from 5-8 years old due to the very extravagant and comical look of characters.

Now about colours, Robbie usually wears the same costume (unless he pranks other people) so we can clearly assume it reflects his character. The purple colour evokes the feeling of mystery behind this character as well as elegance and extravagance. Dark blue colours give us the feeling of sadness, loneliness and seriousness which is kind of the case for Robbie in the show. We can also see dark red colour on his clothing what could suggest danger, determination and anger.He also has bits of white on his clothing, and white colour implies peace and innocence what could suggest that there is a bit of goodness in him and he isn’t as bad as he tries to be.

Homer Simpson character analysis

Last but not least we have oval or circular shaped characters. A good example is Homer Simpson, this fun guy is made almost entirely out of circles and oval shapes, starting from his head, through his eyesmoving onto his belly and finishing arms and fingers. Circular shapes are often used for not hostilecharacters, the circle represents playfulness, comforting and being childlike what in Homer’s case is very true as he is very goofy and rarely takes anything serious. Looking at the artstyle and flat colours we could assume that The Simpsons is a cartoon aimed at pretty young children, which is totally opposite as it uses a lot of vulgar and controversial humour and is probably the last thing you would like to show to your children. Moving onto colours, Homer’s whole body is yellow what suggests the feeling of joy, happiness, optimism and cowardice. His clothes are white and light blue, with blue suggesting the faith,

softness and tranquility, and white suggesting simplicity and innocence.

Character Bio - Garrosh Hellscream

Name: Garrosh HellscreamAlias: Traitor of the HordeAge: 31Height: 220 cmWeight: 170 kg Sex: MaleRace: Orc (Mag’har)Eye Color: AmberHair Color: Unknown (bald)Nationality: HordeSkin colour: red brownShape of face: oval

Clothing: Massive shoulder plates, mail bottomMannerism: Battle roarsHabits: He likes to kill peopleHealth: DeadHobbies: Gathering powerFavorite Sayings: For the true hordeVoice: Powerful and harshWalking style: Powerful and intimidatingDisabilities: Mental illnessCharacter’s greatest flaw:He is basically a hitler of wowCharacter’s best quality:Great fighter.

Character Bio - Garrosh Hellscream

Hometown: Garadar - NagrandCurrent Residence: OrgrimmarOccupation: Ruler of the true hordeIncome: unknownTalents/Skills: Great fighter, Great strategist.Family Status: Grom (father) -good relationship.Golka (mother) - good relationship.Character as child: Trained by his father to be a great warrior and leader.Character as an Adult: Warchiefof the horde.

Educational Background: Art of war.Intelligence level: Unknown but most likely fairly high.Character’s Goals: Gather enough power to create the true horde that will rule the Azeroth.Self-esteem: Great, unstoppable warrior that doesn’t fear anything.Archetype: VillainEnvironment: No effectTimeline: Death of his father lead to him becoming a great and respected champion of the horde leading to him becoming a Warchief.

Character storyRob is a confusing character, to some he is a hero and to others he is a villain. He used to be a saviour of every child on this planet, everything started when he couldn’t save his cat Jeff from a certain death, a Call of Duty player no scoped Jeff and Rob was shocked and angry, in his rage he took a lego block and killed the sniper, he was taken to jail where he spent 5 years, it was there where Jeff woved his life to creating a device that will split lego blocks so not a single child in the world will have to go through the same situation as he did. Jeff quickly became a well known and respected hero, but everything changed when the squirrel attacked. He was knocked out unconscious and when he woke up he was a completely different man. His hatred towards CoD players that he desperately tried to get rid off rekindled and all frustration and anger bursted out, he felt like people don’t respect him, like he is no longer a hero for them, he felt like they no longer need him. All that just added fuel to the fire transforming the mighty and very useful 2x3 lego block splitting man into the even more mightier but no longer so useful lego block splitting and hating call of duty players man. The even mightier but no longer so useful lego block splitting and hating call of duty players man isolated himself in a citadel made out of lego blocks where he tries to come up with a weapon that would destroy every single CoD player in the world, in his free time he drinks tea and kills CoD Players with his lego block splitting device.

Character Bio

Basic Statistics

Name: Robert Boss

Alias: “The even mightier but no longer useful 2x3 lego blocks splitting and call of

duty players hating man”, “The Lego man”

Age: 32

Height: 170cm

Weight: 70kg

Sex: Male

Race: Caucasian

Eye color: Blue

Hair color: Ginger

Glasses or contact lenses: Glasses

Nationality: American

Skin Color: White (slightly tanned with burnt neck)

Shape of face: Oval

Distinguishing Features

Clothing: Tight hero costume with cape and shoulder plates

Mannerism: smashing his fists together.

Habits: Cracking open cold ones without bois.

Health: Mental problems, trauma from childhood.

Hobbies: Destroying noobs on roblox.

Favorite sayings: Skrrt Skrrt gucci gang.

Voice: Squeaky and annoying, stopped

evolving at 12 years old.

Walking style: Proud and powerful.

Disabilities: Trauma from childhood, hates

CoD players.

Character’s greatest flaw: Receding hairline.

Character’s best quality: Can cook 1 minute rice in 58 seconds.

Character Bio

Attributes and Attitudes

Educational Background: High school (not finished).

Intelligence level: 201 IQ

Character’s Goals: Killing all CoD Players in the world.

Self-esteem: He thinks of himself as a great guy and wishes there were more people like him.

Confidence: Very confident, he beat faker 1v1 with zed.

Emotional state: Strong independant The even mightier but no longer useful 2x3 lego blocks

splitting and hating call of duty players and seeking revenge on all of them man is very

emotionally unstable and whenever he hears about call of duty or sees a call of duty player he gets

really angry and goes on a killing spree.

Emotional characteristics

Rob is an introvert, he really rarely feels any emotions apart from anger and satisfaction after

killing CoD player.

Motivation: His cat got killed when he was young so now he takes revenge on every CoD player.

Fear: Sound of corn popping into popcorn.

Happiness: Killing CoD players.

Relationship: Doesn’t like anybody, talks to his

Catwoman lego figure.

Spiritual characteristics

Rob doesn’t believe in any god but himself. He made himself

a set of rules that he strictly follows which are really similar to

catholic ones, don’t kill was changed to don’t kill unless it’s

a CoD player or someone that pisses you off.

Social Characteristics

Hometown: Dallas.

Current residence: Lego citadel.

Income: Benefits.

Occupation: Kill CoD players.

Talents/skills: Amazing lego architect.

Family status: No family.

Character as a child: School kid, boring life.

Character as an Adult: Villain and murderer.

Character Timeline When Robert was 15 his cat got stuck on the tree and he didn’t know what to do, after couple of minutes thinking he decided to build a tower out of lego blocks to climb the tree and save his cat, after an hour of hard work he was almost finished, he just needed one block of 2x3 lego to finish the tower and climb up to save his cat called Jeff. Unfortunately the last 2 blocks of lego were connected and he needed only one of them, he tried very hard to separate them, it took him around 27 days to do so but he finally managed to do it, he finally could put the last block of lego to finish the tower and reach his cat. But another unfortunate event happened, as he was about to grab him, his cat got killed by a sniper, he was a professional call of duty player and couldn't tell the difference between real world and the game, after shooting Rob’s cat he apologised and said he did it for achievement that requires you to kill 420 cats, Rob was furious, he took a piece of lego and threw it at the sniper killing him.

He spent next 5 years in jail traumatized, he couldn’t stop thinking about his cat and the fact that he didn’t manage to save him. The guilt was not letting him sleep so he decided that when he comes out of the jail he is going to commit the rest of his life on finding a way to split lego blocks quickly so no one will ever have to suffer like he did. After years of hard work and research he finally managed to find a way, he constructed a lego block splitting device and swore to split lego blocks for everyone on the planet, this day the mighty and very useful 2x3 lego blocks splitting man was born.

After years of being a hero to every kid in the world he felt like he isn’t doing enough, that lead to the construction of training grounds made out of lego where Rob trained day and night to become the best fighter this planet has ever seen.

Unfortunately when he was on his way to grocery shop a squirrel threw a nut at him and he felt on the ground unconscious. As he woke up he was a completely different man, his hate towards CoD players grew to insane levels, he felt like people that he used to save and help don’t respect him and take him for granted.

He built himself a castle out of lego that no one could enter, he swore on his life to kill every CoD Player in the world as revenge for this sniper killing his cat, he also destroyed every activision studio in the world with his mech made out of lego. People started calling him “The even mightier but no longer useful 2x3 lego blocks splitting and hating call of duty players and seeking revenge on all of them man” or “Lego Man” because his full name was too long.

Silhouettes

After finishing bio of my character, story and the timeline I started bulking

out the initial body shapes and asset shapes as black

silhouettes.

Silhouettes with poses

Initial silhouettes

DevelopedSilhouettes

When I had initial silhouettes and posed

silhouettes done I wanted to add some detail to it, used mainly gray and

white colours to refine the muscles, clothing and

other parts of the character that would stand

out. Silhouettes with poses

Initial silhouettes

Face expressions

I have also made quite a few facial expression

drawings using one of the helmets I’ve designed for

my character.

Digital face expressions

I decided to add some more digital work to this

folder and I went over my facial expressions in

photoshop.

Body shapes

After silhouettes it was time to start doing some

experimenting, at the start I’ve experimented with

body shapes and proportions.

Limb development

After silhouettes it was time to start doing some

experimenting, at the start I’ve experimented with

body shapes and proportions.

Head development

Another thing i decided to experiment with were shapes and variants of

heads and faces.I have also created helmets and hats.

Assets ideas

I’ve also experimented with some assets for the character, these are the

assets character could use in different situations and

for different purposes.

Character initial ideas

After doing all development and

experimenting I quickly and roughly sketched out

initial ideas for my character based on the

body shapes experiments I did earlier.

Final character design

When I had the whole development and

experimenting finished I took different parts of it

and merged it into a final design which I then went

over in photoshop.

Final character design re-done

After finishing my 1st final character design I wasn’t happy with it and decided to remake it into a much better and more detailed

one.

Character poses

I’ve drawn some character poses using Images of

myself as reference for proportions and the poses itself, then I added details

of my character design like hair, glasses,

bandana and shoulderplates with cape.

Color Variation

I made 4 color variations for a pose I’ve drawn for my character, I tried to

keep each variation completely different from

each other and tried to match the colours on

outfits.

Live modeling

During this project I’ve done a live modeling

session in Zbrush.It was quite cool as we

could look at the proportions and poses first

hand and it gave me an idea of how to adjust

proportions on my character.

Zbrush setup

After finishing everything to do with drawing and concept art it was the time to start modeling.

I’ve started up zbrush and added reference images from my final T-pose so I could use it in engine. It made the modeling much

easier.

Model Progress

After setting up my references I started

blocking out the initial shape of my character.

Then I started adding a bit more detail and refining muscles I also added first assets like shoulders and

hair.

Finishing Touches

I’ve added all assets and refined everything on my model, when I thought it

looks good enough I painted it and started

thinking about reducing polygons.

Optimizing Model

When I’ve finished the whole model I reduced

the polygons using ZRemesher and then

exported it into blender to reduce polygons even more and bake normal maps from high poly to low poly so it keeps the

detail of a high poly model with only 10 thousand polygons.

Rigging and creating Poses

After optimizing the model and making it ready to put in games I decided to rig

it and do a few quick poses based on my

drawings and photos.

Normal maps in engine

I’ve taken the model and imported it into unity and added normal maps to see

the additional detail.

No normal maps. Normal maps applied.

Walking Animation

I had some spare time so I made a rough walking

animation for my character.

Video on youtube

Evaluation

Concept Art researchFor this project I was given a task to come up with a character design of a superhero or villain to then model it in Zbrush. To start with I’ve done a bit of research on equipment used for digital concept art such as tablets. I have also researched the differences between freelance and employed concept artists such as the payment, working hours etc. I have also researched 3 concept art pieces from different games and different artists to analyse and compare different art styles, mood and colours used to create the final piece.

ArchetypesAfter doing research on concept art I’ve started researching the different archetypes of characters with examples to help me decide what kind of character I want to come up with. Next up I used 3 different characters, a hero - superman, a fool - homer simpson and a villain - robbie rotten to analyse how the shapes of their bodies, clothing and colours they wear impact their character and how much they say about them.

Story and bioFollowing that I’ve created an example bio of an existing character to help me come up with my character’s bio later on. I’ve come up with a story for my character that explains his motivations and what he does daily.Using the research I made and character story I’ve created the bio of Rob Boss. Then I also made a timeline for my character explaining how he got to the state he is in now.

EvaluationCharacter development

To start with my concept art I’ve created few silhouettes with initial body shapes and poses for my character which later on I’ve developed and added white and gray shading. I’ve created quite a few face expressions for my character showing different emotional states and moods. I also experimented with different body shapes, types of limbs, heads and assets. Having all concept done I developed few silhouettes and body shapes into characters, then I used one of them and developed it into an actual character with more detail and colour. The character I made didn’t look good enough for me so I decided to redesign it and I came up with a 3 point turn around that I was pleased with. When I had my final design finished it was the time to do some poses of my character, I’ve drawn couple of them on paper and couple digitally, I used images of myself in different poses as a reference. After that I’ve taken the pose that I like the most and came up with 4 different colour variants, green one was the one I liked the most so i decided to stick with it, I was ready to model.

ModelingBefore I started modeling I’ve attended a live modeling session where the task was to observe the model and use her as a reference for zbrush work which was quite a good practice. The time for modeling the final piece came, I’ve started up zbrush and added reference images made from 3 point turn around of my character design to help me with keeping the proportions and details right. After doing that I’ve started modeling, first I used zspheres to create the initial body and then adjusted it and sculpted the detail. After doing that I’ve coloured the model using my final design sheet to help me out. I also added all the assets like shoulderplates, cape, and other pieces of clothing. By that time my model was pretty much finished.

Evaluation

RetopologizingWhen the whole model was completed I used Zremesher to lower the polygons from 3,7 million to abut 30 thousand. Then I’ve exported both the high poly and low poly versions of my model to blender and baked the high poly details on my low poly model as a normal map, that allowed me to keep my model optimized and keep all the detail. In blender I’ve lowered the polygon count from 30 thousand to about 10 thousand by removing eyeballs and adding them in there, I’ve also deleted unneeded faces that are not seen at any point such as inside of clothes, left hand as there is a glove in its place etc.

Rigging and animatingWhen I finished my model and optimized it I still had quite a lot of time left so I decided to rig it in blender and create few poses which were once again based on the images of myself that I used for drawing. This didn’t take me much time so I still had a lot of it before the deadline, I decided to use my rig once more and created a walking animation for my character, I also animated the cape to make it look like it has actual physics. After that I put my model in unity and applied the normal maps to add the detail and implemented the animation. I also recorded it to put on my blog and folder.