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# System prepended metadata

title: Alex Leeming 21359999 - Innovative Practices in Game Art (1J5Z1022_2223_1F)

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https://hackmd.io/@MKLzYDLARp2xAVEqa7JVzw/H1JlJLUai

# Alex Leeming 21359999 - Innovative Practices in Game Art (1J5Z1022_2223_1F)
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## Week 1 

This week I started brainstorming my ideas for the project. I immediately wanted to investigate different warriors of ancient history akin to something like the Ubisoft game For Honor. I wanted to explore more of a question of what would these empires and civilisations look like if they had never been disbanded and thus I wanted to think about a future representation of them. I started this by doing some early sketches of how I would have envisioned it in my head. However, I was not happy with how they looked and I wanted to have a better understanding of the armour to start adjusting it, so I decided to draw up some Mongol armour (drawing on the right) without any adjustments to just to get a feel for how the armour should look.  This was more helpful in getting the armour looking correct and helped me get more of understanding of the shape and feel, rather than just trying to change it straight away.

![](https://hackmd.io/_uploads/B13yFoP43.png)

I created a board of references in Pure Ref just to get a basic idea of the armours and styles that I wanted to represent.



![](https://i.imgur.com/q8RHHQs.png)
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I then moved onto creating something more detailed, looking into helmet designs with a primary focus on exploring the look of metal and getting it looking realistic and believable. I looked at the lighting and I really wanted to focus on that during this project as it gives a more realistic theme to a lot of these armours. I'm especially happy with the bronze gladiator secutor helmet (figure 1) as the cuts round the eye holes really look worn and the centurion head (figure 2) was the first time I had drawn a proper face digitally, so I was quite happy with how that turned out. It was interesting to explore these designs and trying to replicate the look I wanted them to feel like, as though they were in a light box in a museum or something like that.

Figure 1
![](https://i.imgur.com/kwX8VwX.png)

Figure 2
![](https://i.imgur.com/8m0RMA8.png)

I then wanted to go for something a little more detailed and I tried to replicate a samurai helmet. I found different real helmets to take inspiration from using the same colours as I really like, the pale tones as it added to the realistic look I wanted to capture. The different textures on the helmet from the metal face mask to the fabric neck guard and I think that really jelled the overall look of the helmet. It really came together and it gave me a good understanding of the shapes and forms that I would want to continue throughout a whole armour set and was a good place to practice experimenting with different shading and lighting methods.

![](https://i.imgur.com/IZEDmVK.png)


![](https://i.imgur.com/Y8azcJk.png)
Lastly I started working on a Greek spartan for a full character which I then plan to change and design. I'm also looking at different warriors and cultures that I could research into. 

In conclusion from the first week, I wanted to start spontaneously drawing things that interested me to get a better shape, a feel for how the armour of these warriors should look and what parts I should keep to have a cohesive look and feel to the characters, that still holds true to the original warriors they are derived from.

---

## Week 2 

I started this week by looking at the scanner in Print City and looking at how to use it. I had a go at scanning in a shoe with the plastic turn table scanner. It was able to capture a high degree of detail, but I did need to have the shoe flipped over to get a full scan, unlike the larger hand held scanner or the tripod scanner, but those would not automatically merge the scans together like the simple turn table scanner which was really useful as once I had scanned the  two angles of the shoe, it was fine and merged them automatically. 

![](https://hackmd.io/_uploads/H1dXfqD4h.png)
Titanfall 2 Maquette  

This got me thinking about something I'd looked at in the last project. I wanted to do something like the way they designed the titans in Titanfall, so I did more research into how they went about it. I'd already looked at what they'd made, but I'd never really looked at how they went about doing it. I started to research techniques that I'd  heard them say. I watched the short video on the making of Titanfall ( youtube Designing the Titans of Titanfall   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PWgByQiDhpE&list=LL&index=1 date accessed Sun-12th-Feb-2023) in the video Joel Emslie, The Art Director for Titanfall makes comments on how he made the maquettes and talks about vacuforming, 3d printing and kitbashing. I'm familiar with the last 2, but not vacuforming, so I decided to look into that. Being a model maker, I have a pretty extensive knowledge of most things around model making, so I was already in the know about kit bashing, the process of taking 2 model kits and taking parts from them and putting them together to make something new. In the process of researching the techniques, I came across the other making of Titanfall 2 video, I'd looked into in the last project (YouTube Titanfall 2 Inside Development Pilot - Titan Design https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oxgq1ZBv9sE date accessed Sun-12-Feb-2023) This video shows Joel Emslie talking over the designs he made for Titanfall 2 and shows a timelapse of him making one of the models, however its so sped up that it's not the most helpful video, but it does show how he gets a lot of his chest rigs and fabric parts from pre-made models whilst 3d printing and making hard surface parts out of plasiticard/styrene. I wanted to look into this more. I then found Adam Savage's back log of making his own ships out of plasticard and other techniques that go along with that.

YouTube How to Kitbash a Miniature Spaceship Model! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EGStOleIiMQ date accessed Sun-12-Feb-2023

Youtube Adam Savage's One Day Builds: Kit-Bashing and Scratch-Building!https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZfvtGrhYk0I date accessed Sun-12-Feb-2023 

YouTube Adam Savage's One Day Builds: Kit-Bashing a Robot https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QCBcWm85gWo date accessed Sun-12-Feb 2023

YouTube Adam Savage's Guide to Model Spaceship Panelling https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NiZPuE0wBE8 date accessed Sun-12-Feb 2023

These were incredibly helpful in researching techniques to use for learning how to make one of these models.

Seeing all this, I was pretty sure I knew what I wanted to do, so I came up with a plan. My idea was to concept a character themed after a warrior from history with a diverse or misunderstood background or history and try to adapt that to fit around the idea of what warriors would look like if their empires never collapsed. I didn't want to go full stylised sci-fi, but more a grounded future akin to that from Titanfall. That and For Honor were going to be my 2 main reference points to draw from. My outcome is to make a maquette model akin to that of Joel Emslie, modelling the armour using z brush and then 3d print out those parts and assemble the maquette at approximately a 1/6 scale size. I will also be making the cloths out of old cloths cut up and made to size and once this is done, I will use one of the larger scanners to scan the model where I will attempt to rig it and experiment with some mo cap. I really want to experiment with this project and blend 3d modelling with real world modelling to see what I can create whilst also using new equipment that I've never used before. 

---
![](https://i.imgur.com/HaSY5In.jpg)

I also finalised my adaptation of a greek spartan. I found adding the fur great for bulking out the profile of the character and for adding depth and also making the model more interesting with the different textures being implemented throughout the drawing. I'm not sure if its a character that I will take much further, but it was a really great test bed for some metal work and I'm looking at how the light interacts with it.

I then started designing some more futuristic characters, starting with revamping the samurai character that I'd designed initially, but I wanted to make a revamped version that was more inline with my project vision. 

![](https://i.imgur.com/f8RN0X6.jpg)
I started with this sketch where the character is in motion rather than just a static view, to get a feel for how they might look and started to build the armour around what I'd researched. I wanted the character to have the same themes as Yasuke the first black samurai in Japan. I'd looked into his story and background and he was quite an interesting figure in history, as to lots this would subvert the expectation that it would be a traditional assassin samurai, but instead its different and adds more intrigue to the character. Looking at some of his history, it talks about him riding a horse, so I wanted to take themes from the O Yoroi armour, an armour made specifically for horse back combat which most samurais fought in. The main parts I took from this were the shoulder armour and back panels that would give protection. Though I was taking inspiration from the past, I still wanted to make a character that had futuristic themes, thus I scaled down some parts as I wanted more of a special forces foot soldier theme, thus I started adding a plate carrier to the chest armour with mag pouches and a radio. I also upgraded the helmet by adding quad NVGs (night vision goggles) these could flip down the helmet to the eyes. The samurai often wore intimidating face masks, so I took inspiration from oni masks for a menacing grinning jaw with lenses over the eyes which could slide down to reveal the face of the character. The rest of the armour is more of the same really with the samurai armour being upgraded or having more modern equipment put over it. I really liked the concept this time and wanted to flesh it out further.

![](https://i.imgur.com/jImbg3R.jpg)
I started next to do a close up of the helmet in more detail with that being my favourite part of most designs. I really liked the grinning mask and the lenses made sense offering a good amount of visibility to be believable whilst the rest of the helmet invokes a feeling of its origins. I also took the time to correct the orientation of the NVGs so they faced the correct way. 

![](https://i.imgur.com/rndVbE0.png)

I wanted to make a quick stop to look at some weapon design and how that might work as the samurai, much to people's misconceptions, they much preferred the use of guns to blades using weapons known as arquebus's they are similar to the musket. With this being in the future, I wanted to upgrade my samurai a bit with a fully automatic rifle. I looked into what the Japanese army is currently using and they are in the process of upgrading the main rifle to something a bit newer the Howa type 20. So I merged that with another proposed weapon, the HK 433, a similarly futuristic looking weapon and made this early prototype, quite a simple design, but that is similar to the simple wooden arquebus weapons of the past. 

![](https://i.imgur.com/voodfzY.jpg)

Happy with those, I progressed to make a front view of the character, something more simple though, before I make the final version.



### Conclusion 
This week I made a lot of progress in thinking about what I want to do and what I will do. I've also started to make a real start on designing one of my first characters. I hope to have that finished by next week and will hopefully be able to move onto my next idea, potentially being a Varangian guard or something else, but I've a clear goal for what I want to do. I just have to make up my mind on a character a lot quicker as its a lot to do. 

---
## Week 3 

![](https://i.imgur.com/rhkj3I1.jpg)

This week I wanted to get a solid idea down for one of my characters and a solid colour plate, so I knew what the front and back of the character looked like when I come to make it in Zbrush and hopefully in real life its easier to get an idea for what I'm looking for and where stuff should go. I wanted to incorporate a good mix of a military style with original samurai armour, layering the modern armour on top in the same way the original armour comes together in layers. I wanted to choose more saturated colours than usual as I think it adds more realism and blends nicer with the grey. The samurai helmet I'd drawn before had a lot more subtle colours, rather than being bright overall, this gives me a much better idea of how I would want my character to look and will help when it comes to modeling. Next really is to add some more character with a mix of military and more ancient style markings to give more life to the character.


This week I also went to the games exhibit in the Manchester Science and Industry Museum, which was interesting as they had lots of different games from different eras. I mainly played Halo, a game I was familiar with. It was interesting to actually play on a local server where anyone that was there could just pick up the controller and play. It's something not many multiplayer games do these days. One of the things that stood out was going from Halo 2 to Halo 3 and how the controllers changed. They started off huge and having very strange button layouts and then the 360 controllers feeling more like a normal controller but  a lot bigger and with strange button layouts, not on the controller, but in the game with reload being rb instead of x and aim down sight being pressing in right a stick which was very disconcerting and a lot of us agreed that it made the sniper very hard to use as it wasn't toggled, so you had to press the stick in again to get out of The scope which would have normally been lt. This really did get some getting used to, but was not really that bad as you're normally hip figuring your gun in Halo so it was not really a big deal other than on the sniper. As someone who is a big Halo fan, but has not really played it in a while it surprised me how different the weapons felt from different games and how things had been tweaked like the smg in Halo 2 had a good TTK (time to kill) compared to Halo 3 where it felt like you had to hit every shot in the mag to get a kill and the damage fall off was far more significant, whereas in Halo 3 the needler was far better than it is in current Halo games like Halo Infinite, with the needles having a faster travel time, tracking and damage with me managing to get a double kill in one mag which would not be possible in the current games. I will say that it was obvious a lot of these people we were playing against were not the most experienced, so it made for quite an easy game, but was still really interesting to play one of my favourite games in an interesting way, as it would have been played back in the day. 

Lastly for the week we went back to Print City to be inducted onto the 3d printers. I roughly already knew how they worked but was not really sure how to set one up but it turned out to be quite simple, just making sure everything is there with the print cores and other parts, but I did really want to have a go with the resin printers as they can have more detail without having all the visible lines that you would get on fdm printers. I did discuss with one of the people at Print City ways of getting rid of the lines, they do have a special smoother to do this, but I could also suspend the piece above acetate and I would probably have to use that method, as we can't use the smoother yet. I think I would really choose different parts to be printed on different types like more fine objects in resin and larger parts fdm so that its easier to work with and sand down. I was recommended to change the size down from 1/6 which is something I can do, but I want to keep it at a decent size, as I want to be able to scan the figure. 

### Conclusion 
This week has been good for establishing the look of one of my characters and I may do a final version of this character or make another, it's really just how long this part will take when really I want to be getting on with designing the parts for the figure, so I might make one more, depends how long it would take to draw a nice render of how this character would look. 

## Week 4 

![](https://i.imgur.com/I3JZv9O.jpg)

I started this week with getting my final version of my first character finished and I'm pretty happy with it. I wanted a large focus on the textures and weathering in the armour, with a lack of real flat colour and most of it being stippled back to a base colour to give that dirty mottled look and also incorporating grunge and grime into the creases of the armour to give the look that this character is a bit more lived in and real. Something I really liked in the Titan Fall concept art was the subtle spattering on the armour which was something I tried to incorporate and build up more heavily around the lower legs and shoes. I also added some subtle markings like the japanese symbol for samurai and the symbol for 4 and the flag of Japan on the front of the plate carrier, something done by the modern military. I also incorporated small details like the right hand thumb being on the other side of the grip adjusting the fire select and the trigger finger being in the safe position. I am really happy with how this character came out and unless I'm swayed by one of my others, I'll probably choose this one to make as I really enjoy the feel and already have ideas about how I plan to go about making the armour. 

![](https://i.imgur.com/OSRcWxH.jpg)
Once I was finished with last character, I moved onto looking at the next character which would be inspired by the Varangian Guard. I drew a quick mockup to get a feel for the base character before I messed with it. I looked at different accounts and images of what the Varangians would look like, but as they were vikings, they would often have taken an assortment of different armours from different places, but a suit of mail was a common theme and a viking style helmet. They also had a wide range of weapons from great axes to shields and smaller bearded axes. After this, I got the feeling that they were quite a close range fighting unit with history showing they were quite a brutal and effective tool, so I then took to doing some iterations of helmets whilst also thinking about the rest of the armour. 

![](https://i.imgur.com/72IsZcq.jpg)

When it comes to helmets, I wanted to have something that was very clearly Viking, so I looked at lots of different references combining lots together. The bottom left being more of a typical Byzantine helmet and the bottom right being a bit of an amalgamation. I liked the top left the most with the shape and the rust. A lot of the pictures I found had the metal being quite rough blacked in parts or rusting, so I wanted to replicate that weathered look. 

![](https://i.imgur.com/A22jLZs.jpg)

I then started on my drawing for how I imagined the Varangians looking. I didn't want to add lots of armour or plate carriers, as they would always stay relatively light weight, so I stuck quite close to their original look, mainly adding straps and pouches for amo and also equipping them with a modified Spas 12, an Italian shot gun that I thought was fitting since the Byzantines were descendants of Rome and were such brutal close quarters killers, I thought a shot gun would be fitting.

Lastly something that interested me this week was photogrammetry as we had a session using the scanner. It seemed like a lot of work, but then I was informed about a far simpler technique that I could do from home where I simply take pictures of the model on a rotating turntable, put all that data into Substance Sampler and it should compile it into a 3d image, which sounds far easier than trying to use the scanner, so that might be something I end up using.

### Conclusion 
I think this week I made a good amount of progress getting one character finished and making a start on another, all around a productive week.

## Week 5 

![](https://i.imgur.com/LCdLVIC.jpg)

Firstly this week I finished off my Varangian Guard character which came out looking great. He is a lot less futuristic in comparison to my samurai character which I think is fitting since the vikings typically didn't really use that much advanced weaponry or armour, more so favouring mobility and light weight clothing, thus I envisioned a sort of breacher style character light on armour but fully equipped with other weaponry like a shot gun for close quarters combat. This stripped back look I really liked as it still felt quite authentic and can be clearly identified as a working style character, but having improved weaponry and subtle accessories like the shotgun cartridges on the chest strap that holds the shield on the back which is not visible on the character, but I do want to draw up a clear set of weapons. I really enjoyed drawing this character despite the repetition of the chest armour scales. I liked doing the fur pelt which I thought really helped frame the characters look and helped to bulk him out more.


![](https://i.imgur.com/GOtkneA.jpg)
I moved on to start on my last character which I had already theorised to be a mongol character. I had already done some research into characters like the mongols, but finishing things on their armour was quite difficult as I had been finding a lot of armour like the character above on the left this *larded* scale armour. I kept finding things saying that it was not mongol armour and in fact a chinese iron pagoda armour, but confusingly enough since the mongols often went around looting and conquering different places, they did incorporate it into their own armour which was something I wanted to do. I also looked into a lot of Ghost of Tsushimas concept artwork for the mongols and really quite liked a lot of the face masks and the use of fur across the armour, making note of the large flowing tabards and skirting armour they would wear.


![](https://i.imgur.com/slyYODX.jpg)

I then quickly drew up mock up of my own mongol character and took the themes from that and started to think about how I could modernise it. I thought straight away about a heavy armoured jugernaut style character.


![](https://i.imgur.com/mTm36vc.jpg)

I did some quick mockup sketches of some helmets, but I was already pretty settled on the first helmet design taken from the iron pagoda armour.

Also this week we looked at motion capture which did not really look too difficult and was something that I felt I could do. I thought it was really just mostly cleaning up frames where the sensors had been occluded, which seemed to be the only really tedious part. 

### Conclusion 
I'm just trying to move fast now and get out of the concept art faze and into the modelling faze. Really start to get on with the character as its the fifth week and I want to give myself as much time as possible to get the model printed out and painted.

## Week 6 

![](https://i.imgur.com/d0cwwuC.jpg)


This week I started my final piece of character concept, that being the mongol warrior. I wanted to make quite a heavy armoured character with different looted armour present, mainly the modified iron pagoda chest and helmet to try and add that look of a heavy style character. I compounded this with a large neck guard similar to that of a bomb hazard suit. I felt that with the armour already covering the neck, another armour plate wouldn't be too far out of the question. For the helmet, I kept it simple, with a small square visor emitting green light which I really liked the look of, reflecting of the fur and armour. For the weapon, I went with the mongol fire lance, a 3 barrelled gun powder weapon which I thought would be appropriate for such a heavily armoured character. With it being more of a futuristic weapon, I imagine it to be more like a gatling gun with multiple rounds inside the barrels that come out as the weapon spins up. I wanted to keep a lot of the colours quite drab, it's still a WIP here, but you can get the idea of what I'm trying to make. Overall, I really like the feel of the character and the size and presence it has. 

Also this week I had my first go with VR and that was quite interesting, experimenting with the the VR drawing software. It was far easier to create something 3d rather than a 2d drawing with the distance actually changing as you move your hand further or closer. Making a 3d object was far easier, but it was certainly a different way of making things that I could maybe see myself using in perhaps a concept stage or something like that for making helmet iterations. 

We also looked at making a character customiser in Unity, which actually was not that hard, though we were using Andrew's pre made code, but other than that it was simple to follow and could have some good use for making character combinations that you may not think of when initially designing a character. Its something that I actually will probably end up using, but I'm not sure if I will use it in this project.

### Conclusion 

This week I wanted to finish off my last character, which I will probably do this week after writing this and then hopefully next week I can start modeling my character. 

## Week 7

![](https://i.imgur.com/DUrVd3l.jpg)

This week I finished off my final character design which I was really happy with. I feel like it has the presence that I wanted from a heavily armoured character whilst having slight upgrades, mostly still retaining a traditional mongol aesthetic with the heavy bulky armour and layered side skirts. Layering was something that was very important to me with looking at videos of how to put on mongol heavy armour. I realised just how much went into it and that was something I wanted to accentuate in this character with the fingers being the only thing visible. I really wanted to incorporate some iconography into the character with the symbols on the gold around the skirting armour. I think that it really just adds the extra detail that just helps wash them out a bit more. I didn't want to have a lot of clean armour, everything had to have some sort of damage or lighting on it just to really bring home the realism of the character. I think the weapon choice was also a good one with it being a more classic mongol weapon, being at times more simple and crude and I really like how Ghost of Sushima did it and wanted to work with that design, except mine was a lot larger and also spun up like a gattling gun. 

Overall, as much as I like this character, I think I will ultimately go with my first one as I think it will be a little bit easier to make on the whole, but I really like this one and I would also say that these are some of the favourite characters that I've designed.

![](https://i.imgur.com/to6xKB0.png)
![](https://i.imgur.com/mRDAl3Y.png)
![](https://i.imgur.com/6E134sM.png)

After I made my decision on which character I was going to make, I started designing in Zbrush and getting the characters basic shapes in place using a lot of new tools to do so. I started with just a basic human template, as I wasn't going to use it any way. I then started to model out the face mask separately. I wanted to get a good feel for how I wanted this character to look and wanted to keep it as close to the concept art as possible. However, since I knew that it was going to be 3d printed, I had to also consider that I had to alter things that maybe I would have left normally, but it also mean't that I didn't have to worry about other parts, as I knew that I could fix those with my modeling skills. Things like re skipping lines and sanding or sculpting different parts. The hardest part has been holing out sections like the chest and making straps, but once I found the topology tool, it became a lot easier to work with, also making to subgroups and deleting them to make holes was definitely helpful and made making things like the side skirt really easy. Eventhough there is still plenty to be done and refined, I'm really happy with how its already looking and have faith that it should turn out alright, so that I can get on with printing and then painting it. 

### Conclusion 
This week was really good as I can move onto the next step of my project and I'm also presenting on Monday and looking forward to showing off my stuff which should be able to convey my project.

## Week 8
![](https://i.imgur.com/AQ1Jbf9.png)
![](https://i.imgur.com/tmJ3yrC.png)

Continuing on from last week, I started adding more to my z brush character and this week he has really come together and I'm close to be able to go in and do more refining. This week I added shoes knee pads, lower arm gauntlets, shoulder armour and back standards. The nice thing that I keep remembering is that as it's going to be 3d printed. I can clean and edit a lot of this up especially if I print it out of resin. I can heat it up and move bits around as I have worked with resin models in the past. I also made some changes to the chest plate by re doing the straps with the topology tool which is quickly becoming one of my most used tools and I also used it to add trim to the side skirts. I added some subtle padding to the side skirt just for some extra detail. The knee armour was fairly simple just shaping it correctly and then making it flat. The shoes were a bit more of a challenge, but I think they still came out fine. It was just a lot of reshaping of the shoe using the trim dynamic and different intensity of smoothing it will still be fine as the trousers on the model should drape down around the shoe which was something I liked in Titanfall's character design. The shoulder and back plates were quite simple, just making a flat rectangle and duplicating it. Obviously in the final version it will be attached with elastic straps so it does look a but funny with it just floating at the moment. The next step now is to get the gloves done and then I can get everything refined and ready to print. 

I also presented my work this week, which went well as I had plenty to show. As not that many people showed up, I had a bit more time than I expected, so I could talk about things in a bit more in-depth. I got some good feedback, mostly just saying they liked the concept art, some about maybe trying to tie the eras my characters come from together, but that was never really my intention as that would make the pool of characters very niche. Overall, it was very positive feedback which was nice to hear. On Tuesday, Andrew also showed us some of his old work where he had used some code to generate thumbnails for character art which was actually very interesting and I could see myself actually wanting to do something with that as I don't really enjoy thumbnails that much and can find them quite tedious.

### Conclusion 
This week was really just more me cracking on with zbrush. I'm hoping that maybe by next week it might be close to done so I can send it to be printed and maybe paint it over Easter, but we'll see.

## Week 9 

![](https://i.imgur.com/jJKk6ci.png)
![](https://i.imgur.com/4mfX0P2.png)

This week I finished off my character by making the gloves and adding the last extra bits of trim and refining the details. I did make some last changes like attaching the plate carrier to the chest piece as I think it would be easier and the backpack can then just be attached on and any gaps can be filled with Milliput (modelling putty). Some parts like the side skirt I made a hole in before whereas the shoes and hands I thought would be better if I drilled the hole myself which I thought would be much faster and also as I'm still not sure what the scale of the rod I'll be using for the skeleton of the armature will be. I sent it over to a friend who 3d prints just to see if it would work and he said it should work so I'll send it over to Print City as soon as possible to see if I can get it printed or if there will be any problems. I think I might scale it back from what I had originally intended on, having making it a bit smaller just for price and for making the cloths. I'm pleased with how the parts are looking as they actually look like the character I'd drawn up and hopefully with some extra work they can end up looking like the real thing in real life. Hopefully it will look how I want when I put it back into a digital environment. I have kept it purposefully a little simple with this being the first time I have ever done anything like this and the whole plan was already complicated enough. I didn't want to add more to the complications.

Now with it being Easter, as I'd hoped when I planned everything out, I should be able to do all the things at home from this point on and spend plenty of time on construction and have plenty of time to send for new parts if there's anything I don't like. So far my time management has kept me on track as there are a lot of moving parts to getting this project finished. One thing that has been a bit of a problem however, has been trying to book out the Mocap room, as it isn't on the Connect 2 website. I have emailed Stuart, the Mocap tutor about this but I haven't had a response back about it yet. There are a few of us in the group that are wanting to book out the room, so we have also emailed the Soda Tech Hub, but are still waiting for a response. Obviously it is not something essential for me, but it would be nice to get a set of animations for the character just to use as simple idol animations. 

### Conclusion 
This week has been very useful with me getting everything finished and ready to move onto the next step. Hopefully it will all come out fine, but if not I'm hoping that Print City can help me with whatever parts aren't quite right. 

## Week 10 
Bit of a shorter one this week as all I really did was send my files over to Print City. They did have a problem with them not being separated, but I sorted that out and sent them back, so we will see how that goes when they get back to me. 

## Week 12
![](https://i.imgur.com/JCV1MB2.jpg)


![](https://i.imgur.com/gBYB5nd.jpg)


This week was a big success as my 3d prints came from Print City and I was massively impressed with the quality of the print and how it came out looking. The level of detail that has been captured is really impressive especially around the teeth.

I first started by removing the supports. I tried putting them in hot water to make them more plyable but it didn't really make much of a difference, so I just went in with a pair of large nippers and then down to my detail nippers, then a hobby knife and then finally sand paper. This worked really well for cleaning up the parts, I just had to be mindful of the resin dust. 


![](https://i.imgur.com/0C2k7zE.jpg)

Once I had all the parts cut out, I started building an armature out of metal wire and bulking out the body with old bits of cloths. I also tried making clothes for the character. This was my first attempt at trousers. They ended up being uneven and too short, but it was a good first attempt. 

![](https://i.imgur.com/qxvdr4u.jpg)

The second attempt after some help and research, was far better and I made a top for the character as well. I also began painting the character's armour parts. Starting with a black primer and then adding the grey basecoat and then the 3 stage layering process for the face mask. Starting with a darker red up to a mid tone red and then glazing in a bright red for the top highlights. This really gave an extra layer of depth for the face. I then painted the teeth a light brown, glazed in a dark brown at the bottom closest to the gums and a brighter light flesh tone to the sharper points of the teeth.
![](https://i.imgur.com/GBhT2v2.jpg)

Once I had it all base coated, I then started chipping it to make it look more weathered. I did this by using a torn up sponge. This is a great method for chipping as it adds randomness to the model and then I simply had to go in with a dark brown and fill in the model leaving the chipping colour around the outside to give the impression that the paint had been chipped off and left the primer underneath it showing. I then added an oil wash to really grime up the armour and add more definition to the armour layers. This gave a great finish and really tied everything together. Once I was done with the helmet, I added some Milliput to fix some of the gaps in the chest and side skirt and then painted those as well.
![](https://i.imgur.com/EgH1WbP.jpg)

![](https://i.imgur.com/RWx5WX7.jpg)
I was left with this as my final piece and here I could get a much better idea of how the model was going to turn out with all the oils applied and weathered. The next step is to get the arms in the hands attached and at the right length, then adding the shoulder armour and leg armour, then lastly the cloth skirting and straps and other accessories onto the armour. Once that's done, I should be able to start with photogrammetry.

### Conclusion 
This week has been extremely important, as I'm finally getting into the last steps now with the character and the 3d print coming out looking as good as it does is really great as its starting to actually look like some of the Titanfall concepts. Overall really happy with how this is turning out.

## Week 13 
![](https://i.imgur.com/CnlIU08.png)
I started this week with adding the extra armour. I used elastic to make the straps then simply super glued it together. This worked well and the picture above is from my initial test fitting where I then added some more padding inside to make the arms look a bit better.

![](https://i.imgur.com/8OP0sFR.jpg)
Once I was happy with that, I got it all primed and painted using the same method as I'd used and the armour I had already painted, layering on the base coat then doing the chipping and extra detail, then adding an oil wash and finally cleaning that up last. At this point the character really came together as it was finally looking like what I had envisioned and actually looked like a believable character. 
![](https://i.imgur.com/dGQuZwL.jpg)
I added small details to add a bit more life to the model with this little free hand samurai symbol, something present in my concept art that I wanted to add to the real model and its probably one of my favourite parts as it just adds that little bit more character and interest.
![](https://i.imgur.com/IQTJiTG.jpg)
Here's the model completely finished with all the extra red cloth added which really adds that extra detail and colour on an otherwise quite dark model. I was really happy with how good it looked by this point. I had managed to complete it in less than a week, as I picked it up on Thursday and finished it on the next Wednesday to quite an efficient turn around time. 
![](https://i.imgur.com/P8jOCzT.jpg)
![](https://i.imgur.com/Xp0GtiT.jpg)



![](https://i.imgur.com/EXUK0hd.jpg)



![](https://i.imgur.com/wQ79uDv.jpg)

I then took some better pictures. Here you can also see the number decals that I used to add some more interest and gives more of a sense that the character is part of a squad and in the future I could simply print a set of shoulder plates and just swap them out to make a whole squad. I really am happy with how it came out looking, the elastic really helps add that realistic look clinging onto the fabric, something I really liked in the original Titanfall mock ups and was something I really wanted to replicate. Overall, the process wasn't that bad and was relatively simple, though I now see why Joel Emslie made his characters 1/6 scale since there are plenty of figure clothes on the market at that scale to avoid having to sew, which is something to note in the future, however with more practice with sewing, I guess the faster it would become. 

![](https://i.imgur.com/8njX4r3.jpg)
I then started with photogrammetry and it took a little while to get everything set up, but I was eventually ready once I had everything marked out. I moved the characters arms up as far as I could as I wanted to see if I could rig it. Once I had completed my data set, I put it into Substance Sampler. 
![](https://i.imgur.com/nYNQaUL.png)
I was really impressed with what I got back, as for a first go I thought it wasn't that bad. As I had expected, parts of the shoulder armour and helmet had fused together and the very top of the head seemed to have been missed, but other than that it was actually pretty good. The amount of texture detail it had captured was incredible with the cloth fibres being visible and all the chipping being present. I then exported it to ZBrush where I removed the base and the strange error between the legs and then as an experiment, I put it into Mixamo as it was fast and simple.

![](https://i.imgur.com/6h9NRV1.png)
![](https://i.imgur.com/JTdiJ0R.png)
It really shows how a lot of the depth and detail was in the texture, but the clothing is really impressive, so perhaps if I was to actually use this to make a proper character, just making an armature with clothes and then making the armour in Zbrush, as it gives really realistic folds, but the armour just bends and breaks. The next step is to try to retopologize, hopefully that should fix it but I'm mainly just experimenting to see what I can do, just getting it back to digital was my main goal. 

### Conclusion
This was another big week as I have completed what I set out to do. I made the model and I got it back into digital which was my main goal, so now its just experimenting with what I can do and next week I'm also going to experiment with Mocap. I wanted to do it ages ago but its just been really hard to book. I doubt I will get it up and running, but its more to just give it a go and I might see if I can get my character into it just to see if it works. 

## Week 14 

![](https://hackmd.io/_uploads/Bku72LI42.png)
![](https://hackmd.io/_uploads/SyqD288E3.png)
![](https://hackmd.io/_uploads/SJqmpIUN3.png)
![](https://hackmd.io/_uploads/ryt8AU8N2.png)

This week I finished off my project with another photogrammetry piece, this time with the character in a more static pose as I think this would be more usable for actual use as ultimately the design of the model limits what can be achieved through Photogrammetry as rigging something like this becomes quite hard as I've seen after experimenting with it. So after experimenting with putting my previous data set in and using the raw setting inside substance sampler, I realised how much better a mesh you get, so I did the same for this one. There are still some errors present but on the whole the texture quality is much better. I was really impressed by the cloth on the character and how well that was picked up. It would be great for armour in the future if I could photograph textures on a tank or something and use those on the model to add some more realistic weathering. I could definitely see that being useful or for capturing cloths for a character to then put the armour over. I think certainly for detail work like decals this kind of process is great, but actually capturing the detail on the armour is harder with edges being poorly defined, but a lot of that could be attributed to my set up and camera settings. If I had taken more images of the helmet, the teeth may have come out more detailed than they are now.


![](https://hackmd.io/_uploads/HyLytvLVn.png)

This is the same data set that I used last week, but I used the raw setting instead of high and it came out looking like this, with what I think is more detail than my most recent one as I think the camera has focussed more on the head showing the importance of getting the focus right when it comes to photogrammetry as it has done a really good job of picking up the chipping detail on the chest piece.

Another thing to keep in mind if I was to do this again, would be the lighting, it would be better if it was flatter from looking at videos. Light diffusers are used by most people but I don't have access to those, so I can't really use that. All I had was my white led light that I use for painting sat at an above and front angle, pointing in the direction the camera was facing. It has lit the character well, but has left a shine on the model that would be difficult to remove. 

Looking back at this process, I have found it to be a really interesting process, to see where it has gone and what I have learned from doing it. Photogrammetry is certainly something that I wouldn't have thought about using in most projects, but now I think for stationary objects, I will definitely be using it more as you can get a highly realistic object into a digital asset fairly quickly with mainly the uv and retopology being the 2 longest parts. I could see this being great for building a environment quickly if you were using rocks and other bits of debris. Also using it to capture textures would also be another good use. Things like rust and chipping would be great to add a more natural look to models and could potentially be simpler than some other methods.

Link to mocap clip
https://youtube.com/shorts/6vqNjN2ygh0?feature=share
We also finally got into the Mocap Room after much difficulty, but still didn't really get what we wanted to do done since there had been a problem with the booking not on our end but on a tutors end, so we had to come back later which reduced our time coupled with some technical issues like in the clip when we did a capturing test and the whole pc crashed, but we did give it a go. We'd really wanted to do this some time before Easter. Ultimately it was really just one of those things we wanted try and fortunately wasn't a key part of my project, but a few of us in the group wanted to try it. I had planned to do some For Honor style executions or perhaps a ending animation with the character coming up to the screen and doing some small animation or something, but it was just meant to be more of an experiment. 



![](https://hackmd.io/_uploads/BJe_nPcVn.png)

![](https://hackmd.io/_uploads/BJxmAwc4n.png)

![](https://hackmd.io/_uploads/B1h_RD942.png)

![](https://hackmd.io/_uploads/H1o4Jd9Vn.png)

Finally, I rendered it out in Maya which took longer than I expected because of the way it exported from Substance Sampler. Once I had that fixed, it wasn't too bad. I really wanted to improve on the renders that I'd done on the last project. The main problem with them was the lighting being speckly and full of particles, so I messed with the specular highlights and the diffusion until I was happy. I also used different lights to get a more precise look. I wanted a contrasting look from the original model, something mimicking box art or a customisation screen. I am far happier with how these came out looking, as surprisingly, the left over light from the original photographs hasn't posed any significant problem. The only thing I would want to change is the texturing on the surfaces, like the scarf and such.





## Final conclusion. 
This project has been one of my most ambitious projects I've done as it has involved a lot of different mediums and techniques that I havn't used before, but it has been great to watch it all come together, better than I could have imagined from looking at the first Titanfall maquettes, to designing and making my own and actually getting it back into a digital format has been a very satisfying process. I think that the characters I have created for this project have easily been some of my best from an art perspective as they have really given me a chance to develop my style. With an emphasis on texture and metals on the armour, they are easily some of my favourite characters I have created. I also learnt a lot more about Zbrush with this project, making parts that had to be 3d printed was a whole new thing to work on and just detailing the character in general using new tools like the topology tool, something I had never used before. I have always wanted to incorporate my love of model making into my work and this has been the perfect chance to do so, though I had never sewn before or made a character like this as I normally paint model kits, so this was slightly different having to think how I would put it together myself, but it turned out better than I had expected, looking similar enough to the Titanfall maquettes and then finally photogrammetry, something surprisingly easy to do and relatively simple to get a good output and ultimately doing what I set out to do, Some parts obviously didn't work like the rig and things. I could have maybe got it working, but there wasn't enough time to try and sort it out and I also wouldn't really know what to do to fix it. Overall, I'm really happy with this project and how it has progressed from initial concepts to a physical and 3d model. I think it's something quite unique as an experiment and has definitely pushed me to work on things I probably wouldn't have tried and I think the end result is something that I'm happy with. 


## Bibliography 

Titanfall 2 maquette
Titan Books (2016) *The Art of Titanfall 2* London: Titan Books - Page 188

Adam Savage Tested (2022) YouTube How to Kitbash a Miniature Spaceship Model![Online] [Accessed on Sun-12-Feb-2023]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EGStOleIiMQ
*
Adam Savage Tested (2018) One Day Builds: You Tube Kit-Bashing and Scratch-Building! [Online] [Accessed on Sun-12-Feb-2023]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZfvtGrhYk0I

Adam Savage Tested (2018) You Tube One Day Builds: Kit-Bashing a Robot [Online] [Accessed on Sun-12-Feb-2023]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QCBcWm85gWo

Adam Savage Tested (2022) You Tube Guide to Model Spaceship Panelling [Online] [Accessed on Sun-12-Feb-203]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NiZPuE0wBE8 




