Samuel Wood | Selection of Character Work from 2023 - 2024

Hello everyone, I am Samuel Wood, I am a second year 3D game art student focussing on character and creature design.

Artstation: https://www.artstation.com/samuel_wood

Sketchfab: https://sketchfab.com/SamuelWood442

Characters

The following trio of characters were created for my personal fictional setting, the underground city of Beacon and the surrounding cave systems, where the remnants of a decimated human race clings on to life following a series of catastrophes in the 26th century. Here people take on unusual forms, altered by generations of cybernetic and biological modification, until their bodies are only adjacent to human. In the flickering torchlight mankind persists.

The Jester

In the King of Beacon's court, a Jester sings songs, juggles and makes merry for the nobles in their grand galleries.

This original semi-stylised character was created using ZBrush for sculpting, Marvellous designer for cloth simulation, Blender for rigging, posing and hard surface elements like the jewellery and Substance Painter for texturing. With this character I wanted to mix the fun and jollity of a clown with the dark and sinister tone of Beacon as a setting. I kept everything starkly lit and wreathed in shadows with detailed rough textures, simultaneously garish and drab clothing and a combination of human and animal anatomy. My favourite elements to create were the huge curling horns of the jester's hat and the detailed subdermal colouration of the skin of their face.

For areas that would be a greater focus I applied more detail, such as the face which has pores and scarring, compared to the torso which would be covered by clothes and as such was kept at a relatively low level of detail.

To create a more lively skin colouration I first painted areas of purple, red and yellow indicating blood vessels and fat deposits under the skin, this I then overlayed with flesh tones.

The Duke

As the coruler of Beacon this powerful nobleman exercises the will of its monarch upon the populous and expands his hand beyond its towering walls; each day spent attending to the affairs of the city.

Using similar tools to the Jester, creating this character was my first time using Marvellous Designer for clothing. Much like all character for this setting I aimed to mix the familiar with the alien and the past and present. The Duke is clad in a huge regal coat and bears a sceptre of office while also boasting gills and a lure sprouting from his face. He carries a huge and technically elaborate breathing apparatus on his back. He is designed to be regal, an imposing figure if somewhat unkept and chaotic, his scars reflect a violent origin.

The Angel

Past the walls surrounding the city, deep into the shadows that lap around its small circle of light, mysteries from mankind's half remembered past find a home.

This character is accompanied by a more complex background than others. It features a large glowing sarcophagus - like construction surrounded by phantasmal butterflies.

To block out this character I used ZSpheres.

To create the finer greebling detail on the armour I used ZBrush's Live Boolean system.

Created with much the same tools as the above characters, though not including Marvellous Designer for clothes, my focus on this character was on hard-surface sculpting. I designed the Angel to try to look both machined and precise, slightly old and worn but well cared for and meticulously preserved. To add to the mysterious nature of the Angel's presence I gave them a blank faceplate and etched alchemical symbols over their frame. While all people in this setting, with few notable exceptions, possess animal traits this character takes features from a legendary creature, the backwards facing legs and the horn of the unicorn combined with the angelic wings of the pegasus.