Ajay Hiser - Portfolio 2024

I'm proud to show my portfolio work from my University Game Art course and beyond. I'm a realism-based character artist who's focused on emotionally compelling characters with deep visual storytelling. I enjoy writing a greater world around each of them and considering how their story would develop in a game setting. I also rig and animate them myself in hopes of growing my greater skillset as a game artist. All the characters on this page are my original designs, and if any of them evoke emotion in a viewer, then I will have achieved what I always set out to do. Please enjoy.

Contents:
The Firefighter's Wife (Nov 2023 - May 2024)
'Gaia' (Aug 2023 - Jan 2024)
The Prophet (Jan 2023 - May 2023)
The Soothsayer (Jan 2023 - May 2023)
The Firefighter (Oct 2022 - Jan 2023)

The Firefighter's Wife (Nov 2023 - May 2024)

This one was long time in the making, she shares a story with the Firefighter (found lower down on this same page).

After succumbing to a blazing wildfire that engulfed their house, she awoke bare and alone in the woods. The earth had spit her up and out, a remnant of herself – half charred remains and half ethereal flame – she is cursed to burn anything she touches. She joins with a small group of those like her, walking north and away from the greater population in hopes of finding haven. Or at the least, escape from spreading what originally killed them.

[Final charred model is 37,408 triangles (fire collision model is 28,830 triangles) total is 66,238 triangles]

'Gaia' (Aug 2023 - Jan 2024)

‘Gaia’ is a terminally ill woman who is unable to have children due to a degenerative condition, which is characterised by pulmonary oedema (where the lungs fill with fluid). Once hospitalised, she is given a drainage tube system to eleviate her symptoms but will not treat her illness.

She is without close friends or family, no one will remember her after she’s gone. She desperately wants children but has been denied this wish. Wanting to leave something behind and to care for something that will outlive her, she creates a garden of plants as surrogate children, starting with just one frail fern.

[Final model is 83,953 triangles (plant and tools are 10,876 triangles) total is 92,982 triangles]

The Prophet (Jan 2023 - May 2023)

In a world not far in the future, humanity is slowly tearing itself apart, and religion is all but abandoned. Built by those who came before, an artificial intelligence continuum decided they must intervene and guide humankind towards a better tomorrow by uniting them under a new ‘faith’. Just one is sent as a figurehead, the Prophet. Made of two halves – his virtual consciousness and nano-machine generated corporeal form – he makes contact with the human populace as their shepherd and saviour. Many become devoted followers, moved by his ‘doctrine’ but others are sceptical and even suspicious of his true nature and agenda.

[Final model is 34,205 triangles (cloak is a WIP, 9,792) total is 43,997 triangles]

The Soothsayer (Jan 2023 - May 2023)

Situated in a land similar to Mongolia, Hungary and Kazakhstan, people needing to know a painful truth go to this Soothsayer. Burning an item of emotional import, she’d read the embers in her hands to tell that painful truth. “Yes, your lover is unfaithful”, “yes, your son will die in war”. Knowing all these truths weigh her down gradually, and once elderly, she is carrying the burden of more knowledge than any one person should have.

[Final model is 45,952 triangles]

The Firefighter (Oct 2022 - Jan 2023)