I took a lot of inspiration for my character and her personality from shows like Little Witch Academia (A human joins a witch school because she loves witchcraft) and Star Vs The Forces of Evil (A show where a princess from a different world comes to live in the human world to learn more about it because she thinks it’s really cool). I knew I wanted my character to have a backstory like this because I think its really fun and interesting and can always lead to some quirky interactions due to the unfamiliarity of the world they are now placed in. I also took inspiration from Tinker Bell, the 2008 movie, as in this movie the character really likes to discover things and explore and is fascinated by the creations from the human world. I really wanted a character that you could imagine lots of scenarios and situations she could get into and one who would have fun bright colours and outfits so she would be memorable and fun to look at. From these shows I also pulled some inspiration for the looks of my character as they have nice clean art styles which similarly match my own personal art style.
I also looked at many examples of 3D models and art to see what was most appealing to me and what I thought fit best with what I wanted to create so I could get some ideas on how to translate my ideas into a 3D space from a 2D illustration. I found these 3 images above that influenced my design and how I wanted to create my character in Zbrush. The first 2 are pieces I found on Artstation by 2 independent creators that I really loved the styles of. I really liked how simple the colours were and how soft and smooth the models themselves are. I took inspiration from the simplistic styles of these models when considering my character design and how I wanted her to look. I also was inspired by the 2020 game Animal Crossing New Horizons. The characters in this game have faces which are really similar to the sketches I was drawing which and I think I was unintentionally inspired by the cute circular hands and the triangle noses in the game. The eyes and mouth are also painted on and not part of the character’s 3D sculpt which is something I think looks really cute and makes the designs look super childlike and is something I am inspired by as I think it fits with my character really well.
Image References:
[1] Little Witch Academia Wiki. 2020. Little Witch Academia (Anime). [online] Available at: https://little-witch-academia.fandom.com/wiki/Little_Witch_Academia_(anime) [Accessed 13 November 2020].
[2] IMDb. 2020. Star Vs. The Forces Of Evil (TV Series 2015–2019) – Imdb. [online] Available at: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2758770/ [Accessed 13 November 2020].
[3] En.wikipedia.org. 2020. Tinker Bell (Film). [online] Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tinker_Bell_(film) [Accessed 13 November 2020].
[4] Oral, B., 2020. Maya, Zbrush. [online] Artstation. Available at: https://berkay.artstation.com/projects/G40m4 [Accessed 15 November 2020].
[5] Mac, D., 2020. Zbrush Girl Timelapse – Yvonne. [online] Artstation. Available at: https://www.artstation.com/artwork/Oa5xg [Accessed 15 November 2020].
[6] VainSoftGames, 2020. Vainsoftgames | Animal Crossing: New Horizons – Nintendo Switch. [online] VSG. Available at: https://vainsoftgames.com/animal-crossing-new-horizons/photos [Accessed 15 November 2020].