University Year 3 Character Art Projects

GVE Summer Showcase 2021 - Alex Kempley-Smith 3D Character Art Projects

Email: kempleysmitha@gmail.com

ArtStation: https://www.artstation.com/alexkempley-smith

LinkedIn: https://uk.linkedin.com/in/alex-kempley-smith-63a6351a3

A collection of Character Art Projects that I have completed over the last year. These Projects include Regaliceratops, The Harlem GlobeHopper, Arcade Bard and Mars Attacks! Martian.

Regaliceratops:

The Regaliceratops would end up being one of the most complicated characters I'd have to create over the last year for a few reasons. Compared to the other projects, this character would include a large number of secondary elements that would all need to be made with good topology in mind that would allow it to deform well when being moved around. The Sculpt would also need to include a lot of varying surface textures and details to make the creature appear realistic, but also so that it would fit into the world of the game, Ark: Survival Evolved. The final result would make heavy use of ZBrush and Substance Painter to help ensure that the Textures appeared suitably realistic, while fitting in with the Dinosaur's Design and helped me gain a much better understanding of implementing these pieces of software into the Texturing Pipeline.

Regaliceratops ArtStation Page: https://www.artstation.com/artwork/WKznXE

The Harlem GlobeHopper:

Completed as an entry for this Year's Search For A Star Competition with the theme of the character being 'Strange Sports', The Harlem GlobeHopper is a Stylized Character who was designed and 3D Modelled in a two-week time frame. In the end, although the project didn't make it into the finals, The Harlem GlobeHopper was awarded a One To Watch Badge by the Judges for its overall quality.

The Harlem GlobeHopper ArtStation Page: https://www.artstation.com/artwork/GaLPkQ

Arcade Bard:

For one of the Projects that I completed in the last year, I went to ArtStation to find a piece of concept art that I would try my best to recreate as a Game-Ready Character Model. The chosen Concept Art would be Arcade Bard Fan Skin by Nick Oei. To ensure that the 3D Character Model could be implemented into League of Legends, research into the game's playable champions was completed to ensure that the tri count, topology and textures were as close to the in-game Character Models as possible. The project was an interesting challenge and, in the end, I feel that I was able to accurately depict the Concept Art while staying faithful to the Game's Character 3D Model Specifications.

Nick Oei Original Concept Art ArtStation Page: https://www.artstation.com/artwork/4b3eOW

Arcade Bard ArtStation Page: https://www.artstation.com/artwork/Gal5ma

Mars Attacks! Martian:

As the biggest project that I tackled this year, the Martian Soldier would be the most challenging character to create in 3D. Chosen for its iconic design and the great variety in surface details, this PBR Character Model would take two Semesters to complete. A lot of care and attention to detail needed to be put into each stage of the development process to make sure that the final 3D Model would act as a faithful depiction of the character, as any mistakes within the sculpting process would have rippled throughout the project and hurt the end result. To make sure that the final model had specified limitations in regards to the tri count and textures, Overwatch was selected as the Character's Art Style. The other main challenges that were faced during this project included the topology for the Martian and the Texture Maps that needed to be completed for the Character. Having the Overwatch Art Style helped to narrow down the research and also opened up the potential to look into the various pipelines that other 3D Artists used within similar projects. The final Character was rendered in Unreal Engine 4 and the project helped to build upon my knowledge of the workflows and techniques for 3D Modelling Characters (especially in Substance Painter and ZBrush), giving me more knowledge for future projects and allowing me to tackle a character which would push me out of my comfort zone and test my skills.

Martian ArtStation Page: https://www.artstation.com/artwork/xJLrqm