Sweater & Shorts! Because why not?

Welcome to day 2 of game jam art updates, I'm Yujie and today, the goal was to complete character models and give them animations. Introducing our main character, El (working name), the alchemist! Dressed in a large round purple sweater with black shorts, along with a mini witch's hat to show that they are a part of the magic world.  

Unlit Character Model in Blender: 

Deep Waters Ahead!

For this game, we planned to have a protagonist and four enemies of different elements (fulfilling the theme: Elementals). The task definitely felt a bit daunting at first because I've never really worked with characters before. I like building rooms and props, but rarely characters. Still, I had some confidence in working with low-poly to create a character using my general knowledge in 3D modeling, or I wouldn't have agreed to this in the first place. 

After the low-poly character is done, they have to be alived - through animations. Which means rigging is another necessary step and one that I don't have much experience in. The only rig that I've worked with is Blender's meta-human Rigify rig, and the requirement was that the character had to be human. With El being El, everything worked out.

I'll admit, the rig and the animations aren't perfect, but what makes me happy is that they do work. After studying in game development for a while, I've come to realize how complex the entire art pipeline is to reach a finished product, and modeling is only one small step of the process. I can't hope to completely understand rigging, animations, and VFX within the short time that has allowed me to engage with game development, and the surface understanding that has allowed me to make art assets and carry it throughout the entire pipeline for this game jam will be enough. For now, I want to better my modeling skills, even though it is only a small step of the process. 

Elements! The Four Classical..."Aristotelian" Ones But Derpy.

Introducing red alien, blue ice block, green mushroom ghost, and a cloud! Honestly, not much planning when into these designs, I just thought the shapes would look interesting and does a good job differentiating them from each other. Mr. red alien has more polygon budget on him because well...I didn't plan it well. I didn't realize how little polygons I need to get the shape I wanted. I was tight on time so I didn't bother redoing him. It won't lag the game too much now, will it?

Unlit Elemental Enemies in Blender:

Did we mention we were using alchemy symbols for fire, water, earth and air?

Image Render From Blender with Toon Shading Applied:

That was all from today, I'm pretty satisfied with what I accomplished. All that's left if to find the rest of my team and assemble everything together before the jam deadline. Oh, and I have to thank my team for giving me 100% creative freedom when it came to character designs, it was fun and I was able to limit the designs according to my own limitations.