Live Brief: Character Concept art test
Research
Initial research, referencing Fromsoftware due to their multitude of boss designs and concepts.
Initial exploration of Demon Boss, exploring idea of using web covered antlers as a weapon. Right now I'm quite fixated on the idea of antlers being already separate and on top of the character's head; I'd like to explore this cobweb idea further, maybe replacing the cobwebs with tendons or gory fleshy strings to give further connotations of something demonic. Another Idea I had to justify the cobwebs for the design is having a spider-like creature that's burrowed into the character and using it as a host, referencing possession and taking control of the body, another reference to something paranormal or demonic.
Next steps are to pump out thumbnails, and try not to box myself in with the antler idea.
Week 4 Ideation & feedback
CLASS FEEDBACK
-Take a couple and iterate on the designs                         
-Push more shape
-Look into Norwegian horror, The Ritual, Bramble the mountain King, Trollhunter
-Explore concepts, upside down body, wolf in sheep's clothing
-Experiment with different arms on the 'lacrosse demon'
-Try different skulls of animals
-Try rough key-frame/mood painting for development
MID POINT FEEDBACK
-Explore unifying some of the designs, the centaur-like one could be a first form, whereas the upside-down body concept could be a second form, tearing itself out from the horse's body, adding storytelling elements
-Work on polishing up these designs as they're fairly abstract
-Add ornamentation to bone, maybe carving or sigils​​​​​​​
Week 6> Ideation & feedback
Overall quite happy with the outcome of my iterations, I made some sculpts on Zbrush to help with defining and solving some parts of the body such as the claw-hand, and the fleshy transition from hoofed mammal to humanoid fleshy parasite. From here I'm doing paint-overs of the sculpts, altering them and then going through with the final renders of this character. Most of the feedback I've received is to add a better sense of scale by adding elements we're familiar with, such as bones, skulls, engravings. I also mainly need to solve the design for the second phase, widening that neck up and finding out how to split phase 1's skull into that parasitic leechy mouth.
Evaluation
Overall, I'm quite happy with the outcome of this brief. I have callout sheets, move sets, and more polished final renders. I could've pushed myself to do more iterations of the demon boss, as I think I didn't stray too far from my initial concepts, however, I'm happy with the problem solving of bridging the gap between phase 1&2, showing how the boss will transform when they're at half health. I think this final concept could benefit more from callouts of different angles, and some more polish on parts of the body such as hands, quills, textures of raw flesh.