Although I have stuck with the basic outline for the character, I have changed the world the character will be in. Before, the world was slightly futuristic full of people with prosthetics stronger than organic body parts. The world the character will inhabit is now set in the modern day. The key difference is that fighting is a regular part of society with those who win more fights moving up the social ladder above those who don’t win many. Although fighting is a large part of peoples lives, they still work regular jobs. This means the uniforms of people are made to both represent their role and work as functional gear during a fight.
My initial character development involved drawing shape based characters to see what kind of body type I wanted to use. I used a variety of shape combinations and found myself liking the top left the most. It is a combination of rounded and tapered rectangles. This shape would fit my character best as I want to make a large, strong male character.
Moving on from the simple blockouts, I drew a few different character bodies and added clothes to see if I liked the style and physique of the character. The first design I tried was an exaggerated size with a smaller head. This would give the impression that the character is a sort of dumb brute, something I realized quickly and decided against as the character isn’t a dumb brute. I put a builders uniform on this design to see how it would look and moved on to the next. I initially wanted the character to have an extremely exaggerated size and physique but I found myself moving away from the idea when it came to adding clothes and accessories. Moving away from the extremely exaggerated physique, I moved towards a more realistic strongman physique. Using this kind of body would still work when making a large, strong male character but I would also be able to find more realistic reference material when looking to add clothes and accessories. On the second, more realistic design, I put gladiator like gear. I am a fan of this look although it doesn’t reach the requirement of being both work and fighting gear.
I spelt physique wrong.
The clothing and accessories drawn onto the characters aren’t final, I just wanted to see what kind of style I prefer. My intention is to mix the builders uniform and gladiators uniform to fit the world my character would be in.