Armed & Dangerous

Our next uni assignment is to find an online competition that requires you to use skills used in game art. This includes 2D artwork, 3D Sculpting and Modelling and animation. I chose the "Armed & Dangerous" Mudbox challenge. The aim of the competition is to sculpt a character that is "armed and dangerous". I have spent the last week creating orthographic concept art of a character I call (working title) "The Six Armed Nutter".
I started with an initial sketch of the sort of character I wanted. and then worked out each element of the character as needed. Looking back, I should have created several initial sketches and picked my favourite.

The initial, very rough sketch.

Since the competition allowed a lot of leeway for personal tastes, I picked the same sort of mad, surreal kind of character I enjoy drawing. This was a bad idea. Since this competition is just a way of increasing my abilities, I should have tried something novel and learnt how to draw a new type of character.
Once I had my initial sketch I began looking for images online that worked with the sort of character, and the style, I wanted to create.

A collection of images used for reference and influence for the concept art.

I wanted the character to be insane and, much like the joker or the cheshire cat (American Mcgee's Cheshire Cat inparticular), the character needed a nice wide, evil grin. Already having a cartoon style, I wanted to make the bigger than it proportionally should be. After playing around with proportions I decided to move the top of the mouth to where I would usually put the nose (halfway between the brow and chin) and make the chin slightly smaller. I also made the skull slightly elongated to make room for the mouth to reach right back without making the jaw or cheekbones seem small or non-existant.

Studies of mouths from American Mcgee's Cheshire Cat, Jamie Hewlett's Murdoch and Marvel's Venom. On the right I have tested out a few different mouths and head shapes, finding out what works best.

Once I had the mouth, figuring out the rest of the face was fairly simple. I already knew that, if a character is grinning whilst the eyes are frowning, the character looks more than a touch sinister. I found that by keeping this expression and raising one eyebrow, I could make the character look even more mad and unnatural.

On the left are the final workings out for the head shape. The profile and front view on the right side of the page are the final designs.

The final thing to do was to take a quick look at his anatomy. I already knew that I wanted him to be skinny, with tone. I also know enough about anatomy that I only occasionally need reference for a more cartoony character. The only real problem I had was figuring out how the extra 4 arms where going to attach. All drawings of Hindu Gods have the arms one on top of the other. This only works when working in 2D from a front view. I figured my best option was to have them running down the side of the torso. One on the side of the ribcage, the other one the external oblique just before the character's jeans begin.
Once I had worked out what each part of him would look like, I put the parts together by drawing him in photoshop in front and side orthographic views. The only problem I had here was that he seemed too human. His face, and the fact he had an extra 4 arms, were the only things that made him seem off, I want to really throw people off. I looked into how the hands of Yoda and the District 9 "Prawns" where design and decided to do a similar thing, making him feel more alien.

Final Orthographic Concept Art

I plan on making one more piece of concept art before I start sculpting. A 3/4 posed, roughly valued and coloured digital painting of the 6 armed nutter. In the meanwhile, I plan on creating the base mesh myself in Maya using Digital Tutor's "Creating Digital Humans" series. Although, I only intend on creating a rough block out with good enough topology to sculpt with. I want as much of it to be sculpted as possible.
So far I have blocked out the torso.

Progress with the torso base mesh.