Character material design

Among the games and films I have played and watched, there are quite a few works that have left a deep impression on me in terms of their artistic style. These works all possess a unique and highly stylized artistic design language that runs through the entire world view. The game “Dead Space” is precisely such a work that has left a deep impression on me. The somewhat terrifying character designs in it have a strong visual impact. The flesh and limbs of the monsters are perfectly integrated, creating one aggressive and distorted crazy monster image after another. And this kind of image is exactly what my character needs. As the outcome of a biological weapon design project, it has a fusion of flesh and blood appearance similar to exposed skin, and a segmented exoskeleton system like that of arthropods. Therefore, I referred to a large number of original artwork sets from “Dead Space” to redesign and paint the appearance of the experimental subject 1942.

After determining the art style, I began to redesign the materials of the character in Substance Painter. Experimental Body 1942 has distinct arthropod features, so I designed a texture similar to snake scales on its skin surface to highlight the cold and hard bone texture of its skeleton.
One of the most prominent features of Experimental Body 1942 is the huge gaping mouth running through its body. Therefore, it is also one of the key areas for material emphasis. I referred to the similar decayed flesh depiction of monsters in Dead Space and used dark red, highly raised materials to depict the soft tissue of the monster’s mouth, achieving a satisfactory result.

I drew inspiration from many natural animals, such as the antlers of moose, the scales of lizards and snakes, and the joints of arthropods, aiming to create a monster image that is as realistic as possible, as a product of the genetic fusion project. The picture below shows the overall effect:

Like a zombie deer 🙂

During my undergraduate years, I began to conceive of creating a monster universe, a world composed of various deadly predators. The 1942 project was the first character I created. It had distinctive antlers and a pair of huge, sickle-shaped forelimbs designed for cutting and harvesting the lives of prey. When the idea of creating this universe was born, I had already envisioned being able to make an individual animation for each of them in the future. Therefore, I decided to start with the 1942 one and create an independent animation for it, as my final major project and also as the beginning of my personally designed monster universe.

This project was not only to complete the setting of the story background that I had initially established, but also to be the first step for me as a creator to continue creating independent animations in my monster universe in the future.

Background

The setting of this story is in the near future. The experimental entity 1942 is a biological weapon that Morph Spectrum Company is about to deploy on the battlefield. It breaks free from the cage, kills the researchers and security personnel, and eventually is eliminated by the robot “Nullifier” sent by the headquarters.

Nullifiers are the mass-produced armed robots of Morph Spectrum. They are specifically designed to suppress any potential riots caused by biological weapons. Equipped with a variety of lethal weapons developed by the company, Nullifiers can handle various complex situations and eliminate any target.

In order to better integrate the characters into the background, I redesigned the material of the 1942 experimental subject. I will elaborate on my inspiration in the next chapter.