Gorilla Centaur #2

I very much welcome change. My story has begun to evolve. I was thinking that the secret scientists abduct humans, but do so to strip the victims of anything useful and dump the body. They use the stripped bio samples in the creation of their own crossbred human animal hybrids. Also thinking furthur into story, I was thinking that the whole crossbreading project is funded by a group of mega rich and secretive executive type people that call themselves the Pantheon. Creating new life and watching it unfold, but for what reason? I have yet to find out!

I have continued delving deeper into research on how I am going to create this gorilla centaur. Specifically looking for design ideas for the head and upper body. I know now that this creature was born in a lab from a cesspool of genetic doohickeys. So for the design, I am going for something more organic and natural. The centaur's upper half will still be humanoid, but with a mesh of gorilla and human. The face posed a challenge, so I began making some rough thumbnails. Here are a few of the drawings from my studies:

I found myself researching ideas from The Hulk, some Klingons, and alittle bit of Neanderthals. both of the drawings above was an Idea that I found myself happy with. The human DNA of this character is taking over most of the upper half, because centaurs, but alittle blend of ape in there to show a mesh of the genes. I also started thinking about hair, and I began thinking that these centaurs work together and function as a tribe, so naturally I wanted to go more tribal with the hair designs and with any piercings I want to add in the next revision. I also want to convey an agressive, warrior personality, so I thought it might be nice to sort of "bolt" down the ponytail into the scalp. I do plan on adding various piercings and perhaps a tattoo to him as well. I want to maximize the potential for story telling elements in this piece.

I then took this sketch of the head and started roughing out the overall character to see how this design would carry across to the full figure, and I am really starting to see this character come together at this point:

I have yet to figure out what his right hand is doing, but right now I wanted to bring together everything I have learned thus far on the structure of a gorilla and how the human side works with it. I bulked up his muscles, to make him intimidating and strong. This whole character will be one solid piece of muscle, sculpting is going to be a blast! At this point, I will be evaluating my characters placement and proportion. I want to study the size differences between someone with Dwayne Johnson's build and a large silver back gorilla, Just to be extra sure that I get the most accurate as I can with this. It's all in the details!

Here are some silhouettes of weapons I was thinking about. On the left I was thinking that the people who created these creatures perhaps gave them access to various scrap and primitive technology to observe how they adapt them to their own environments. So the first weapon looks like scrap pieced together, and sort of kept that theme going. I did however play around with the idea of more organic looking weapons, maybe made of wood, that have the scrap adapted onto it, showing this sort of harmony between technology and nature.

From here, My plan is to keep refining the drawing and get the foundations working together before doing a final sketch of the character with all of his armor, weapons, accessories, ect. I have also decided that I want to use the fibers in Zbrush to create all of the hair, Lets hope my computer is up to the task! Maybe if I bribe it... The hair system will help me achieve a great final render that can work great for concept, but if I wanted this character to be used in game, I would have to use hair cards. I have found that I can use Zbrush to create the hair and create polygonal hair strips in maya, I will have to experiment with this to make sure it is as optimized as possible.

Things are still rough at the moment, but that's where the beauty and the magic flourish. I am having a blast so far figuring out who this character is and putting this puzzle together.

In my next post, I should have my character sheet(s) up to show. I have 18 days to stay on or ahead of schedule, But I am determined. I will also think more on story specifically revolving around this character and how he fits into this world. This will only help with my direction.

Until next time!

- Ean