While I was working on creating the scenery that I was creating for my short film I also decided to work on the required characters for my scenes. I did some quick research so that I knew what sort of design and style my characters should be created in. I thought about the context and environment that my characters would be walking around in, I considered what my characters would wear and need in this apocalyptic world I was making.
Image 1: Metro 2033 game poster - See *1 at the bottom.
Image 2: Post Apocalypse Female Survivor Stock photo - See *2 at the bottom.
Image 3: Dark Season 2 characters seen in the future.
I found some images from games and shows that had the sort of concepts that I was looking for so that I could use them as inspiration. I liked the use of a mask of some sort to imply that something has happened to the atmosphere in this new world I was making, it had also made my time animating a lot easier as I didn't need to worry about animating facial expressions.
I had several difference options of programs that I could use when it came to creating these characters but I knew that my time was limited so I decided to work with the Adobe program, Fuse. This is probably my favourite Adobe program because of how quickly I can make test characters for my digital scenery and games, if I was to make this character in a different modelling software like Blender then it would have taken me a few days to get to this result.
I went through each texture to add wear and tear as well as some dirt and grime to give it a strong worn look as if it had been used within this world I was creating. I added scratches to the lenses in the mask as well as additional damage to the clothing and shoes to make the design look more authentic. I planned on adding more details and items after exporting it out of Fuse, I had decided to add a backpack once the model was exported out of Fuse to give the impression that this character is a traveller or scavenger.
Final result of the first character within Fuse:
I began working on the next character within Fuse and wanted to make this character have a very different design from the first while still looking as if they could exist within the same apocalyptic world.
I worked on creating this character with different variations of colours and types of clothing. The design process was going well and I had created both of my required characters within a day of work with detailed textures and models. I added highlights to areas of clothing to give the impression of fading as if the clothing was old and was experiencing wear and tear.
Final result of character within Fuse:
It was at this point that I discovered a large problem when it came to the program I was currently using to create the characters. Adobe had decided to discontinue Fuse and remove functionality which I was unaware of, this meant that I would be unable to use these characters that I had designed within my project. This was very annoying as I had spent time to create these characters that would have fit the environment and context of my film perfectly.
I was still keen on having a character exploring or travelling through this new world so I went through my old files and found a compatible character model, however they didn't match their environment and it didn't feel right but I continued to pursue it for the time being.
This was the only character model that I had left that would have been compatible and had working textures and animations. I experimented with trying to make this character move around within my scenes and it worked however I was still very unhappy with how she looked as her design didn't match with her scenery and didn't seem authentic.
I continued to work on the project with this character being used for the time being.
(*1) https://store.steampowered.com/app/286690/Metro_2033_Redux/
(*2) https://www.canstockphoto.com/post-apocalypse-female-survivor-35395295.html
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