3d Character Design – Conceptualizing the character

Info and Backstory:

When picking the character I wanted to pick something simple as I have had a lot of medical and mental health issues currently and didn’t want to over stress myself so I wanted it to be a smaller project but I still wanted it to be very me and explempary of my style; More cartoony & lots of texture. I also was hoping for this to be portfolio worthy and help with future employment (one can dream).
My mind went to a small passion project I am creating with my boyfriend, formulated from a strange conversation and the fact he kept calling me a magpie because ‘I give him many shiny trinkets’. We’re calling it ‘Grandma’s pie’.

The project is a cozy game combined with a mystery horror, set in a world of anthropomorphic animals:

The player is a teenaged Magpie Girl, called Pia Pica, who recently graduated school but doesn’t have many prospects so is working for her Grandma’s bakery in a coastal town, as she has nowhere else to go.

Life is normal until the beginning of autumn then Pia’s jaded grandma tells them about a family curse. They are responsible for feeding a dark monster, The Devourer, who will rise from the ocean every 50 years, if the Devourer is displeased by his meal he will kill everyone in the town. Unfortunately, the ingredient list proven to please The Devourer is very unpleasant and murderous, as it escalates from collecting rare weeds to gouging out the eye of the local newt doctor and murdering the children of the neighboring toad family.

Pia is a kind and quiet Magpie girl who gathers ingredients for the family bakery and does deliveries, as she loves the outdoors, exploring and finding objects.

She is kind but quite naive. She’s naturally very peaceful and feels most happy alone in nature, but still treats people well and has empathy for them.

The start of the game she will value her family and dispute the rumours of witchcraft against her grandma, although not too much as she dislikes conflict – mechanically a lot of social interaction will start draining social energy.
After when things get more horrific the player can pick if Pia values her own well-being, her family or her new potential friends in the town.

I want Pia’s design to fit the cozy foresty, cottage-core vibe but also be practical and good for running away from optional murder scenes.

I have a pinterest board for the game’s aesthetic and style: https://www.pinterest.co.uk/JinxyF/grandmas-pie/

And a section specific to Pia: https://www.pinterest.co.uk/JinxyF/grandmas-pie/pia-pica/

Pia is the first character I was designing so I also have to sort out some stylistic choices, like how animal to human like to make them, shape language and how cutesy to make them.

First I made a rough graph of how animalistic-human I would make the character.

After sending this to my boyfriend – the games co creator, and several peers they said to go more humanoid.

With that I started sketching some shapes. I wanted Pia to be more round, as that comes off as unassuming, friendly and young, which are representative of Pia.
I made 8 ‘Bird blobs’ experimenting with different ratios:

I got a mix of critiques from plenty of different sources and tried a few out; By alterating some designs or combining parts of different designs. As a common critique I got was they didn’t all look like magpies or were anatomically strange/off-putting.

1. Body of 2, wings and head of 8.
2. Thickened 5’s legs.
3. 8’s body, 1’s head and wings.
4. refined 4, less hunch.
5. Shrunk head of 6, tappered wings, added shape to legs.
6. Shorterned 7 to make less penguin-esque.

The clear favourite was 1.
So I did various adjustments to see if it could be improved. As I thought it was cute, but maybe wasn’t the most magpie shapes – the beak looked robin or tit like.

From there I decided, based on peer guidance, to combine the body of 3, the head of 2, and add the Tail from 7. After making the alterations I thought that it looked great and had a good balance between humanoid and birdlike features, while also being cutesy and the proportions would work well on other animals.
The next step was to start adding clothes.

I wanted to keep the silhouettes and styles very cozy, foresty, and cottage-core. Whilst also leaving room for practicality as Pia is a bit of an adventurer.
After discussion with peers and the the game’s co-director, it was decided 7 & 8 were favourites, but she also looked good in head gear so I experimented with that too.

I created variations on these designs. I and many others really liked the pork pie hat designs, and quite a few liked the headscarf.

I personally bit the bullet and picked the porkpie hat with dungarees (7) specifically as it comes across as a good mix of the more polite kid and “wilderness must be explored” vibe.

From there I knew I must answer a big question:

No booties or booties.

At this point in the process I took a look at trouser length.
At the start, not pictured, I tried to give her Hiking boots but my boyfriend suggested welly boots/galoshes as they are simple and cute and easier to animate, which is a very fair point.

Peers specified not liking the boots but were much happier after I rounded the boots.

The next step was colour!
So I used adjustment curves and lightened the background, it was a bit blotchy so I re-blended some of it and got:

as a base.

From there I added colours, I wanted to include a mix of warm colours but have a brighter blue or purple to show her connection to magic but still be a part of this cozy aesthetic town.

I made slight alterations to the favourite design for the final render:

I added further detail and texturing over the block colouring to produce the following final render.

as per my current artistic process to add detail I used hatching or sketchier lines to add detail and a sense of form.
I kept the colours of the shading warm and slightly purpley to keep with cozy and a bit magical.

Now it’s time for the 3d Model.