Moved from Group 10 – Moth Cult to Group 6 – Magical Academia w/ Amy, Mark, Michael and Jasmin
Infected Mushroom people caused by coming into contact with polluted soil vs Humans learning magic to defeat them
Infected Mushroom People sketches:
Really rough starting point, I haven’t drawn characters in a little while, started remembering as I kept going. I think this design is less suited for animation and more for games. Might be too much to animate in 2D here. Used pointy/triangle shapes to convey this character is evil/scary and to be avoided.
Inspired by Mark’s creepy mushroom people design – I took it a bit further in a horror direction – e.g. the “Clickers” in The Last of Us and other design themes seen in zombies.
Red/Green/Yellow – analogous and complementary colour scheme. Greens and yellows are often found in nature and these are nature/fungus infected humans so it made sense to use these colours. Used desaturated/dull variations of the colours, particularly the green and yellow tones, to create a sickly/creepy look. In the head sketch on the right the large amounts of blood/dark red fungus and cracks creates a uncomfortable/scary feeling.
Pushing the first sketch – deformed body shapes/anatomy – still evidence of human features/anatomy but has become twisted creating uncomfortable/unsettling feeling.
I wanted to explore different mushroom zombie types like the ones you would see in games such as The Last of Us, Left 4 Dead, The Walking Dead games, etc. A stocky tank-like mushroom zombie using large square shapes, small head, large body. Acts as either offensive or defensive. In terms of silhouette, I think the first design has a clearer more distinctive one.
Character expression & colour variations using gradient maps + HSV adjustments. I had fun doing the colour studies since it didn’t have to be perfect or pretty-looking since the intent for these characters is to be gross and creepy, it left more opportunity to be loose which was nice.
Written Character Design Sheet:
I also decided to do another written character sheet for my earlier octopus character for my original group Spirit Sky Fish, since I think he has more variations and depth to his personality and covers more of the character design questions than that of the mushroom zombies.
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