Preproduction Package: Bella

Yesterday I received a pre-production package from one of my class mates that I am to model for the 3D course. The character I will be modelling is a 12 years old girl called Bella (Isabella) who is the main character of a detective aimed at children of 8 years and up.

Concept Art I was given for "Bella"

What I was instructed to keep in mind was that Bella is a quite calm girl, economic in her movement and she does not use any makeup. Since the hands were not visible in the concept art I was told that she is to wear mittens and I was given reference material to how they should look.

When it came to modelling I was instructed to keep the coat and the scarf as one object, the legs as one object and the head, hat and hair as one object.

I was given the freedom to adjust the height of the scarf on her neck, making her neck visible, to make it easier for Bella to move her head. I was also allowed to adjust the length of the scarf on the back if I deemed it necessary for a good result, keeping in mind both the artistic element and animations.

Bella is generally a very calm girl but gets very excited when discovering clues or braking a case. Her greatest interest in life is to read mystery novels and seeking out and solving mysteries. Together with her two closest friends she has a mystery club where they get together and solve mysteries. She is street smart and has an eye for details, it is easy for her to find clues and connect them.

Her main goal in life is to become a great detective and solve mysteries, to do so she must probably get over her fear of the dark. Although her parents knew about it she tries to hide it from everyone and they now think that she is not scared anymore.

She is more interested in comfort than style and has little to no interest in fashion and makeup. Her style is instead inspired by comfort and British, fictional detectives which is something that influences on most of her life.

Bella comes from an agnostic family that might need to think of their economy although not being very poor. She lives with her neurotic mother, calm and loving father and her two years old twin brothers.

The game takes place in the Scandinavian suburb/moderately large city in which Bella lives.  The game world has a cold, dark and slightly melancholic climate, reflecting late autumn and early winter of Scandinavia.  Being early winter it is often cloudy and it occasionally snows, the snow does not stay though, it just makes everything wet. The cold, wet and melancholic aspects of the game world is contrasted by the excitement Bella and her friends feel when going out to solve mysteries.

The platform of the game is PC and the three major competitors are “LasseMajas Detektivbyrå”, “Case Closed: The Mirapolis Investigation” and “Freddi Fish in Kelp Seed Mystery”.

I get the feeling of a low tempo game that uses a desaturated and cold colour scheme in order to achieve the calm feeling that the designer is aiming for. The style and colour scheme of the main character and the description I received of the game world supports this. I feel that the choice of an early winter Scandinavian suburb or city is a very good choice of setting that will enforce the aesthetic goals of the game.

Even though the visual style is set for Bella I feel that I have been given some artistic freedom to interpret it in order to optimize the concept art so that it will work well as a 3D model and be easy to animate. I can make changes, for instance the length of the scarf that can have a major economic impact on the game development, by cutting back on the amount of work hours needed to complete the model and make the animations look good.

I feel that the character description sheet that I was given along with the instructions I received when discussing with my client student gives me a good picture of who Bella is and how she should act and look. I have a clear feeling of what I think my client student is going for. I might need to redraw some of the concept art though, figuring out how the jawline and mittens should look as those parts are not visible. Then I will also need to consult my client student to get her approval.

Something that might cause problems for me is that I have never modelled a character before and I need to learn how to go about it. I believe that if I just learn where to start and where to go from there, most of my modelling will go rather smoothly. I do expect quite a lot of small problems to occur though, just due to my inexperience with modelling and the programs that we use. I will need to expand my knowledge in 3Ds Max and possibly in MudBox and/or 3D Coat as well. I need to explore them and find a way that fits my style of working.

I think that any problems that I might encounter with the model itself, not related to the programs used, can be solved by using what I have learnt from life drawing and think of everything in terms of boxes and cylinders.