Synth Overlord Character Concepts

This week I've done quite a lot of work on the concept for our 3rd character, the Synth overlord who appears on the computer monitor. 

Initially this was supposed to be Rhys' job but due to complications with the turnaround we had to adjust the schedule, putting Jacob on the animatic & Rhys on the turnaround. I picked up this extra task as I'd already completed everything I'd been allocated to do for the week and also not to overburden the others. To begin with me Gabe & Rhys all drew up thumbnail sketches and as a group we decided, once again, we all liked Rhys' design the most.

With feedback from Rhys & Gabe I polished Rhys' design and added my own touch to it (decoration on the ears, as I wanted the design to appear as if it were royalty). I then used the same colour scheme as the one that was used on the other character. We wanted the design to look like it was the same race as the other character but noticeably different and with authority over the other Synth.

During our team meeting Dane & Keat provided us with lots of feedback in regards to this character design, when I presented the design to them it was still far from finished but they brought up a lot of points I'd never even considered. The main issue they had with the design was the plain shape of the face and the fact that it wasn't recognisable as a face. They also suggested making the eye function as a camera and possibly removing a few of them as well as having the character attached to something through use of cables extending from it's head.

Gabe drew up a sketch of how he envisioned these changes, and using his design I was able to fix the concept. To do so I gave the design a cheekbone esque feature & resized the head. After removing some of the extra eyes the design was definitely lacking something so I added in the much needed piping which Gabe had also drawn in, however I went for a much simpler design as not to make the design to be too busy and to keep the main focus on the eye.

After all of this was done I began to experiment with the idea of the camera lens for the eye. Hamish suggested I do something similar to HAL 9000 after seeing my failed attempt at overlaying a camera lens vector. I really liked this idea so began to adjust the glow of the eye to match that suggestion once I was satisfied with the outcome I added a gradient outline to make the outside of the lens and the design was finished!

Final Design