Digital Choi: Evolution of a fantasy character.

By Carl Keifer

This project started for me about a year ago, I was struggling to find work and looking to get together a great looking piece for my portfolio. I made a bet with a friend of mine that I could accurately sculpt his face in the computer. The prize was a sandwich of my choosing, which, at the time, was more than enough. Needless to say I won the sandwich and,with the taste of thinly sliced deli style victory on my lips and the start of a great digital resource, I decided I would build a project around the model.  Not wanting to get into an epic story, but still wanting to work with an epic setting, I decided to design something akin to a movie trailer or game cinematic that would look and feel like it belonged to a larger project. The real life reference of my digital model works as a fight coordinator for many of the projects that come through the Pittsburgh area. Being that he is also getting on in years but still looks like he is young I decided to wrap his physical abilities and characteristics into the look of the character. So I wanted the piece to be an action sequence, but also about magic. Analogue(real life) Mark Choi also has a large dog that he is usually running around with so I figured our hero could have a beast that he rides on that resembles this dog. Currently I am working to make a sequence where Digital Choi and his dog fight a monster, break an aqueduct, and save a princess. It was around this time I also saw a similar piece from the Vancouver School for Digital Effects called "A Summoner" by Aasa Ooraikul, which pretty much set the bar for what I was expecting in quality.

Evolution of the Location

Knowing where the character is from seemed to be the most logical step to creating a believable fantasy piece and didn't happen overnight but was the result of studying the area I was in, a whole mess of private and not so private jokes, and trying to just have fun. Digital Choi belongs to a race of elf-like creatures that reside in a castle city nestled deep in the uncanny valley and, as the result of a magic spell have aged very quickly over a short period of time. Causing decay to much of their city and its outlying territory. Many of their societies core people  (elders, and royalty etc..) have been frozen into crystals attached to the roots in the center of their city. The idea for the city came from the Pittsburgh city skyline as I drove through the surrounding valleys. The main building for the university of Pittsburgh is a 37 story skyscraper designed to look like it was built in the gothic style. and seeing this in the same line as the downtown area I thought it would be cool to use the layout of a city like Pittsburgh but replace the surrounding buildings with a fantasy style castle downtown.  borrowing from styles to produce an space that has some foundation in things that exist.

Evolution of the character

The hero himself has a look that is based off modern clothing styles.  Much like armor was designed to mimic the fashion of the day, I tried to incorporate the feeling of mens fashion into the garment of the character.  Not wanting it to look like something that nobody would be caught dead wearing outside an anime convention I wanted the clothes and armor to look like they came from a world of their own but not one so strange that the viewer of the movie, or player of the game wouldn't feel comfortable putting himself into the outfit of the hero. I also really wanted the armor to feel like it could be a working object, often times I see fantasy art with armor that looks like it couldn't bend in the right direction or would prevent you from actually fighting in it. So the design had to be based in reality. Digital Choi's outfit is comprised of three major components.

The Amor

The first being the armor, it is designed after the Roman Lorica Segmentata, wherein a series of metal plates band around the body to act as a protective spring. Aside from the original Roman design I want to also draw from armors of the Italian Renaissance and armor of the Missaglias make as reference for what I hope will be the armors etched or sculpted surface. However I intend to make the patterning a little larger so the design can be seen on small screen like the iphone but large enough to look good on a large screen television. It was also very important for me that the armor in the finished film was not only designed but modeled so it could be rigged in a working fashion, so that under close inspection of the viewer the armor would appear as a real suit of armor. The legs were designed after a popular late German tournament style and were more meant for fighting on horseback than ground combat, where the arms are styled more for fashion and made to be connected to the greater suit by a series of leather straps, they have no elbow cops and do not cover the upper arm.

The Coat

Since the hero is intended to be part royalty or knight and part road-weary traveler, so the coat under his fancy suit of armor has been slowly built up of bandages, leather belts, and assorted metal plates that supplement the armors defensive capabilities. I have to admit this particular part of the character is probably the most intimidating surfaces I could have designed. but it was the first thing I could clearly see when I started designing the outfit I'm hoping to tell the story of my character in the contrast of these two materials. when I was gathering reference for this project I happened upon some old scraps from when I cut the fringe off of a leather vest over a decade ago, fortuitous circumstance doesn't begin to describe this awesome find. but freshly armed with a bundle of scraps and a glue gun I made some pretty cool samples for what I expect out of the coat. The little shield was made by sculpting some tin with clay tools, first from the back using an illustration, then from the front and repeating until the desired effect was achieved. I then took some acrylic paint to the form.

The Pants

While the pants are mostly covered by the armor I have given some consideration to how I wanted them to appear. originally I was attempting to pattern the look and feel of this garment off of moder mens fashion jeans, then once I got them close to the feel I would try to change the material that they were made of while trying to keep the patterning to things like dirt and wear, looking at the fashion jeans of today there exists a veritable cornucopia of patterns and styles, way beyond what was available even a few years ago. carefully worn these high priced leisure commodities look as though they have spent more than a few nights sacked out under a tree but are somehow still classy enough for a night on the town. When I showed the model to prof Kinney he said that the pants looked like dragon hide, so it was this look that I was trying to go for dragonhide casual. fortunately I found this box of absolutely hideous purses from the eighties at my local thrift store for like a dollar a piece. so I set about cutting the faux leather bits from the hide of the purse and when the carcass of at least half a dozen ravaged hulls lay on my kitchen floor I felt a little like a hunter who had slain a great and slightly unsightly beast erasing it from someones fashion mistake future.

The Companions

while Choi's companions have not been designed entirely I have tried to plan ahead so that as the story and characters develop I don't want anything in the character to limit where I want to go with my future designs but more to support them, allowing the story to develop around the hero character.  Our hero will be joined on his adventures by his faithful beast, as was originally intended the beast will be an amalgamated version of Choi's real life dog that has the physique of a T-rex that Choi can ride into battle. Real life Choi and his dog are great at climbing about and I wanted the dog and his armor to support this behavior, with rider or not. Choi's armored legs and the bottom of his breastplate were designed around this need. The beast will be a mostly furry creature whose saddle is adorned with lots of trinkets.  Choi is also intended to save a female companion, She will be a magic user and as such her outfit will be mostly geared toward maneuverability and poorly suited for direct combat. Originally I pictured her wearing a large magicians Jacket covered in symbols, wanting to avoid putting some cheesecake centerfold bikini wearing axe wielder on my website. I have started to cave on the design in the interest in making her appealing I think she will still have the jacket but it will be open in the front, from a design perspective I want the patterning on the coat and the armor to look like they could interlock. so I need to watch the development of the armor pattern to make sure it is something I will be able to carry into the other characters and possibly the set designs. The females undergarment will look like tasteful girls beachwear. The third member of the cast is a monster of some sort, however, little design work was done on the monster as I was accepted into SCAD in the middle of this project and had shelved it until recently.

Next we will look at the construction of the digital Choi model