This past week I have been busy (per the usual) but have found a little bit of time to devote to making some rough sketches for Cells. So far I’ve been exploring the main character and non-playable characters. My goal when I sketch out characters for any project is to find the feeling and essence of the world through the characters. This can be front-facing sketches to see facial details, showing age or wear, or perhaps a full body sketch to explore clothing.
My biggest breakthrough has been for the officer’s uniform. Sometimes you sketch several different iterations and find the best one, while other times you strike gold drawing up exactly what you want you were looking for. When I started thinking about and writing some dialogue for the officers in Cells I wanted them to come off as somewhat robotic, with minimal detail and have a harshness about them. I came up with a rounded helmet that covers their head from the nose up, while below that is covered by loose fabric. Their clothes consist of a leather trench coat and baggy pants that tuck into a military boot.
The front of the helmet holds small sensors for viewing a sensor on the side for hearing. The fabric at the base of the helmet was intended to add a thin veil to their remaining humanity and I didn’t want to follow trends of futuristic-looking robot dudes. Their trench coat is weighty and thick, hiding body language, thus giving the officer an appearance of being shrill and harsh. The pants and boots seemed to be an obvious choice to me, given that their head and torso seemed so military-esque.
I’m not posting any new images as of yet, but if you’d like to check out these sketches to see what I’m referencing, you can check them out on my Instagram – @troxman. It’s a short post this week (more time for learning and creating) Thanks for supporting this (whoever you are), until next week.
JT
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