Níla Pre-Production

Initial Goal of the Project

Project Wyvern is going to be a fantasy character and world-building study. My focus this year will be on creating high-quality portfolio pieces including two main characters – an elvish warrior from the forest and her spiritually linked companion, a forest wyvern.

My goal is to create both the characters to a AAA game-ready standard alongside developing the world they are from, which I aim to make and render in Unreal Engine.

 

The final design and backstory of the world

Nila (left) and Estrel (right)

Níla, my main character is part of the tribe of elves known as the Forest Watchers or the ‘Children of Oakarí’. Níla’s companion, Estrel is a rare and powerful creature known as a Málosfëa or a ‘Forest Spirit’. The elves are blessed with their Málosfëa as small infants by Oakarí – this is done through a baptismal process where the infant is submerged in the spiritual waters of Oakarí’s shrine, they then arise with a spiritual companion in the form of a bud.

Oakarí is an ancient nature spirit, she is the lifeblood and soul of the forest. In her previous form she walked the lands caring for and maintaining the balance within the forest. However, a powerful evil arose, the Ulunnthaw, ‘Hideous Rotten Spirits’ that set out to corrupt and consume the forest – causing a catastrophic war to occur ending up with Oakarí sacrificing herself to contain them. In doing so, her being was shattered into an essence. This is when the Forest Watchers were born to watch over Oakarí and ensure the delicate balance of the forest was kept.

Centuries after the war, the world has seen a great time of peace and the forest has begun to flourish again. The tribe has developed a thriving culture and village around the sacred shrine of Oakashí – shaping and protecting the forest alongside their Málosfëa. The ‘Tavar’ (Wood Protectors) is a small group of elite fighters and Níla is training to become one.

Although Níla and Estrel are the youngest in the class, they show much promise. Estrel is the only Málosfëa to have grown into the form of a Wyvern and is shaping up to be very powerful – causing much admiration to be directed towards the duo. However, alongside admiration, there is always jealousy – most of all in Lirak, the reigning “top of the class”.

The day came of the final assessment, a rare occasion where one member of the class would join the coveted ranks of the Tavar. Nolmë, the wise Elder of the tribe arrived to judge the combatants. The trials are tough and the less adequate students quickly fall out of the competition. Lirak in his experience is ahead coming up to the final trial. In his self-assured prowess, he steps up to the final stage and instead invokes a trial by combat – a battle in which the loser is forced to resign from the class. Níla urges him to retract the challenge but it was too late, the Elder had already accepted the challenge. It was at this point that Níla was truly recognised for her ability – as she dethrones Lirak and takes the highly sought after position in the Tavar.

Lirak stunned at this great loss swiftly leaves the courts, he lost everything. His jealousy quickly turned to hatred and in his anger, he seeks a way to get back at Narí. Ashamed he leaves the village and plans to consort with ‘The Scorched’ – a banished group of elves who seek to release the Ulunnthaw. Several months pass and he returns with an army, in the commotion he manages to break into Oakarí’s shrine and steal part of her essence. This action instantly upsetting the balance of the forest and opening a small gateway to the Ulunnthaw. In the tribes efforts to close the gateway, Lirak escapes.

After sealing the gateway, Nolmë requests Narí to follow him into the sacred chambers. He unveils the original scroll containing the ‘Legend of the Spirit Guardian’ to her. He unravels it to the end revealing the symbol of a female rider with a Málosfëa in the form of a Wyvern. He informs her that she is the ‘Spirit Guardian’ and the task to retrieve the lost segment and restore the balance falls upon her before the forest falls to corruption.

The Design Process

Below is my process of creating and finishing the pre-production process.

Initial Backstory

Set in a distant planet, lives a native tribe of Forest Elves who are ‘children’ of the spirit of Nature, Níla – the lifeblood of the Forest.

The Nature Spirit blesses the tribe with spiritual companions of natural elements which adapt and grow with their spirit partners. Every Elf has a destiny and role to fulfil and their spiritual link with their companion will influence how both of them mature and develop.

Once the infant Elves are of age (shortly after birth) they will be brought before the Nature Spirit. They are baptised in her waters which will flow into the ground to produce a bud, this bud is now one with the child and will sprout into the spiritual companion of the child. As the child grows up figuring out who they are, their companion will grow to accommodate their role, emotion and emulate their partner.

My main character is the foretold Guardian of the Forest. Her spiritual companion is adolescent Forest Wyvern and the foretold sign of the Guardian of the Forest.

An ancient foretold evil has risen and the essence of Nature has been stolen and it’s causing the forest to wither and fade. The main character’s job as Guardian of the Forest was foretold and now it’s up to her to save the forest.

 

The Early Concepts

This entire idea was developed and stemmed from an early concept I created over the summer. At this time I was actually working on a group project which was completely different to this. However, in the end, I decided to do a personal portfolio based project – You can check out a bit of about that project in my other blog post (linked here).

 

[LINK TO OTHER BLOG POST]

 

My initial concept of an Elven Warrior and Wyvern (figure 1)

I really enjoyed doing this concept, but I never got around to finishing it… Therefore, I felt that I would pursue and develop this idea further as a major project. I developed a rough initial idea of the village environment where my characters would be from and then developed the story behind it.

My rough initial concept of the Elven Village (figure 2)

My rough initial concept of the Elven Village (with some colour)

 

 

Early references in Film

Images from Avatar (2009)

Avatar has been a huge inspiration of mine ever since I watched it for the first time back in 2009. I have always adored vast fantasy environments and unique creatures both of which Avatar have an abundance of.

The backstory of my characters was influenced by the story of Avatar, I was considering making the enemy a race humans or an industrial race cutting down the trees – that’s the reason for the deforestation vibe in my original concept (figure 1).

The fantasy sci-fi environments in Avatar are amazing and accompanied with the character/creature designs (especially the designs of the Na’vi), I’m sure Avatar will be able to provide me with much insight with my project.

Main characters from Avatar (2009)

 

 

Images sourced from Princess Mononoke (2001)

Princess Mononoke is my favourite Hayao Miyazaki film alongside it being one of my most adored films from my childhood. Although it isn’t the style I’m going for I have already been influenced heavily by Princess Mononoke as the designs are so strong. It follows very similar themes as to what I’m aiming for with my project –

• Strong female hero (San (Princess Mononoke)) raised in the forest which she protects at all costs.
• Large beast companion (Moro) who fights alongside her and can be ridden.
• Mask and armour design are designed to be light and non-restrictive.
• Everything is connected in the forest and forest spirits are key to keeping balance.
• When the balance is upset corruption starts taking over the forest

Forest Spirit from Princess Mononoke (2001)

 

 

Images sourced from Avatar: The Last Airbender (2005)

The Heroes call to action is one of the main reasons I looked at Avatar: The Last Airbender. Originally, I was going to talk about this in regards to the live-action film, which initially I thought was actually pretty great (contrary to the common opinion). However, thanks to Netflix having released the series on their streaming service I was able to watch it for the first time recently. It really is an amazing series both visually and narratively with a vast array of creatures, environments and characters to use as inspiration. There are various aspects of Appa, Aang and other characters that I intend on potentially incorporating into my designs.

 

 

Images sourced from The Golden Compass (2007)

The primary reason for mentioning The Golden Compass is the spiritual link between the people and their companions (daemons). One feature I really liked within The Golden Compass was the ability to morph between formed in the younger character daemons. I previously mentioned that I was going to have the Elven race be spiritually connected to their forest elemental companions, creatures that they grow up with from a very early age.

 

 

Elven Tribal Roles and Elementals

My intention for the elemental companions isn’t for them to have the ability to instantaneously transform like the daemons. However, I plan on them adapting and evolving with the Elves over longer periods of time as the Elf grows into their own destiny.

I had come up with some rough roles for the Elven race and ideas about how their spiritual forest elementals would potentially adapt to fit these roles (obviously these are all tree elementals as well) –

• For a farming elf, I would intend for the elemental to be more of a butch creature like an Ox. I would combine this with other creatures like a deer which could use its antlers to sow seeds and dig up the ground.
• A tracker or scout would have an agile tracker with a keen eye and sense of smell, perhaps something like a hound or wolf spirit combined with a hawk for surveillance and smelling capabilities.
• In regard to a Historian, Sage or Scrollkeeper the creature would have to be wise, able to retrieve scrolls and would probably be a small to medium size. I could imagine this companion having a bit of an irritating temperament. Monkeys, parrots and elephants would all be interesting to explore with a creature like this.
• A tailor/crafter might have chimpanzee or ape creature that could be mixed with a giant sloth or a rat. All are quite resourceful/crafty animals and sloths have large claws and are quite slow, a rat also has fangs to chip away at things and a long tail.
• A soldier might have a large butch creature that would be able to protect and attack. This companion would have a tough carapace and large arms to block attacks. I would look at large animals like bears, gorillas and perhaps hippos for this.
• The Guardian (my main character) has a Wyvern as a companion as it is a symbol of strength, power and protection. I am unsure as to whether to make her unique in this regard or whether there will be other Guardian Elves.

 

 

Moodboards and References

I created various moodboards and gathered a lot of references across various sites, including Artstation, Pinterest, Instagram and Facebook. In regards to Facebook and Instagram, I primarily use for art-related purposes, my Instagram account is an art account and I follow various art pages on Facebook which I have been gathering images from for several months now.

The first one is purely in regard to the main elven character and I assembled a snippet of my overall Pinterest

Moodboard assembled on and sourced from Pinterest

The next one is just a board of general World of Warcraft elves. World of Warcraft (WoW) and Blizzard are going to influence my designs heavily, as it is both one of my favourite games of all time and the designs are stunning. These are a mixture of concept art, fan art and a lot of screenshots from one of Blizzard‘s short cinematics for WoW“The Burning of Teldrassil”. (I’ll discuss WoW further later on).

Moodboard assembled on and sourced from Pinterest and screenshots from World Of Warcraft

This Wyvern board is just filled with dragons, wyverns and forest elementals from a variety of games and concepts. My Pinterest board has much more concepts on it but it’s already hard enough to see some of these as it is.

Moodboard assembled on and sourced from Pinterest

 

The Inspirations

There are a few specific artists/games that I would like to mention here as they will be particularly inspiring for this project.

Images sourced from Artstation (link below)

Arstation – https://www.artstation.com/ludongjun

Dongjun Lu’s artwork is truly inspiring and is up there with my goals for this project. Although I do really like the typical elven look, I am coming around to making my character more treant-like or plant-based. The two images on the right and left side of the banner above are honestly just stunning and have an essence to them that I am aiming for with my character.

 

Images sourced from Artstation (link below)

Artstation – https://www.artstation.com/bugmeyer

I was looking at Mohrbacher’s work in regards to elementals, as the nature spirit is a large part of the backstory behind my characters and their civilisation. Mohrbacher’s characters and spirits are very impressive

 

Images sourced from Artstation (link below)

Artstation – https://www.artstation.com/telthona

Similar to Dongjun Lu, Duchiewicz artwork is simply stunning. This treant on the left of the banner above is particularly impressive and is something I will use as a major influence for the nature spirit design and potentially even my main Elven race.

 

Images sourced from Guild Wars 2 (2012)

Guilds Wars 2 is one of the primary games I am taking influence from, the concept art for the Sylvari race is incredible and they embody the essence and love for nature that I want my main character to portray. Again, the Sylvari are more plant-based humanoid characters, which is very interesting.

 

Images sourced from World of Warcraft: Battle for Azeroth (2018)

I previously mentioned World of Warcraft, it is my main influence and one of the bars I hope to hit in terms of quality. WoW is a key game of my childhood and teenage life, so I am very interested in every short that is released. The quality and style of their cinematic shorts are nothing short of incredible and each of them (particularly the ones I have linked below) will be incredibly influential within my project.

The Blood Elves (below) and the Night Elves (right side of the banner) give me a fantastic base of elfish references to work from. These characters are one of the reasons I am contemplating making my elven character fully humanoid rather than plant-based. Sylvanas Windrunner (left side) is so well designed, the proportions, armour design and style of the character are astounding. However, they do portray more of an ‘evil’ style. Therefore, the Night Elves which are stereotypically portrayed as ‘good’ will be a good style and colour pallet to mimic.

Blood Elf from World of Warcraft: Burning Crusade (2007)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Concepts

I started out by drawing an average proportioned base male and female to develop some armour designs on. I recently purchased some tutorials by Marc Brunet on concept art and I am trying to work through some of them.

My base male and female anatomy practice

Below are some of armour designs using the female base I drew above with a few alterations. I intend on doing another sheet or two of these sort of designs to figure out if the design can be improved further.

A variation of a few of my different armour designs and styles

As I mentioned earlier about the nature spirit, I decided to develop a concept of the shrine area where the Elvish race baptise their children. I am still working on this but am really liking the idea of this being beneath their village (in the cave between the two flags (figure 2).

My first version of the forest spirit shrine located underneath the Elven Village

I began working on a fed more Wyvern silhouettes to experiment with some different designs. I took a further look into some more real-life references, I began looking more at animals that had features I found desirable within my Wyvern design, such as –

• Bats and Fruit Bats
• Lizards
• Snakes
• Komodo Dragons
• Chameleons
• Deer
• Flying Squirrels

A few silhouettes and quick ideas

I took the two silhouettes in the bottom right and created a more developed concept of them, as I liked how they were looking and wanted to explore the design further. I haven’t got around to finishing the colour and rendering on the characters yet. In the process of doing this concept I decided to do a quick sculpt in 3D to do a paint-over with.

Main characters on the move and testing one of the Wyvern silhouettes

 

The Initial Base Meshes

I began with my female base mesh, this was a sculpt I initially started with spheres then moved on to dynamesh together. Working on hands and feet in low dynamesh levels can be prove difficult when trying to avoid webbing. Therefore, I created a base hand and foot in Maya first. Below is the development of the base mesh. My intention with starting this sculpt early was to do paint-overs, I think this will really benefit my ideation process in regard to concepting and rendering my concepts.

My base mesh development – Blockout of spheres to more developed mesh

Development of my female base mesh – Blockout of spheres to more developed mesh

Below is a turnround of my female base mesh as it is. There is still quite a lot of work needed to be done to it before it’s ready for sculpting but, I am rather pleased with it at this point and I feel it will be very useful for ideation and conceptualisation.

The fifth stage of my female base mesh

In regards to the Wyvern, I just blocked out the silhouettes that I had done in the concept earlier and added some detail to some areas like the chest, the back of the head and so on. As this design will most likely be altered rather substantially I didn’t spend that long on it – I just wanted a rough base to draw over.

Rough Wyvern Blockout for proportions (without wing intersections)

Rough Wyvern Blockout for proportions (with wing intersections)

As you can see in the image above and one of the ones below I used my female base mesh for scale, this was the fourth stage of the female base mesh from above.

Rough Wyvern Blockout 3/4 view without and with human base for scale

I took a screengrab of the sculpt using the Snipping Tool and began fleshing it out into a couple of different variations in Photoshop. Below is the first version, I was experimenting with neck frills (similar to those seen on frilled lizards). I thought this could be a good defence mechanism for the wyvern to have that also doesn’t make it look to evil or scary. The large eyes, although they do make it look rather friendly, they also make it look quite stylised. I was basing it roughly on the eye to head size proportions of a chameleon or small lizard.

My Wyvern design – Neck frills and large eyes

The next one (below) is very similar to the first except with smaller eyes and a couple of other minor tweaks and colour adjustments.

My Wyvern design – Neck frills and small eyes

With the third variation, I went back to the design with antlers and I changed up the face further to make it look a little more dragon-esc. I’m really liking this design at the moment, although I intend on pushing it further, possibly making it more plant-based and removing more of the fleshy areas.

Wyvern Design – Different head proportions and antlers

I began working on the elf designs developing some face paint, eye tests and testing a few different hairstyles.

Blood Elf style humanoid with a few varying hairstyles

I made a quick skin test to experiment with more of a forest green colour and created a face-covering mask design.

Testing more green skin and a mask

I pushed the skin tests further as I feel it will match the Wyvern better and give my elf character more of a child of nature vibe. Below are two skin types, a glisten (left) and more of a piney texture (right).

New skin style – Glisten (left) and Pines (right)

I tested these two skin types with some hairstyles below.

Skin Glisten skin texture with hair

Pine skin texture with hair

I felt a braid could work well with this design (right design below).

I tested a few more hairstyles with the design

In the next concept, I pushed the braid further and introduced some pinks and reds to make some contrasting colours. Below is an experimentation with plant-based hair, using vines and leaves, it makes a nicer transition and relates better to the theme of the forest.

Tight braid with vine/leaf hair

Full-body skin example with war paint/tattoos

By this stage, I created the backstory behind my characters that I mentioned at the beginning of this blog post.

After settling on the design of my characters I decided to move on to weapon designs, I began this process with creating a set of various different silhouettes for both bows and some daggers.

After doing this I asked a few classmates on their opinions, to see which ones they preferred. I progressed on to making a few quickly 3D block-outs in ZBrush.

I painted a few variations of bows and adjusted the shape and style. I developed and rendered out my favourites. I designed a few variations for arrows as well, I’m still not overly sure what I will use for blades/arrow tips on the piercing weapons. I am currently leaning towards amber blades and arrow tips as they contrast the character quite nicely. However, I am considering using large thorns instead or perhaps even using a Wyvern tooth as a blade on the dagger.

For the quivers, I am still undecided as to what to make them out of. I was considering to make it primarily bark and mix in vines/branches and leaves or to make it out the leafy leather material that the Wyvern sheds. I began looking at carnivorous plants like the Pitcher plant for some of my designs as well.

Below is a small moodboard of pitcher plants assembled from Google Images – as you can see they are almost naturally quiver shaped which is very interesting.

Small moodboard of Pitcher Plants assembled from Google Images

For a bit of further world development, I created an Elder/Scrollkeeper and his Málosfëa is known as a Scrollseeker – a wise monkey-like creature that has adapted to be able to talk and aid the Elder in shrine maintenance and scroll retrieval. The mouth of this creature also opens up in several sections like a multi-leaf venus flytrap.

Again, I found it much quicker to create the concepts with a ZBrush base. Therefore, I made a quick version with enough detail for me to work with and then fired them over to Photoshop. I spent more time on the Scrollseeker creature in ZBrush as I was exploring more with it and I knew more what I was going for of the bat with the Elder (so I didn’t need as detailed of a mesh). I will probably give the elder a robe if I go back to his design, I just wanted to establish how tall and skinny he was.