#bts tox

[thoughtsroamguy]

Ori swordsman, I wanted to try out this hair coloring

[the-quasar-hero]

do you make all of your models from scratch, or do you use pre-made models? also, regardless of that, how long is your character/model creation process? just curious since all your stuff is super cool :)

Thanks for the ask!

Most of my characters are made from pre-made figures in DAZ studio, but I obviously change them to suit my sensibilities and aesthetic. Let's start with Katrina, the protagonist of Tears of Xivo!

This is the figure I started off with to make her, Dana. I liked the structure of her face so that's why I chose her, but you can see that's the only way she remains after being changed into Katrina. Different skin, height, proportions, etc

I do like to extensively a figure to make them mine when it comes to major characters. The closest I've come to making a character "from scratch" is taking a blank model like this

and basically creating a person from then on by choosing skins, shapes of their body parts, and well everything else. But I don't like make the bodies themselves from scratch cuz they'd be ugly if I did.

As for my creation process, it depends on the how important the character is to the story. When starting a new minor character I always say "this is just a quick character, don't spend too long on them." and then I'll spend too long on them 😅. A pretty basic rule of character design is one look should be enough to let the audience to know important details of your character. I follow that, I feel, pretty well. I think about their personalities, their purpose in the game, and how that comes across in how I design 'em. For random enemy npc's it's usually pretty quick to get their core designs, like 15 to 20 mins but then I start to obsess over details and color cohesion. So for me to be satisfied with a minor character, I take about an hour or two because I know it won't matter that much and I have to move on. But it's much different for bigger characters. Katrina went through a lot of iterations of designs before I settled.

This was her very first conception, we still see her sword she uses but a completely different look and feel we know her as currently.

Then I overhauled the entire aesthetic of the game to "Fantasy meets Contemporary fashion." And we got closer to how we know her. Darker skin, freckles, tooth gap. Too many belts 😅 I like belts it seems.

From there we got to her main silhouette. After this there were more tweaks and got her now

This process took me a couple weeks. Because she's MC I wanted her perfect for what I imagined her to be in my game. I love how she is now, and through this I learned how to design faster and not doubt myself so much. So for a major character, I say a few days or a week or two for me to be happy about them.

Thanks again for the ask, it was fun digging up Katrina's concept art. Just don't ask for Eve's... it's rough😅

[thoughtsroamguy]

In the vein of adding more disabled characters to Tears of Xivo, I have this kintsugi pattern for prosthetics limbs.

[thoughtsroamguy]

Y'all remember Las, right? Well you get to vote on her again, this time her makeup. Which is better for her?

Which makeup look do we like more?

Look 1 the pink blush

Look 2 the pink leaves

Voting ended onMay 8

[thoughtsroamguy]

Did you know you can do whatever you with a character? Like give a gargoyle rainbow colored bantu knots? You can, it's true I swear!

First person to suggest a name wins a cookie

Edit: since I’m a man of my word, meet Cookie!

[thoughtsroamguy]

And what if I gave Katrina a longer hairstyle, what then?

[thoughtsroamguy]

This is Las, a quest giving NPC for Tears of Xivo, I haven't dressed her up yet, but I wanted to start with her hair then build an outfit around it. These are partial renders. Which coloring do we like most?

Which coloring is better?

The first one

The second one

Voting ended onApr 12

[thoughtsroamguy]

You like her big nose, cornrows, and pointy teeth. This isn't up for debate