“Hybrid Conquistador”
For a school project following a study trip to Barcelona, we were tasked with creating something related to the city. After a visit to the Maritime Museum of Barcelona and seeing a 16th-century Morion helmet on display, I was inspired to create an ambiguous character loosely based on the controversial historical figure, La Malinche. It became a study of blending 16th-century Spanish armor and weapons with Aztec- and Incan-inspired ornamentation.
Process
I started with a pose reference and began sketching out the character on a mannequin. Once I had a rough idea of how I wanted the apparel and props to sit on the character, I began modeling the long gun (Arquebus), followed by the iconic Morion helmet. From there, I began draping capes and textile accessories over the character using cloth simulations. When I had found a satisfactory result from the cloth sims, I began intuitively ornamenting the character. I love the ornamentation process, especially finding patterns and accentuating parts of the model through it.
For the first time, I printed a character of mine, and it was a joy to see the halftone texture come into its own as printed media.
Software used: Blender, Photoshop, Mixamo (rigging) & MB Lab addon (human base mesh)
All 3D assets excluding human base mesh are made from scratch
Rough pose reference
Moebius, 40 Days in the Desert
First sketch over mannequin
Sketching finer details
Fixing sketch ideas that didn’t work in practice