Cloud Boy
Idea(tion)
When creating Cloud Boy, it all started as a joke with my belated best friend where we created a giant ape god that would fly around on his cloud companion much like the Lucitoo Cloud from the Mario game series. This god's idea was that he loved to fish out any monkeys from zoos from way up high to save them, but would also be a jokester gods on the humans. The cloud boy was not originally thought to become anything more than just a means of transportation, but as my friend and I continued to joke around it came to me, "Why don't I add hyper realistic feet on this fluffy cloud to juxtapose the cute Lucitoo cloud art style." Not only did this become a defining characteristic but it was also what made people like it as it uniquely stood out.
Prototype Sketch
As my friend and I continued to make up this ridiculous story I started to quickly sketch to draw any new visual details, not only would this help us remember our story, but it gave a wonderful Imagery which we could expand in any direction with our story.
Work Method (Making 2D into 3D)
Later within the week of my friend and I making this joke I was assigned to make a "cute" , "chibi" character that has to also be marketable. So I broke down the assignment requirements to redesign the character, luckily both cute things and marketable characters share a lot of the same qualities. One of the many things that they both share is that they are both soft to the eye and are very round with almost no sharp 90 degree edges. I also had to add more "life" into this simple cloud with feet especially since the main sketch had nothing much to build off of. I then went and looked at Super Smash Bros. for some inspiration of Marketable characters, a few characters that I looked at for inspiration was Kirby, Meta knight, and Jiggly Puff. Since those characters all share the same round build with feet as the Cloud Boy I looked deeper at how they wore costumes in-game. One thing I noticed is that each costume for Kirby's transformation was still consistent with what ever media Kirby takes the characters power from while also forming to Kirby's limited body. When I came to these conclusions I chose to make ape god and the cloud into one character whilst keeping in mind to make his attire feel "lived in" as if there was past journeys Cloud boy went on.
When it came to modeling I used Cinima4D and chose to immediately work on the most defining characteristic to Cloud boy which were his feet. I tried to have the feet stand out the most so I chose to put more detail and more sharp edges to counter the soft fluffy visuals of the character. When it came to the body I used a half sphere which it then mirrored, I shaped the low poly half sphere to get the general shape of the cloud I wanted then finally adding subdivision to then soften the shape even more. After I got a shape that looked both like a face with cheeks and a cloud I then went to the next step which was where the eyes and teeth. For the mouth I used a square to bevel out the shape then designed the teeth which was a elongated square with three edges on each side of the square's faces with a subdivision to round the edge off whilst keeping the rectangular box shape. After I finished making the teeth them selves I duplicated the object and moved it upwards thus creating a gumline. Next where the eyes; I wanted to keep some of the ideas from my inspirations which were both Kirby and the Lucitoo Cloud, so I made them simple capsules.
Once I had finished the general character shape and design, I then moved to his apparel design. Since I wanted to implement ideas of the ape god into this character so I chose that Cloud boy loves fishing, and that this cloud would travel around the world to find the best fishing holes. I started to work on a hat that both resembled a hillbilly straw hat and a extra wide brimmed leather hat, so that it would have a recognizable shape and to also have a nice droopiness flow to it. I then wanted to add a buckle round the top of the hat to add more character to Cloud boy, while also following the thought process as that "pilgrims looked good with hat buckles why wouldn't a cloud look good in it?" I also wanted to add more history to Cloud boy's hat so I added three different types of weighted tackles that are hooked around the rim of his hat. After I had added the tackles I thought to myself "where would the could store his bait?" so I then started to work on an leather adventure backpack. Again I wanted the feet to be the sharpest things on the character so I made sure to make the backpack as round as possible to better pair with the Cloud's body and the hat design elements.
Skills Learned
Cinema4D, Character design, 3D modeling, Research & Design
