Archer Pre-Production

Archer Pre-Production

As part of a collaborative project, I have been tasked to design and produce an archer, to go with a number of other heroes. They will be defending a Dwarven city, which is under siege from an army and a giant armour-plated bull.

I began my pre-production by thinking of different poses and expressions the archer would pull, in an effort to establish a form of characterisation for her. I believed this would inspire me for her outfit.

After the poses and expressions I drew up some quick design sketches. I included two male designs, even though the poses were female, as I wanted to explore more costume diversity. I looked at a typical 'wood elf' style costume of soft leather and simple coverings, a colder, more human archer with a padded doublet and a fur cloak (inspired by the free folk from game of thrones) and a more 'World of Warcraft' inspired armour plated, but hardly covered style archer. I decided then to split the costume down to its key parts (Below)

Here I took the torso, the arms and the lower body and looked at them in more detail. I eventually settled on a cross between the 'wood elf' and the 'world of warcraft' style. I chose the bottom right design from both the lower body and the torso pages, and the top right arm design. These were my base designs for putting the costume together later.

After getting the basic costume designs done, I decided to move on to one of the key features of the face: the eyes. I wanted the eyes to stand out from the rest of the features to give her a more ethereal look. Here (above) I have looked at different colours to find the most striking design. I experimented with several 'otherworldly' colours too, but eventually settled on the top right green, or the purple below it. I would choose later once the colour scheme had been settled on.

Here I moved on to hair styles and colours. I experimented with many different designs, and ruled some out based on her character class. Since she is an archer, I thought it would be unwise to have certain hairstyles (namely the long flowing ones), although there are some exceptions to the rules like Merida in brave. I also had to consider both production and render time when deciding on her hairstyle. As you can see from the hair colour page, I chose a loose plait. I also chose the ginger-red hair, as it will stand out nicely from the armour plates and leather.

Another important aspect of the archer is her bow. Here I have looked at several bow designs, and incorporated them into my own. I found it quite difficult to make the bow look practical but still have it look impressive. Eventually I chose a cross between two, the final design of which can be seen below.

This is the final design for my archer. As you can see I put all the costume parts together with the hair, and added a few things to make them all work together. I also reworked the bow design and added a quiver to attach to her back.

Here I worked on the colour schemes for her. I tried to think about her background here: where did she come from? what climate is it? 

From these questions I began to look at two themes I have seen/read about elves, seasons and the elements. In the seasonal schemes I ruled out summer as a potential scheme because summer would have involved too many yellows, which could have been hard to turn into a natural looking colour scheme for an elf or a human. Also, I left out the Earth element from the elements page, as I had already covered a lot of that from the seasons. Personally, I liked the winter and the water designs, however our team made the decision to go for a more natural scheme, so she doesn't stand out too much from the rest of the scene and take eyes off the rest of the shot.

Here is my final colour scheme, using one of the more natural colour palettes. I chose a lighter, softer leather for the shirt and the chaps, to aid movement, and a thicker, metal edged leather for the armour pieces. The bow will also have metal filigree designs to add light armour and detail.

Final Colour Turnaround