Gladiator Character – Research + concepting.
·
This week
marks the beginning of my first character project – a low poly (>10k tris)
character that must be fully modelled, textured, rigged and then presented in
UE4.
·
Since the
character needs to have the hallmarks of a recognisable gladiator, I first
began with research into gladiator types and appearances. I had a primitive mood
board made on artstation (see here: https://www.artstation.com/crystik/collections/1141539)
which I used as a primary image search for other gladiator models.
Research:
·
First
question: what is a gladiator?
1.
A
gladiator was an armed combatant who entertained usually large crowds in the
roman empire in violent confrontations with enemies ranging from other
gladiators, wild animals, and condemned criminals.
·
Second
question: who were the gladiators?
1.
Gladiators
were often slaves caught in regions conquered by the roman empire; however,
some were volunteers who risked their lives and social standings by appearing
in the arenas.
2.
Gladiators
appeared with different “classes” – each having their own specification in
amount of armour and weapon type. Gladiators could have anything from bow and
arrow, spears, nets and sometimes they fought on chariots.
§ It is also worth noting that
there were a class of female gladiators – called Gladiatrix – which were poorly
documented; some slaves from locations like Ethiopia, others were high status women
who were described as “Rich women who have lost all sense of the dignities and
duties of their sex”, but we will never know how many there were.
·
Third
question: why were their gladiators?
1.
Rome had
a culture that often marvelled at combat superiority, and gladiators offered the
people of Rome who often just heard of fair away conflicts a way to sate their
strange bloodlust.
2.
Gladiator
fights drew in a lot of money; colosseums would often be easily filled when a
pair of skilled fighters were hired, however they were expensive to hire. Often
groups of lower skilled gladiators would be hired and still draw in some crowds.
·
What gods
impacted gladiatorial combat?
1.
Gods in
the roman empire were for the most part heavily inspired by the Grecian equivalences,
such as Minerva being Athena, Venus being Aphrodite and Mars being Ares. There
has been armour found to have engravings upon with figures reminiscent of
goddesses’ Minerva and Venus, as well as Neptune and Mercury.
Gladiator concepting:
·
After
researching the core elements of gladiators, I came to a few conclusions that I
wanted to explore:
1.
I wanted
to create a female gladiator character, a gladiatrix,
2.
I wanted
to take inspiration from strong female war figures – specifically Minerva,
3.
I wanted
my character to be strong looking and not overly nude.
·
I chose
these conclusions because I did not want to create an A-typical gladiator; I
wanted to create a character with a narrative and more interest behind them. I
also am a big fan of mythology, specifically Greek mythology, so diving into
roman mythology while I have the chance seemed exciting to me.
·
Minerva
herself has a few key features to include, such as:
1.
Her weapon
is a spear with a detailed shield for defence,
2.
She often
wears a breastplate with snake embellishments (these are to reference the
serpent of Jupiter)
3.
She is
often seen with an owl (A reference to her being the goddess of strategic
warfare)
4.
She has a
plumed helmet.
·
I also
researched styles of hair common in roman era, and I used some reference of
what gladiatrix may have looked like to choose how much armour my character
would have – especially since Minerva is usually seen with long flowing
garments that would not be suitable for a hand rigged model like I am doing.
·
I tried
to steer clear of elements that looked more like a solider than a gladiator,
since there is a clear difference between a centurion and a gladiatrix. Mostly,
this comes down to an exposed abdomen area and limited metal armour.
|
Mood board |
Drawn Concept Art:
·
After
constructing my mood board, I created a drawn concept piece only using value to
mark out how I wanted the different elements to interact. The key features I
chose were:
1.
A simple
helm with perennial plants engraved on,
2.
An asymmetrical
shoulder piece common in gladiators,
3.
A chest
piece with feather detailing mimicking the feathers of an owl,
4.
Snake detailing
at the bottom of the chest piece,
5.
Layered skirts
(common with roman soldiers + gladiators),
6.
A spear
and shield, the shield having owl detailing put on,
7.
Leather
shin guards with owl face detailing,
8.
Simple leather
sandals.
·
I thought
overall that the elements could be achievable under a low poly constraint, and
that they worked cohesively to make a gladiatrix character heavily inspired by
Minerva.
·
It helped
push the narrative of my Minerva character being a woman of high standing
escaping to show loyalty to her goddess in the arena through cunning, which I
thought was more interesting than just a bulky man with a spear.
|
Drawn Concept |
Final Conclusions:
·
I am
happy with the direction of this character and I think this will push me in a
constructive direction, since I would say that characters are the part of 3D that
I am least interested in.
·
I have a
sense of caution going into this project, I will try and keep it as simple as
possible whilst executing my idea, but I am preparing my perfectionist brain
for it not looking exactly how I would like because of the limit to both
textures and tris.
· Next steps would be making my blockout, following the tutorial process on blackboard.
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