Game Creation - Character Design and Modelling

So I have teamed up with a computer scientist this summer to create a VERY simple platform game.

We decided to do a take on the game "Temple Run", but instead from a sidewards perspective. A character running endlessly dodging obstacles and collecting something along the way to get points.

The game took a very random and comical twist, because of Boris Johnson just being everywhere on the news at the time, we decided to do a "Boris Run". 

The game objective was to control Boris running on the rooftops of London, jumping over chimneys  and jumping from building to building collecting UK flags. It could be interpreted Boris is running from conservative leadership or running from the problems he has partly caused with Brexit, or that he is just a secret ninja who involves in rooftop parkour.

So I started to character design Boris...

I wanted to be quite caricaturey with my design, cartoony yet keeping a realistic aspect so he is easily identifiable. 

The things I wanted to exaggerate with his appearance to create that caricature look were his nose, messy hair and rotund middle.

Here were my final character designs;

As you can see his nose is certainly exaggerated taking the core position on his face. His hair is so exaggerated it covers his eyes (cleverly saving time modelling eyes..) his body is enlarged to a certain extent his arms look small an his legs tiny, enhancing that cartoon aspect.

The realistic aesthetic will come out with the texturing in Maya.

Modelling

Modelling the body was a simple and easy task, however when It came to the head because I was avoiding high-polygons things got tricky.

Boris ended up more high-poly than I expected unfortunately due to the smoothing process... But he will be okay in the game due to its simplicity.

These are the finished renders of him;

For my first ever character model I am very happy with him. There are a few issues with his geometry unfortunately, but I have learnt now not to make the same mistakes again...

I hand-painted him in Mudbox, thats how he got his realistic skin complexion on his face. He is exactly how I drew him out! (if not his arms a little shorter but hey-ho). His hair I applied using the same technique as my tree branches previously, applying an alpha image to a plane to make it transparent aside from the image, it works well to create that shaggy, messy aesthetic I wanted.

He is easily recognisable I believe, I have captured a cartoony resemblance that I am happy with,