During my down time, I attempted to take a little break from art. Of course, as an artist, I'm unable to completely turn off the brain. I continued to work out ideas in my sketchbooks. I'm happy to report that most of Mad Mario is now completely concepted out; there's very little left to be designed.
I tossed back and forth trying to determine if I would move forward with it in 2D or 3D. I love the raw nature of sketching and have grown found of these characters in their 2D form. I do, however, get very overwhelmed when thinking about how much would actually need to be drawn, inked, and colored.
So I settled on 3D for several reasons.
1.My primary motivation was that once I create a 3D asset, I'll never have to draw it again. I can reuse it as much as I want and never have to worry about perspective or drawing off model.
2. I'll have complete freedom of camera angle. I can essentially "play" with the shot and come to compositional ideas I didn't think about in 2D.
3. Once I start to build enough of a 3D library, I'll be able to start kit bashing (re-using existing pieces as a starting point) and production will be much faster.
I started the long walk forward. I have a pretty good task list scheduled out. Young Mario happens to be the first on my list.
Yes, that's right! YOUNG Mario!
He couldn't possibly have been born mad!
I was actually able to reuse Mad Mario's pants, boots, and hands for young Mario with a little tweaking. I'm only a few hours into this, but I'm making a lot of progress. The head is fairly straight forward, since he's so close to adult Mario. The area around the nostrils is a little tricky. I had to delete a few attempts already. I'll revisit it again after building up the zygomatic bone a little more.
I think it's going to be several months before you see the first finished "panel." In the meantime, I'll try to keep this updated with my progress so you can check it out!
