This is Project Under-Cut, a superhero character and story concept heavily inspired by ‘The Boys’. In this world, there are the underground and overground heroes, the underground heroes operate in secret because they are considered “undesirable’s”, meaning that the public wouldn’t be too fond of them. This is because the company that owns these heroes want only the best to be the face of their company, meanwhile the under-grounders perform shadier tasks that definitely breaks some CMA regulations.
I approached this with an open mind by really pushing more creative ideas for characters, representing the under represented. I really wanted to have each character be a completely unique and easily identifiable traits and characteristics that make them special. To achieve this, I tried not to look too much at what has already been done, this is to help have a clear mind that is not already been influenced by other media. I lay down at night before sleeping and just let ideas come to me, however dumb or out there they are, I write them down. I then work on them the following day, refining and then seeing if they are to close to something that has already been done, of course, you can never make something completely original, but doing it this way means that you can act decisively and apologize for it later rather than to seek approval and risk delay.
I always like to start a character off with a face, the face is one of the most important aspects to a good character in my opinion. The face tells a story with and without words. The face is used to easily recognise one character from the other. A well-designed face can make a character more relatable, interesting, and engaging. As you can see, I like faces. This is why I sculpt each characters full head in 3D, to have a final design that I can reference from all angles to have nice and accurate lighting. all characters go through multiple iterations of faces to fit each personality type. Finding a base face as reference, I use the website 3DSK in order to find everyday faces, not just supermodel perfect ones. I base my style of work from an artist that I have admired for more years than I thought, Cedric Peyraverney, the artist behind the wonderful character works of the ‘Dishonored’ franchise, some of my favourite games of all time.
The character I think was the most successful in this project is ‘The Boss Man’, from his front end rat tail hair, to his gold chin that acts as a ciggy dispenser, he exudes a lot of personality from all aspects of his design. For more in depth descriptions of all my characters, you can find that on my Artstation : https://www.artstation.com/johnniesaunders
