Picking a topic

One of the hardest parts of the FMP for me is picking a topic to do, I've been having ideas of what I could do since the start of the 2nd year. Some were good ideas, some were awful and some I knew I wouldn't be able to do or enjoy.

Idea 1 - A skate park.
This was my longest running idea, I thought it was something I could enjoy doing, the modelling wouldn't be too hard but more importantly I could work from my own experiences of doing graffiti. This would really help me enjoy the project more and I didn't want to be spending months on a project that I wasn't enjoying when I was the one that picked it.
I don't really want to do an environment though, and that is exactly what a skate park would be. It would also be quite boring as skate parks aren't exactly interesting.
What makes skate parks interesting is the people, so then I thought the focus of the project could be skaters, IN a skate park. The idea then took a turn towards characters rather than environment. I was just chasing the idea though, I would be taking on too much personally to do characters and the environment and the more I thought about the project the less I liked it.

Encouraged to actually set myself a project I personally wanted to do I turned towards my favorite artist, whose characters have always inspired me.

Idea 2 - 'Joe Mad!' Characters
Joe Mad is an awesome character artist, his history grounded in comic books. His characters aren't realistic but drawn in a recognizable exaggerated and interesting way. I have always appreciated and aspired to his style, my favorite game (Darksiders) was based completely around his artistic style. I knew that if I was going to enjoy any 3D project it would be one making his characters.
Joe Mad has done loads of characters over the years so I needed to pick some that I would enjoy making and that would work well as a 3D project.

These are just a few examples of Mad's character drawings.  

I took a selection of examples of Mad's work into Uni and put forward the idea to model his characters. A topic that caught everyone's interest was his Battle Chasers work.

Battle Chasers is a comic book made by Joe Mad in 1998 and became one of the best comic books in America at that time. He only made 9 issues before leaving the comic book industry to peruse a career as a video game designer. Despite not having many issues Battle Chasers has a very strong fan base, although nothing more has been done with the series since September 2001.

The story in Battle Chasers is focused around 5 main characters.
Garrison - A legendary swordsman

Gully - A 9 year old girl with her father's massive gloves!

Calibretto - An outlawed war golem with a gentle personality.

Knolan - A 500 year old powerful wizard, Calibretto is his companion.

Red Monika - A voluptuous female bounty hunter, she trained Garrison.

The Battle Chasers team has an interesting dynamic and unison that make them fit together. You can tell by looking at them that they come from the same universe and each have a unique story. 

The unique and interesting look of the characters immediately appealed to everyone which is always a good sign. There are further considerations to be made around the project but at least I have a starting point which I think could really work and be something I enjoy doing.