DESIGN CHARACTERS INSPIRED BY HISTORY

Marco Teixeira explores a personal piece that resonates with Brazilian culture and influences to create an appealing portrait

- Marco Teixeira

When I started to work on this image, it was only because I needed to introduce more 3D tools in my workflow. I’ve been interested mainly in ZBrush and how I could incorporate more 3D models as a starting point or base for my 2D design work.

Personally, studying a new tool becomes more compelling if I can turn the object of my study into a final piece. It helps me to learn the functionalities of the software, ZBrush in this case, based on what I need at a specific moment for a specific design concept. Knowing what I expect during the learning process gives me a mental guideline of what it can turn into as a final piece.

At some point during the modelling stages, I started to visualise what that study could become, which references I’d like to follow, and what character I should choose. Once I had an interesting base 3D model with basic lighting and shading, I was finally able to move on to the 2D painting process.

With the character, I was interested in including many aspects of Brazilian pop culture, from music to history, people and art, but also with many of my own influences. The challenge was to bring a balance and coherency to all those different elements and, at least for myself, create a cool character design.