Companion Cavalry - Concept Art, Design

To design the character I have been developing some concept art over the past few weeks to experiment with different clothing variations and colours to create usable templates of the horse and rider that I will be able to start modelling from. I had intended to do a 3/4 view concept piece but felt this wasn't as necessary to the project because it would provide far more inspiration developing multiple ideas than focusing on one. 

Because i'm creating a real world character my concepts are very limited because I need to ensure a level of historical accuracy and make sure that it is authentic. Therefore I have been collecting as many examples of greek armour and clothing as I could from the internet to get a feel for the style of clothing they wore. I have found there are an enormous amount of variations in helmet design and armour though the main reoccurring themes are that greek soldiers mostly wore a corslet chest piece, skirt and loose overalls, an open faced helmet, sandals and a guard for the shins. The best reference for the companions was a sculpture on the Alexander Sarcophagus which showed them carrying a spear and wearing a cloak. 

To speed things up and prevent me from having to work out anatomy over and over I decided to create a realistic template of the character, drawn from photo reference. This allowed me to focus on trying out different clothing variations by reusing the same template. These are several different designs from the same period though I think the bottom middle and right are more closely related to the description of the companions so I will most likely develop the character with those in mind.

I've also created a template for the horse for which there were far fewer references. These are several ideas drawn mostly from the film Alexnder the Great (2004). I looked at the different breeds of horse to experiment with colours and how that might fit with the saddle design and rider.

Now I've finished my templates I can start work on the model of the rider. I intend to block the character out in 3dsmax to begin with as I find it far faster to sort out overall proportions using box modelling software. Once I have something i'm happy with I will then move into zbrush, smooth over the anatomy and start adding the clothes. I hope in 1 months time to have completed the first character.