I have just finished my first week of my second project, the realistic helmeted character brief. We have to create a NPC which has a helmet, and makes use of symmetry, but also have personality with being a full on hero character. I have been creating your stereotypical helmeted mech design as i want to use this project to teach myself hard surface techniques in zbrush. The reason for using hard surface in this project is i want to see how doable it will be for FMP, as my ideas will involved hard surface and i haven't really done it before.

My idea for this character was a automated security guard, that activated when theres riots in the streets. Its normally left dormant unless theres real problems, so people put graffiti and stickers on them when they are on stand by. I like this idea because it fits the npc part of the brief and the idea of graffiti and stuff should give it personality. It's early days and likely to change a lot but thats my plan so far for that. I began the project by creating a mood board of a ton of hard surface helmets for inspiration and a bench mark to shoot for.

For this i began by moving around forms on the first day, i tried a new concepting work flow, where i do it all in zbrush. i created a bunch of ideas and put it on Facebook to see which people liked, from this i chose one of the favourites and started adjusting it and polishing it. 

I followed some hard surface tutorials which involved retopoing the armour and polishing it more. Im kind of at the stage where i need to be finished with the high poly soon. so i can repot and bake and texture it. 

I want to give myself a lot of time to texture as i needed more last project. My friend denzil told me that if i really want to make that hard surface parts look good i should have some cloth or fabric near it some people can see the contrast between the too. Anyway thats about where i am at.