Pumpkin Prince: A Gourd Looking Character

This character was inspired by a prompt for a job application. I took inspiration from an actual visit to a pumpkin patch in Northwest Indiana with my niece and nephew as well as other pumpkin headed stories. Many are, of course familiar with the headless horseman but a more unknown story comes from the Mayan book of creation, the Popol Vuh. In this book one of the protagonists has to substitute his own head with a gourd so that him and his brother can defeat the lords of the underworld in a sacrificial ball game. Based on this, I wanted the character to be young and athletic. I wanted a simple design that wasn't heavy on line work that would be fun for all ages.

I wanted something that could fit in a comic or a video game or and action figure.

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Once the design/concept art was complete, I left the project alone for a while until I finally started my education of 3D modeling/Sculpting. I had recently completed the SkillShare classes 'Blender Character Creation for Absolute Beginners' and 'Maya 2020 for Absolute Beginners' by Abraham Leal via Nexttut when I decided to dust off the design for my first solo character. See the inital Sculpt below.

Once the initial sculpt was complete, I retopologized the character using an Add-on called "retopoflow", created the UV layouts, and created the textures in substance painter. The final step was to create the cape/cloak which I use the nCloth functon in Autodesk Maya to create.

Again, I wanted to stay true to the design by keeping the character simple. Although I've learned a lot since I created this character and would do certain things differently at this point in my development (and I may do so in the future) but I think it's a cool project and may create a comic book around the hero in the future.

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