FMP: Alfodr, The Wizard - Sculpture

For my second project I chose to do a concept with a Norse/viking aesthetic. I have long been passionate about the subject, and I finally felt confident enough that I could build a compelling character in this particular style. When I first started out I was planning to convey the style and feel of God of War characters. The idea proved not only hard to execute, but also unrealistic for my lack of experience and little time I had.

I started out as I usually do, building up a base mesh in Zbrush and gradually make all the clothing and accessories.
Most of the parts were done in Zbrush, aside from the base of the horn, sword and leather bag. I simulated all the cloth parts and boots in MD.

 I decided to leave out some of the jewellery he is wearing since the concept might be a bit over-designed, at least to me. After discussing with my tutors, I decided to give up on the horns as well. Even though they reminded me of Mimir's horns and looked quite interesting in the concept, the idea did not translate well into 3D as it is. They would have required some adaptation, but in the end I thought they would simply not work on a human character.

The overall shape of the body was quite a tricky part. I started out from very defined muscles on the arms and abs, but ended up smoothing everything and working on a more subtle approach. I somehow wanted to find a middleground: realistically, there wouldn't be much definition in an older man, but I also wanted him to look strong.

The face was another big challenge. I worked from a bunch of reference pictures, until one of my tutors pointed out that the concept artist used Mark Hamill's face in the concept. However, a likeness sculpture would have taken me a lot of time, since I have never tried to do one before. Generally speaking, face anatomy is one of my weakest points and I will work to correct that in the future.
I stopped tweaking the features the moment I got a decent looking result and started building the secondary and tertiary details.

After all the major forms were in place, I went on to refine them. I spent quite a lot of time adding wear and scratches to the leather, knowing that I wouldn't be able to add  them in Substance Painter as precisely. I tried to take each individual bit and think about how that piece would age/ where I should add the wear. For the metal decorations (such as the ones on the chest) I made a mesh using an alpha, dynameshing and zremeshing as needed. Overall, the sculpture was a long and fiddly stage, but one that i very much enjoyed.

Final version of the sculpture: