Momonga Monday: Guaka The Mole

This week I want to show you the process for Guaka, a molerat who lives in the dungeons of Xio. He is a cheerful fellow who maintains the sewage system of Xio. Little does he know that his old masters – the rats – are long gone. He just does his duty, day after day, without asking questions.

We started the design of Guaka with a Giant Molerat. It is an amazing creature, native to Russia. I would hire him as a janitor for the dungeons of my ancient Meso-American city any time. Behold the Giant Molerat:

pic_12119040007033

pic_12119040044458

pic_12119040068239

viva-el-peru-kareem-farooq

Okay, that last one is a lama, but isn’t the molerat an awesome creature?

Here are some of the sketches we made based on this little bugger:

molerat_concept_6 molerat_concept_9
molerat_concept_8 molerat_concept_7

We liked the hombre with the Mexican hat – after all, we are in a Maya-ish city.

He also needed a drill to dig holes. This is what we came up with:

guaka_pointyhat

Not bad, but not entirely there yet. The thing is, Guaka is part of a complex level: the Dungeons of Xio. You fall through a trap in the ground and have to escape from this underground complex. Guaka finds you and helps you to get out. But how does he do this?

We tried lots of things – throwing you around, digging holes, racing in minekarts. In the end we figured that the best way to let him help you out, is to roll with you. Multi-ball. That is where we started to design the level with multi-ball in mind – and Guaka had to change to a ball form.

Okay. Ball-form. No mexican hat. Perhaps a peruvian hat? Let’s mix it up with this guy:

guaka-the-mole_16

(Isn’t he amazingly friendly?)
The next iteration looked like this:

guaka-the-mole_16-e1398324969835

That is getting pretty close. It needed a bit more ballform perhaps. Here is the final concept art:

guaka-the-mole_19

That wraps it up for this week! Next week we will dive into the 3D model.

And because you came this far, and because I can’t resist the temptation, here is a sneak preview of Guaka’s natural habitat 🙂

xio-dungeons-layout-concept4

See you next week!

Cheers,
Derk

3 Comments
  • alblogy
    Posted at 08:05h, 17 September

    Great Work!
    I like these concept art

    I hope paladinstudios make wallpapers for there concept art 🙂

    • Derk
      Posted at 16:02h, 17 September

      Thanks! We will make wallpapers, someday 🙂

  • The Anatomy of a 3D Game Character: Guaka The Mole
    Posted at 13:53h, 17 April

    […] Monday, another update! Last week we took a look at the concept art process for Guaka the Molerat, a character that lives underground in the ancient city of Xio. After we settle on the final […]

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