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Description
-- Updated as promised! --

My contest entry for Square Enix and Deviantarts competition for the new soon to be released game: "The World Ends With You" I hope you like it. Thanks for watching!

New: Added an alternative background, watch it here: [link]

-- Character --
Name/Alias: Shibuya
Age: Somewhere around the 17 to 20.
Role in the game: She often hangs around with her friends in the adventures in "The World Ends With You". They might look at her as their big sister for protecting and support, and she might also appear that way for them. Though she do a really lousy job as an older sister for them. In her eyes, they are her really true friends which she can depend on anytime. She wouldnt say something like that to them because that would ruin the imaginary protective sister thing. Instead she frequently roams off from her group of friends and busy herself with other things, whatever the streets of Shibuya can offer. You can say she is in the end very unreliable even though she might be the kindest person on earth.

She is also somewhat a strange girl you might not want to get involved with once you have started to get known to her.
Why? Yes you can wonder.., because at first you will see her strong and admireable sides, such as how strong willed and determinded she is, and how easy its is to get along with her. She is overall a very kind and easy going person... maybe a bit too easy going for her own good. So what makes her scare off the people later? You tell me I have some ideas, but I rather let this section be open so anything can happen

-- Development --
I actually never decided to name her Shibuya. I dont even know if that is a "possible" name for a female since Shibuya is the name of the fashion and trend maker streets of Tokyo. I had several names in my mind for her, such as Akemi and Aoi. I went with both of them during the project, but decided to stick with Shibuya since that is the first "temporary" name I gave her.

I started to draw some very rough sketches of a female person. I had a vision of her sitting the stairs to the main shopping streets of a location similar to Shibuya/Tokyo. She would pose infront of the camera with a determinded look... and hey, it actualy become very close to how I imagined it. Im really satisfied with that!

When it came to designing her, I had two "rules" in my head as I sketched her down on the paper:
First, she must be of a style which could suit right into the game design without any doubts.
Second, in order to do that, she must be urban and trendy, because the game is focused on the city, more spesifcly in Shibuya. Which agains means since Shibuya is a place where fashion and trendy clothes are born daily; My character would wear clothes which looks that way as well.

I spendt an evening searching for as much pictures and useable references of Tokyo and japanese fashion clothes as possible. Then I sorted out the ones most appealing to me and combined them to one outfit. It took me several attempts untill I ended up with the final one.

After that I got everything I needed to move on to the 3D part. It took me about 2 evenings of work to have most of her body parts up and go in additional to the city bakground. Then another 3-4 evenings of modelling her hair and ironing out the character so every part of it matches accordingly to the design I had in mind.
About 2-3 evenings went on rigging, skinning, shading and posing her untill I finally could render her on the day before deadline.
I spendt the night all the way to the morning on compositing the render layers together and playing around with the final look. It took me quite some time to finish this, and I questioned myself many times during the progress if I were sane Cause 3D can be horrible messy and time demanding. It does not go well with tight deadlines! I were on the verge of giving this up many times >_<; But I knew I couldnt let this chance of joining a Square Enix/DA competition slip. So I pushed myself really hard to finish this in the end

-- Final Words --
Now as Im done, I just feel satisifed and proud of myself for pulling this through. Im going to get grab some missed out sleep and chill a bit untill I feel for finishing my next fanart character; Roxas someday... or if people would like to, I could work som more on Shibuya and perharps make model reel of her.

Thanks to Sebastian from Newage Ninjas [link] who provided me with yummy ice-tea on the last day of the project. A serious lifesaver in times of need. He was also the only buddy who did NOT disturb me in those weeks of work.

-- Info --
Software: 3Dsmax9, After Effects
Render: Mental Ray 3.5, Standard Blinn & Ambient/Occlusion + FG
Polygons: 127 547
Time: 1 Week
Project Size: ~400 MB
Experience gained: 560
------------

Character Shibuya & design by me. "The World Ends With you & logo © Square-Enix
To the dev-team: Thanks a lot for hosting a such great contest for us to be inspired by

Description
-- Updated as promised! --

My contest entry for Square Enix and Deviantarts competition for the new soon to be released game: "The World Ends With You" I hope you like it. Thanks for watching!

New: Added an alternative background, watch it here: [link]

-- Character --
Name/Alias: Shibuya
Age: Somewhere around the 17 to 20.
Role in the game: She often hangs around with her friends in the adventures in "The World Ends With You". They might look at her as their big sister for protecting and support, and she might also appear that way for them. Though she do a really lousy job as an older sister for them. In her eyes, they are her really true friends which she can depend on anytime. She wouldnt say something like that to them because that would ruin the imaginary protective sister thing. Instead she frequently roams off from her group of friends and busy herself with other things, whatever the streets of Shibuya can offer. You can say she is in the end very unreliable even though she might be the kindest person on earth.

She is also somewhat a strange girl you might not want to get involved with once you have started to get known to her.
Why? Yes you can wonder.., because at first you will see her strong and admireable sides, such as how strong willed and determinded she is, and how easy its is to get along with her. She is overall a very kind and easy going person... maybe a bit too easy going for her own good. So what makes her scare off the people later? You tell me I have some ideas, but I rather let this section be open so anything can happen

-- Development --
I actually never decided to name her Shibuya. I dont even know if that is a "possible" name for a female since Shibuya is the name of the fashion and trend maker streets of Tokyo. I had several names in my mind for her, such as Akemi and Aoi. I went with both of them during the project, but decided to stick with Shibuya since that is the first "temporary" name I gave her.

I started to draw some very rough sketches of a female person. I had a vision of her sitting the stairs to the main shopping streets of a location similar to Shibuya/Tokyo. She would pose infront of the camera with a determinded look... and hey, it actualy become very close to how I imagined it. Im really satisfied with that!

When it came to designing her, I had two "rules" in my head as I sketched her down on the paper:
First, she must be of a style which could suit right into the game design without any doubts.
Second, in order to do that, she must be urban and trendy, because the game is focused on the city, more spesifcly in Shibuya. Which agains means since Shibuya is a place where fashion and trendy clothes are born daily; My character would wear clothes which looks that way as well.

I spendt an evening searching for as much pictures and useable references of Tokyo and japanese fashion clothes as possible. Then I sorted out the ones most appealing to me and combined them to one outfit. It took me several attempts untill I ended up with the final one.

After that I got everything I needed to move on to the 3D part. It took me about 2 evenings of work to have most of her body parts up and go in additional to the city bakground. Then another 3-4 evenings of modelling her hair and ironing out the character so every part of it matches accordingly to the design I had in mind.
About 2-3 evenings went on rigging, skinning, shading and posing her untill I finally could render her on the day before deadline.
I spendt the night all the way to the morning on compositing the render layers together and playing around with the final look. It took me quite some time to finish this, and I questioned myself many times during the progress if I were sane Cause 3D can be horrible messy and time demanding. It does not go well with tight deadlines! I were on the verge of giving this up many times >_<; But I knew I couldnt let this chance of joining a Square Enix/DA competition slip. So I pushed myself really hard to finish this in the end

-- Final Words --
Now as Im done, I just feel satisifed and proud of myself for pulling this through. Im going to get grab some missed out sleep and chill a bit untill I feel for finishing my next fanart character; Roxas someday... or if people would like to, I could work som more on Shibuya and perharps make model reel of her.

Thanks to Sebastian from Newage Ninjas [link] who provided me with yummy ice-tea on the last day of the project. A serious lifesaver in times of need. He was also the only buddy who did NOT disturb me in those weeks of work.

-- Info --
Software: 3Dsmax9, After Effects
Render: Mental Ray 3.5, Standard Blinn & Ambient/Occlusion + FG
Polygons: 127 547
Time: 1 Week
Project Size: ~400 MB
Experience gained: 560
------------

Character Shibuya & design by me. "The World Ends With you & logo © Square-Enix
To the dev-team: Thanks a lot for hosting a such great contest for us to be inspired by