My original idea was to create a realistic mummy, but also one that wasn't scary. I wanted to use place him in typical every day situations, outside the serious and terrifying situation in which a mummy is usually thought of. My aim was to create an interesting and funny character, but at the same time to emphasize that the situations weren’t the normal ones you would expect to find him in. Once I created him, the first situation which came to my mind was the mummy tripping over its bandages.

References

Before starting with the creation of the mummy I looked for images that inspired me and gave me interesting ideas I could reinterpret. I look for ideas for, not only shapes, but also for framing, lighting and everything that an image can communicate. This is an important step for creating any character and image. This is what I call image Googling!

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Carry out

I started out with simple forms and added the details later. Usually, I start from a cube or from a single face to create then the base geometry with as few polygons as possible. This way it is easy to keep in order the mesh of the model. Little by little you get near to a low poly-humanoid figure. Next, once it has been rigged the edge loops, you have to define the points in which it’s going to be deformed. The edge loops are very important. For example, they are necessary in order to arrange for an elbow to react correctly in every point once it has been bent.

Another very important thing: you have to maintain your model “all quad,” that is all the polygons of the model have to have 4 sides. This is useful in it allows for better handling of the rig and for a better compatibility between the many sculpting programs.
Once I finished my model, I exported it into .obj so that I could handle it in ZBrush. This allowed me to more easily draw veins, muscles and all the things which would be difficult to create in polygons.

After getting to the level desired, you can export a displace-map and apply it to the mesh you had modeled before. In this way you can obtain a light model in the rig- and animation phase, but at the same with a very high detail in render. Another advantage is that you can modify it very easily with any photo editing program.

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