Jessica Farrugia
Sheila
About Overwatch
Overwatch is a first person shooter video game. You control one of several heroes in different types of matches and battle over objectives, take down the other team, and achieve victory.
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Overwatch includes different roles; Offense, Defense, Support and Tank.
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Offense : These are the damage dealers of the game. The main aim is to seek out engage and destroy the enemy. Offense heroes can be less tanky so they have mobile or shielding abilities to help them survive.
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Defense : Defense heroes help the team by interrupting enemy attacks or fortifying locations.
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Tank : These heroes soak up all of the damage, defending the team from the damage produced by the enemies and letting the offense heroes attack whilst tanking them. Tanks normally lead the charge.
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Support : Supports heal and shield the team. They help them by giving them boosts and providing them with health.
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Brainstorms
First brainstorm created for this character. The images are related to superheroes with electrical abilities, mostly including blue and orange tones. Abilities were also brainstormed during this process.
Most characters in Overwatch are created around a specific ability or element. Taking Lucio as an example, he is a DJ who heals with his music.
Thus, the character is solemnly based on electricity. In Overwatch, Winston, a gorilla scientist, has an electric gun thus the idea, although not totally original was difficult to avoid the association.
Weapons
Exohand
This Exo Hand would be a great concept if the character was half robotic.
Further Development
Throughout my research stage I decided to visit the library and check out if I can get a source of inspiration. I went through some 'Imaginefx' magazines and found a lot of source of inspirations, one of the biggest being on the January 2018 magazine.
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Look at the March 2018 magazine, I studied the different types of body shapes and different hand postures, which helped me study the anatomy. Anatomy is an important thing to study whilst creating a character as one needs to know how the body works before creating a new character.
ONLINE POSE STUDY
These are some poses I found online that I had studied at home and sketched on my sketchbook.
'How to draw a female face' by Loish
This was a blog post written by Loish, giving a walk through of her/his own process on how to draw a face.
Read More at : https://www.sketchbook.com/blog/how-to-draw-faces-tutorial-pdf-download/
The Junkers
The first image (found on imaginefx January 2018 magazine), reminded me of the junkers found in Overwatch.
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Junkers lie within the destruction of the country's omnium, a self-improving automated robotics factories installed in locations worldwide. The omnium soon turned into a wasteland and became uninhabitable by humans. Those who survived the omnic crisis (where omnics, robots created by the omniums, rebelled against their human creators) were called Junkers. Junkers scavange the husk of the omnium and have cast a society in the shadows.
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There are only 2 Junkers in the Overwatch game, Junkrat and Roadhog. Originally I was thinking of creating a female junker, and now I have decided to continue with this idea and include other research (such as some of the weapons) with it.
Lore
The attack on the Australian omnium's fusion core forever altered the landscape of the Outback. After the detonation, the area was transformed into a harsh, irradiated wasteland, littered with debris and the twisted fragments of the ruined facility, and unlivable to most.
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But there were some who survived. As a survivor from the attack on the Australian omnium's fusion core, and the attack on her family, she scavenged the husk of the omnium. She didn't know what to do until she met Junkrat who introduced her to the Junkers (a lawless, cutthroat society in its shadows).
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The Junkers soon became her family. She was still 14 years when she lost her parents, but when Junkrat came across her in the husk of the omnium he knew she had potential. Junkrat started showing her different kinds of weapons, from his bombs to shotguns, so she could defend herself but she didn't like any of them. Junkrat decided to introduce her to the Overwatch team, where she could become inspired from them and their abilities.
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She was very sad especially after loosing her parents, but when she saw Winston's weapon she instantly felt a burning rage towards the omnics who stripped her away from her family. That was when she was inspired to study more about electricity.
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She spent years studying wiring and electrical circuits, trying to piece together a weapon from the scraps of metal around her. After 4 years of trial and error she came up with the electroshock gauntlets. She gladly showed them to Junkrat. Junkrat was surprised at the advanced finish of her weapons which were made only from scraps. He immediately took her to the Overwatch team and showed them her weapons.
The Overwatch team was impressed by her work but didn't think it was enough to put her in battle. She went back home to the omnium, thinking about if she wanted to battle or not afterall. But her rage had given her the will to fight and only fight. That was her only chance at having a purpose in life. So she sought to make a stronger weapon, a stronger force to help her annihilate the enemies and that was when she came up with the storm...
Name Development
The character's name is Sheila. Sheila is Aussie slang used for a girl or young woman.
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How did the name originate?
When the girl first arrived with the Junkers, she wouldn't tell them her name. She did not want herself to be known for her past. She wanted to start a new life. Till they found her a new name they used to call her Sheila, and the name stuck to her.
The process of finding a name
Whilst searching to name this character, I was thinking of calling her a regular Aussie name. I noticed how Junkrat and Roadhog don't have normal names nor do any of the other Junkers, so what better way then to make herself Anon. Originally I was going to name her Bindi (Aussie slang for young girl) as Sheila can be mispronounced but Sheila is a very common slang used in Australia.
Pronounciation
Final Render
