Ertz - Gonna need a bigger boat!

So after creating the major parts of Ertz I soon realised I would be needing an extra allowance of Tris to accommodate his self and all of his accessories. I originally wanted to keep them around 8,000 - 9,000 Tris but due to his design Ertz will have to be an exception. 

As you can see by the orthographic I plan to make some interchangeable appendages for Ertz. These can be placed on their own texture sheet like any other weapon or accessory would be. 

Ertz has a very curious head shape not quite turtle but not so crocodile either. 
For most of the Minion characters I know in my mind how they look in 3 dimensional space but eventually you come to a point where you say to your self "how is this supposed to look?" 
Does his cheek tuck here? Does his body show there? 

It was a fun process. Especially when you realise some designs will not work in 3D. 
I assume this a problem that many concept art pieces bring to the table when redesigning them from the 2D to 3D. 

I purposely made the legs long at this stage as they are finally going to be bent to give the impression of old age and even more so, bearing a heavy load.

Even after planning it out I wasn't sure how big to make his rucksack. 

When viewing Ertz from over the shoulder all you will see is bag! 
But this is his main characteristic so I'm not completely heart broken about it. 
He is intended as more of a support character anyway, like a field medic. 

At this stage he has four normal hands - The extra appendages will be made soon.

A simple base colour texture to help me bring out each element of his design.

It is important to not go into too much detail at this stage as there may be a chance you have to amend some UV's even if you have found an acceptable layout. A spark of inspiration may hit you and you might find you have to jig some of the UV islands around. 

Originally I intended to keep the chest-plate in symmetry then I had the idea of placing a scratch across both sides. Luckily I had room on the UV layout to space the two pieces individually.   

More updates to follow......