FAN DESIGN: Star Wars New Republic Defense Force Army Trooper

Created as an assignment for 3D SCULPTING I and ORGANIC MODELLING I of the Game - Art program from George Brown College.
A fan character design of what a hypothetical New Republic Trooper would look like in the Star Wars Sequel Trilogy. I also created the avatar model.

I was disappointed with the same Empire versus Rebellion angle used in the Star Wars Sequel trilogy in the same way as the Original trilogy did. This Resistance organization simply made no sense in Canon and the character designs I am creating is the hypothetical scenario in which both the New Republic (NOT the Resistance) and the First Order are locked in a war where they are using regular soldiers against each other.
This adds an additional dimension to worldbuilding as the stormtroopers are not the only fighting army of the Empire and the First Order in the first place. Canonically, most of the fighting forces were the Army Troopers—conscripts with barely any armor and training as cannon fodders.

For my assignment, I wanted to give a sense of grit and realism, as if it would be pragmatic enough to be used in a real war. There was barely any combat uniform for the New Republic I could use as a reference, so I decided to base it on the New Republic fleet uniform that appeared on The Mandalorian while mixing it with some of the Resistance aesthetics.

The blue uniform and the white belt are inspired by the design of the New Republic officer. The helmet was borrowed from the Resistance Trooper helmet. This design is a mixture of the two designs to make it look unique while being pragmatic as a combat suit—greyed out to give an effect of camouflage, adding more pockets, and wearing combat boots. The French Horizon Blue uniform during WWI and the Union uniform during the American Civil War also served as inspirations.

Since the New Republic would be financially better off, they use a better, more advanced blaster rifle, contrasting the First Order counterpart. I surveyed the forgotten real-life weapons and decided to mesh them with the Star Wars blaster rifles so that they wouldn’t be too shinny and out of place in the universe.

First Order Army Trooper: https://www.artstation.com/artwork/3q06eD