Insectoid

sean_rodrigues

[IMG]http://www.polycount.com/forum/C:\Users\Sean\Desktop\New folder\[/IMG]This is an insectoid I've been working on. It is still a Dynamesh, I have not retopoed it.

Crits are welcome,

Sean

tonysladky

I like the upper half (the face looks pretty sweet, from what I can see. A closeup would be nice), but the hind legs feel kinda boring and impractical. It's like he's just got shins tipped with the rubber feet from a fold-up table.

Granted, a bipedal insect isn't going to really work without some massive rearranging of these proportions (they've clearly adapted to having more than one pair of legs hitting the ground to distribute their weight), but I think you'd benefit from taking a look at the legs of real insects, getting a feel for the structure, and then trying to figure out how it would need to change to permit bipedal movement.



And for bonus ideas, a bipedal bug:


Then again, this is "T-pose", so I guess I'm jumping to conclusions about how it moves. The more I look at it, the more I can picture it skittering around on it's pointy hind limbs and it's prehensile forelimbs. The length of the forelimbs and the poorly-balanced reverse-jointy nature of the hind limbs led me to that conclusion. If that's the case, I feel like that plate at the "kneecap" would get in the way, and it might do to restructure the hand a bit to better facilitate either skittering on its claws or knuckle-walking like an ape.

Edited for clearer word choice.

DWalker

The second set of arms really lie directly in line with the the main arms and the legs in the thorax, rather than coming from the center of the chest. Also, their use isn't really clear - are they vestigial? Used for feeding? Used as a convenient third hand for controlling complicated digital watches? Overall, the arms seem too small unless they are just a hold-over from an earlier point of the insectoid's evolution - they should probably be at least long enough to reach the mouth and to manipulate objects held in the main hands.

Modelling, and especially animating, the minor structures of the mouth such as the palps would certainly add to the creepy or alien feel.

Placing wings on the back would let you do some nice work with transparent surfaces, including a rainbow sheen when seen from some angles.

When you get to texturing, don't feel constrained to go with the standard matte black or brown. Many insects have bright, glossy textures; others have short hairs covering part or all of their bodies, and some are iridescent, changing color dramatically depending on the viewing angle.