Handpainted NOOB textures

Iciban

So i've been a big fan of handpainted textures and been always wanted to try. This is my first time doing handpainted textures for this style, so still adjusting to it.
The style i'm going for is more towards the game Wow and League. I'm planning to do 1 or 2 more weapons thats just diffuse. After going to go for darksiders style where there would be normal maps. After going for ghibli style.
I'm currently not too happy with the leather and with the metal bumps. Nevertheless, here's my current progress. Critiques are encouraged!

shrogg

I recently started up hand painting and from what i have learned, you need to be bold about things, The leather could probably do with larger stitches (i mean far larger) but fewer of them.
There is also currently no obvious sign of how the leather is being held onto the metal frame, so perhaps some rivets or something similar could be used there. Or if the bone/tusks are holding them there, then put some strong looking leather straps around the part where it connects to the leather.

Sir Apple

The color values in your reference are a lot more contrasting then in your texture. Really push those values and give it some contrast, doing so will really make it pop. Right now your texture is a too flat.

Iciban

thanks for the feedback. The ref originally was black and white. I just did quick paintover to get an overall feel for the colours. Yea, I keep hearing the contrast is usually much higher.

Jessica Dinh

Nice and clean! I agree with everything that's been said so far. In addition, I think the leather could use a bit more surface texture, so look up how leather has some sort of grain/cracks/wear/undulations. When I paint textures I like to look at the concept and other textures I like, but I think it's ALSO important to still reference real life and photos.

There could be some more ao around the tusks as well, and I feel the metal needs some stronger metallic highlights. Using the color dodge brush mode can actually help. Many people warn against it, because if you overdo it it looks very bad and nooby, but exercise subtlety and it can be a great tool

Iciban

Here's an updated ver. There's one with the leather straps and one without. Let me know what you think.

Btw, for some reason in 3dsmax. In the viewport, at first I thought it was seams cause of my texture, but when I zoom in, its gone. Does anyone know how to fix this? I checked if its wireframe, but its not that. I'm just viewing in the mode "Consistent Colors"

Snafubar7

Good improvement, I think what would help is making those stitches in the leather more apparent, and definitely throw some in the center seams. One thing to keep in mind is that games like WoW and LoL are played from top-down view, so small details need to be exaggerated.

This is looking really good.

Jessica Dinh

That looks really nice! I don't think the leather straps make sense though - like what would they be strapped to/around? What might make more sense is some big bolts on either side of the raised metal areas. Def make those stitches bigger - right now they look like string when they could be like a thicker sort of sinew. This would also give you a chance to sort of buckle the leather where the stitches have been pulled through.

Would also be really nice to see a subtle spec/reflection map on that metal. Looks good as is though!

Rikimaru03

I tried looking at the shield and guessing what it was before I read anything. I can't tell you want any of those materials are. It looks very nice, color-wise, but I don't know what material the blue or the red is supposed to be. I can tell you the spikes are bone though, so there's that.

The middle doesn't read as leather and the blue doesn't read as metal. I thought it was a stone shield at first.

some3dguy

Iciban wrote: »

Btw, for some reason in 3dsmax. In the viewport, at first I thought it was seams cause of my texture, but when I zoom in, its gone. Does anyone know how to fix this? I checked if its wireframe, but its not that. I'm just viewing in the mode "Consistent Colors"

This could be an issue caused by texture filtering or mip mapping. Read about it here:
http://wiki.polycount.com/EdgePadding and
http://wiki.polycount.com/MipMap

For texture filtering: the larger the angle between your camera plane and the normal of a polygon, the heavier the filtering. The pixels of your map will be recalculated and blendet with the surrounding pixels. If the area surrouding your painted pixels is white, pixels will be blendet with white resulting in these light lines you see there.
For mip maps: The further away you are from the object, the smaller the mip map textures, thus the pixels have to be recalculated. If the area surrouding your painted pixels is white...yeah, you know by know i guess.

In 3dsmax you have the option to change texture filtering and mip map settings. Just go to preferences > viewports > configure driver.
This is how I set these options usually:




Be warned though that this only changes the behaviour in max obviously. Always check your work in the game engine of your choice since things can be handled differently there (i.e. mip map level distances).

Rikimaru03

I tried looking at the shield and guessing what it was before I read anything. I can't tell you want any of those materials are. It looks very nice, color-wise, but I don't know what material the blue or the red is supposed to be. I can tell you the spikes are bone though, so there's that.

The middle doesn't read as leather and the blue doesn't read as metal. I thought it was a stone shield at first.

Iciban

Thanks for the feedbacks guys!

@Rikimaru - For the metal, is it the detail that makes it look like stone? Think the highlights can be more defined and stronger?

Iciban

@some3dguy - hey thanks, I tired changing to your settings, but my texture got all blurry. Had the same settings.

@Jessica - I'll probably make a spec/reflection map on another weapon. For this one just plain diffuse. Want to see how much I can push it. Thanks for the feedback! helped me a lot! =D

Here's the update. Not going to lie, but painting leather is harder than it seems. Anyways I think I'm about done. Added a lot of small details. What do you guys think?

sipher3325

The bone looking things look awesome.

Iciban

@sipher - Thanks!

So what do you guys think? Is there anything else I can fix? If not, I think Ima call this done and move to another weapon.

ivanzu

You can use photo overlays when doing hand painted if you want some detail.

Something like this:
If you find a good photo and modify it you can get great results unfortunately it is not the case in my paintover.