Necromancer Grievous

OldSalty

Hi Polycounters,

I recently started this necromancer version of General Grievous for the CG Plus Star Wars Re-Imagined competition. This is my first thread for a work in progress of mine, but I'm ready to receive your advice and wisdom, I will most likely ask a lot of questions along the way as well. Thanks 

OldSalty

Here is a bit of blocking out I did

OldSalty

And here's some detailing of the head so far

VanLogan

I think you are getting into the small details too quickly. It might be better it you spend more time on the secondary forms first. For example the transition to the teeth is too flat, it should bulge first and then angle down flat where the teeth will insert. Like in this image. Hope it helps 

OldSalty

A bit of an anatomy study today, while sculpting his old man torso.

OldSalty

VanLogan said:

I think you are getting into the small details too quickly. It might be better it you spend more time on the secondary forms first. For example the transition to the teeth is too flat, it should bulge first and then angle down flat where the teeth will insert. Like in this image. Hope it helps 

Hi Van you are quite right about that. But my intention their was to try and make some of the most recognizable traits of the original character as visible as possible. hence the odd shape of the skull.
 

I will try to make more sense of the anatomy of the skull though. thanks

OldSalty

Making some progress, slowly but surely. I've detailed the hands and arms, now I'm working on the clothing aspects. This is a bit of a difficult area for me. I think I might do most of the detail on the cape in substance painter. I'm kind of struggling with working out what the cape should be and where I can get reference for it.

WadeWT

Hey, nice progress on this.  I'm not sure about the ear though, it looks kind of out of place on his head.  Maybe something like this would look better?  

Mr.Moose

Really cool idea! Keep up the awesome work

Maxilator

Looks pretty good, though those arms seems super short to me.

JamesMeader

I'm liking where this is going, keep it up!

OldSalty

WadeWT said:

Hey, nice progress on this.  I'm not sure about the ear though, it looks kind of out of place on his head.  Maybe something like this would look better?  

Thanks Wade. You could be right, and it will be easier for retopo. I might to two versions and see how it goes. 

OldSalty

Maxilator said:

Looks pretty good, though those arms seems super short to me.

Thanks, yeah I might pull them out a bit.

OldSalty

Mr.Moose said:

Really cool idea! Keep up the awesome work

Thanks bud.

OldSalty

JamesMeader said:

I'm liking where this is going, keep it up!

Cheers mate.

OldSalty

Small update, just working on some of the clothing. Trying to keep it simple. 

OldSalty

Getting there, I made the body belt into a holster for some fantasy/medieval style light sabers that I've decided I will also make. But before that I just have the boots to go and then one last detail pass and checking over before I get ready for re-topo and UV's yay.

CandyStripes05

looks good, but for whatever reason the arms look off to me... not sure if it's the length or lack of appeal that make them look unfinished but my eyes get hung up on them : /

OldSalty

Been doing some feet work today. I have decided I will do a bit more to the arms to add some appeal after a few people have given the same feedback. Need to really get moving faster now, since I think I will try to put a small scene together for the final render.



 

OldSalty

Tried to add some more appeal to the arms, I will probably mirror the handcuff across at a later point. The modeling is done with Zmodeler and the chain mail is a quick nano mesh job, I might have to redo as a texture for a low poly mesh. Hope I'm not running out of time  







 

samifira

Those gauntlets made my heart skip a beat.

SmilingMountain

This looks like a great start! I have to second the point about the arms. IMO the torso should be more skeletal, to fit with the arms and be more recognizable as Grevious. The fact that his torso is quite meaty just doesn't fit with the skeletal arms. You could make his torso really thin and emaciated and that might fit better. Also I think you could make his posture a little more hunched over to make the character read more as Grevious. It looks at the moment like he's about 7 and a half heads tall (correct me if I'm wrong), IMO this character could be anything up to ten heads tall to make him look really imposing, but that's just personal preference. I think you've pretty much nailed the face and the gauntlet came out nicely. Looking forward to seeing how this develops.

OldSalty

I played around with the abdominal to make him a bit skinnier and to make the rib cage stand out a little more. I stored a morph target of the original size then I moved is gut inwards to make him skinny and then played with the morph settings to find a happy medium. Thanks for the feedback

Mr. Darko

The film version of General Grievous has a bit of a taper to his upper arms that make his long, thin arms flow with his torso.

I think you should do two things: One, make the arms a bit longer (they just need some pulling out, nothing too fancy), and add some tapering from the shoulders from flesh. The idea is that the shoulders themselves are still fleshy and have muscle, but it gradually thins out to the elbow or just above the elbow, transitioning to bare bone. I think those steps would both improve the flow of the model and match the silhouette of the original character better.

SmilingMountain

Looking good! I second making the arms longer or maybe giving them some more mass in general. Hope you don't mind, i did a (really shitty) paintover to show you some proportional changes I would make, a lot of it is personal preference, but you get the general idea.

Brian "Panda" Choi

plus one to the adjustments.  That proportionally feels much better to me as a character.  More menace, more towering.  More Grievous, a la Clone Wars.

OldSalty

Hey guys, thanks heaps for the feedback. Unfortunately I didn't have time to start going back and making large changes, but I definitely understand what  you are saying and I know next time I work on a project I will put more time into the concept etc.

Here's after getting through all the baking and UV's in substance painter with color id's:

OctoKube

SmilingMountain said:

Looking good! I second making the arms longer or maybe giving them some more mass in general. Hope you don't mind, i did a (really shitty) paintover to show you some proportional changes I would make, a lot of it is personal preference, but you get the general idea.

I would have followed his advice

OldSalty

I managed to get through the texturing with some time to spare, which means I might be able to rig and pose him and do an idle animation or something for sketch fab.






I'm also still deciding on what the pedestal should be, here's two versions.

OldSalty

I managed to finish on time, here's some of the marmoset renders

OctoKube

congrats on a strong finish, I like the mood of the final renders.

OldSalty

OctoKube said:

congrats on a strong finish, I like the mood of the final renders.

Thanks mate.