[WIP] Atoq Navarro Fan Art

Jakub

Current stage:





Hello guys, 

As I really like art from Uncharted 4, I've decided to bring a guy from Uncharted 1 and try to get him into the same quality as Nathan(hopefully).

Basing him a little on Luke Evans, but not going for likeness. 

Jakub

Update, quite happy with primary shapes of the face, gonna get into secondary now. 

Jakub

A little before and after for the face secondary shapes

jacopoS

Hey, this looks really great!
Maybe it's just an impression but I get the feeling that the original character had a more squared kind of face. Maybe the jaw is a bit too narrow?
Regardless, looks really good!

Jakub

Thanks @jacopoS

I will take a look on it! 

Some base from MD, I will work a lot on that in Zbrush tho.

Jakub

Also, I often like to check how shapes look like outside of Zbrush with some better lighting.

Jakub

Some work on the TShirt was done today

Ouran

Great start here! My only crit would be to rearrange some of the folds on his shirt so that they don't bunch up pointing to his nipples. Of course it could happen in reality but it isn't the most appealing pattern imo. Something like this for example: http://xpressiontees.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/mens-t-shirt-1.jpg

slosh

Hey Jakub, this looks really nice so far.  I would make his head more ethnic personally.  Right now, it looks pretty caucasian to me.  Atoq is South American so that's a good place to start.  As for the shirt, I agree about the folds striating from the nipples.  You could offset them just a smidge or smooth out the area around the nipples a bit more. 

Jakub

@Ouran @slosh

Thansk guys, I will take a look at things you've mentioned

Jakub

Slight update, added pants and boots ) 

I was wondering guys, does anyone know if its better to add a clothing detail(like the material patterns etc.) to your highpoly or better to get it done in texturing process within Substance Painter ?

slosh

For detail, if you want to you can add it to the highres for fun but I think it's easier to just add it in Substance later.

Jakub

Thanks @slosh

I'm more about the real-time with this piece, so not gonna bother doing that in HP. The TexturingXYZ fabrics look tempting )

slosh

Hey Jakub, I'm just curious why you chose to do Atoq?  He's not the most compelling character design and he was also Naughty Dog's art test for a long time which means there are a lot of Atoqs out there.  Admittedly, myself included.  I would think you could have gone with a more interesting character in their lineup.  Just curious is all...

Jakub

@slosh

Well, to be honest, it was a hard choice. I really like realism and I've always wanted to do something that is quite close to the art from Uncharated 4. I know, that the obvious choice would be to create my own version of Nathan Drake, but I didn't want to spend most of my time staring at Frank Tzeng's Artstation profile and copy everything(i know it would end it like that).

I wanted to challange myself and get one of their characters from previous installments into the current gen. 

I've recently quit my job to focus on my portfolio, so I hope few real-time characters will allow me to put myself on the map somewhere Atoq is going to be the first one(besides the real-time head that I've done previously to see how MT3 works).

slosh

To be honest, I think you would have been better off with either a unique design of your own or a concept no one has done as that would stand out much more and be unique to you.  But, to each his own.  This looks great so I'm not criticizing the artistic quality, just that a more original direction probably would have helped.  Since you do seem to be set on Atoq, what about putting your own twist on him?  Maybe he's injured?  Or older?  Something to change it up a little.

Jakub

@slosh

Thanks for the advice, I will think about making him older, that's wouldn't be bad. Of course, you are also right about making my unique design or other concept. 
I have a lot of concepts lined up for my next character, but to be fair, they are much more "complex". Right now, I wanted to do something that I am more familiar with, as the true challange will come up once I get to low poly stage

I am really happy that you like the artistic quality of that piece, means a lot coming from you!

Jakub

Been a little bored with sculpting lately, so done some work on the head

3x Enviro lighting 
1x regular 3 point

Jakub

Forgot to include, HPHead

jacopoS

Looks really good. I'm looking forward to see him finished!

Asura

Wow this is really solid work!

Jakub

@jacopoS
@Asura
 
Thanks guys

Jakub

Bigger render and added some eyebrows )

Jakub

Played a bit more with lighting and some tones on the face. 

danielgalanty

Nice! Maybe little bit more sss?

FourtyNights

This thread started to look interesting. I agree with danielgalanty, that a bit more SSS would give that nice fleshy look for the skin. Are you going to bake thickness map in Substance Painter as well? Would be interested to see the results of that bake.

I really dig his eyes. Looks convincing at the moment.

But the only criticism is the concavity (triangular fossa) on the branch of the anti-helix, on his ears.
http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2013/02/12/article-0-178A02D3000005DC-849_233x340.jpg

On the image you'll see that the lower branch of the anti-helix is quite narrow and it usually has that slight round dip downwards before it dives under the helix. The upper branch of the anti-helix is a bit wider and its left side is a broad and shallow hill, which fades to the helix. The result is a quite small triangular fossa between them. Other parts/areas on his ears are great though. ^^

I'm also a bit curious of the backside of his ears. I wonder does he have a proper cup formed by the concha of the ear? Because that's where the thickness map comes into play the best.

Of course shapes of ears vary a lot in life, but that's pretty much the golden middle of the road.

Jakub

@danielgalanty
@FourtyNights

Thanks for the input guys, I will take a look at that SSS  

Regarding the ear, thanks for pointing that out. I have a tendency to ignore it, because it might be covered by hair, but I gotta drop that  
That's the back

FourtyNights

Yeah, it's a good "habit" to focus on all areas of anatomy whether or not something is exposed in the final model. Because you'll never know when you have to sculpt ears close to perfect for example, you know. Just because the overall quality of your work with this certain character project is already at high level. So why not making ears to the same level of high quality. Making everything to look awesomely HQ that you can show you can do it, simply impresses your future employers to hire you easier based on your skills.

His backside of ear definitely could use a tad more rounder convexity to mimic the corresponding concavity of concha from the other side.

Jakub

@FourtyNights

Thanks for the input mate, I will certainly work on that  

Meanwhile, done some texturing on the lower park. Now gotta decide whether I want to make a vest like in the concept or maybe leather jacket. 

Jakub

So, I've always wondered why people hate real-time hair, well, now I know )
Still a WIP

Jakub

Hair, yaaay,

Koromo

@Jakub

Feels much better with the added specular in the hair!
But you can try to put an anisotropic reflection without making any maps( if you have all the hair cards uv´ed in the same direction) and/or make another layer in hair, breaking the sides that look kinda flat in the front view.

Also, you can try shadowing in photoshop between strands and highlightning others to try "clumping" them


PS: I´m not sure of the kind of hairstyle you want to achieve.

Jakub

@Koromo

Thanks, I planned to work a bit more on anisotropic reflec.

Good idea about trying to shadow them a bit more, I might actually clump my AO a bit, that should help out. Also, the pic you posted gave me some ideas about how to break them up a bit more, thanks man, that was sth I was aiming for

Koromo

@Jakub

Grab a better reference photo, at least one with more resolution   

- This is what i talked about before, it´s a semi dirty test in photoshop but maybe it´s useful. Shadowed some areas to fakeAo into the plane & enhance specular strands highlighting others.



- In toolbag 3, kinda extreme for easy differentiation :



-A fairly simple setup for the hair shader(ignore the albedo input it was a black flat colour to only show the anisotropic and specular):




Finally, the use of AO for covering areas in the hairplanes is somewhat useful when they belong to the fill layer of hairs or they are close to the head scalp.

I mean the standard ao, the "engine ao" + manual ao work into the texture and some texturing onto the scalp interesting results.
Of course in black hairs there is not so much difference.




*Tip to myself: If i had made the diffuse flat instead of using the xgen alpha generated with depth, the specular map would have been uniform without high and low spec parts derivated from the depth.

Koromo

@Jakub



A gif showing the anisotropic in action with some weird coloured albedo for not leaving the hair completely black.
It´s easy to achieve but steals a good chunk of performance

Jakub

@Koromo

Thanks man, you dropped some huge knowledge bombs here Time to work on the mtl a bit more!

Jakub

an update ) qucik face expression to get the feel, pushed few sliders in photoshop on skin clr.

Jakub

Played with the skin-shading a bit more.

Notte

Good job Jakub Can you tell me your workflow for the skin? Whole painted in Substance?
I can't tell anything about hair I don't like doing them... I wish baldness was in fashion

apllana

Looking pretty good. Not so sure about the thin sharp lines on his forehead though, it should look a bit softer. Good luck!

Jakub

@Notte

The skin is painted from the scratch. Workflow is explained over here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ywhVkZBtq8

@apllana

Thanks, I will take a look at that!