Ciri Overwatch/Witcher Mashup
polycounter
<< Finished >>
######################################
Hey everyone!
Here is my new personal project, Ciri in the Overwatch universe/art style.
This feels like a big challenge for me because I 'm not using someone else's concept, but I really like the idea and gonna push through!
So I'll take any help I can get especially now in the design phase, I'm open to throw away anything that doesn't work.
Trying out the High poly render style as well.
######################################
Hey everyone!
Here is my new personal project, Ciri in the Overwatch universe/art style.
This feels like a big challenge for me because I 'm not using someone else's concept, but I really like the idea and gonna push through!
So I'll take any help I can get especially now in the design phase, I'm open to throw away anything that doesn't work.
Trying out the High poly render style as well.
Replies
She's looking awesome and I can't wait to see her low poly with textures! Keep up the great work, @AgelosAp!
@Nuclear Angel @dGreenberg , Thanks for the feedback guys, I had copied Mercy's boots because I didn't know what I was going to go with, since overall the boots in OW are very scifi and "armory" and Ciri's felt like wouldn't fit. But after your suggestion I think I'm gonna try out something closer to Ciri's original boots, very rough right now but you get the idea! Will try to mess with the shoulder height as well next.
I also changed up the girdle as the original square pieces felt too medieval, I'm trying out something similar to Tracer's gear since Ciri has a blink ability she could have a device as well(?).
And another HP render attempt closer to OW original style.
My god make a figure out of it ! Please !
@Polygons-Pusher Thanks haha, I think I might be getting a couple of lawsuits if I sold a figure of this
@karytsukino Thanks Karina, hope I can finish this all the way to textures, been a fan of your work as well btw!
Update- Polishing all around, did the boots through 3ds max, and started experimenting with weapons.
I did the original sword with a few edits to fit the OW style, but I might give a try towards a different way with guns, or daggers(?)
Tried a few things for weapons, didn't like anything much and it seems that deviating from Ciri's sword might be confusing in the end. So worked more on it to hopefully push it more towards OW style.
ps: I liked the infinity symbol guns idea so I'm posting it here, instead of forever forgetting and throwing it away!
Other than that did some more polishing, removed the small symbols from the hands, and detailed the hair.
Probably going to call it for the high poly at least for now, and start retopoing.
Pretty nice work, I'm curious to see how it turns out.
@GreyJke Thank you, didn't know anything about lore to be honest I just copied the one from the game. Swallow you mean the bird?
@Lord Fryingpan haha, thanks man, maybe I'll name the artstation project :P
@Maxilator That's a great point, I think since I removed the wrinkles and the little symbol there it's a little clunky and simple, I redid some wrinkles now before baking.
Just about starting to bake now, done with unwrapping! Aiming for around 30k tris + 6k for the sword.
First texturing update, anisotropic hair just doesn't come out as good as blizzard's (it's not aniso here) if anyone has an insight to it please share!
The stomach device thing still feels weird, I might swap it if I find something better.
the RGB map near the end that just has R and G channel, I think is the flow map for her hair. We have a similar set up at my job, though its for realistic looking hair. normal, spec, flow, ao, albedo.
@Tectonic thanks, I've gone through that article a lot but they probably got a custom shader as well, or so I'd like to believe so it's not that I just can't figure it out!
@lotet Thanks man, appreciate it!
@GreatPersia thanks, I know the balance between detail and clean areas in OW is delicate, I've added some in this iteration might add a bit more before finishing.
Another Update for a more polished texture, and trying out the anisotropic hair here, it's so shiny and a bit all over the place, hopefully I'll find a way to balance it!
1. Silhouette
As far as anatomy goes, you hit nice more or less realistic proportions. However, Overwatch characters, being designed with Disney style in mind, have a more exagerrated figure. Females have a more hourglass shaped figure, heroic males have large hulking shoulders and overall heavier than usual upper bodies. All the characters have really skinny ankles that play into nice contrasted silhouette.
It's always nice to add clarity into silhouette, make it more distinguished, more readable. It is generally considered about 70% of all visual information and having unclear silhouette may be fatal for the whoe design.
Take a look how Blizzard artists break up straight and even lines with various garment elements.
Looking at Ciri on the left, first of all, her overall figure might be pushed a little further in terms of proportions. Slightly bigger thighs and butt, slender waist. This is especially visible when you set the official renders side by side with your renders or overlay them in photoshop.
You don't have to make the breasts bigger, this is a little overplayed really, so the chest area can be made visibly bigger with some fold trickery.
Plus, there are some missed opportunities for silhouette break up.
- Where shirt is tucked into the corsete. Witcher model of Ciri has her shirt a little looser than it is shown here. This could be utilized to add a little visible fold in this area when stylizing the garment. Also, lowering the corsete a little bit may allow for a better mass distribution of a shirt. On the left render it seems too restrained, like it needs a little more space. This creates an illusion of a smaller ribcage and smaller chest region overall.
- Leather corsete, leather gloves and boots all are a little smooth. Actually, boots have really cool shapes around knees. This is a good example of a detail that serves the purpose of breaking up sikhouette. It's a major detail, not all of the details have to be this significant, but some minor folds are very needed in areas where they would appear on a real garment. Even if it's a stylized model, we still need to adhere to certain rules of physicality and material behaviour. So there would be folds around the waist, around straps, belts and areas of tension and folding like groin, elbows and back of the knee.
Bell shape of the leather corsete can be exagerrated a bit to help accentuate the layered structure of the garment. Areas like wrists and ankles need to be thinner than usual, especially with Ciri, who is overall rather small and delicate in physique.
2. Color.
Almost all of the colors that you use right now are essentially the same color with different value.
This makes the texture look very monotonous and rather plain.
To combat that, simply add variation. Sensible variety is one of the main principles of successful game art. To be honest, the original Witcher character has very nice color scheme, you could just adhere to that and it'll look great!
3. Rhythm
The main problem with rhythm right now is that the character is way too monotonous at the moment. All of the elements are essentially parallel to each other and very uniform.
Here are some examples of elements breaking up the monotony of the forms.
There are no strict guideline as to what to do with the rhythm. You mostly gotta go with what feels right.
You can do different things like vary size of the folds. Smaller on the elbow, one larger above the leather bicep strap, you can skew the belt a little, or add some angled wrinkles at the waistline. Maybe adding some very slightly visible wrinkles on the pants could help as well. This is something you need to experiment with and get a feel for.
I guess that's what i got for now. If you decide to go back and fix the high/lowpoly, I'd hold off my advice on the textures.
If you decide to keep going with this version of the mesh i could write up some stuff soon.
Hope this helps
that said, I liked svartbern's colour suggestions.
Huge thanks to @Svartberg for his feedback, I hope I took most of it and applied it well!
I did a round of changes on the device/buckles in hopes that they have a more unified design now.
Ended up not doing folds on her ribcage or arms as nothing felt natural and seemed cluttered.
Gonna do a bit of cleanup and start rebaking soon now!
Once more thanks to @Svartberg for his feedback, it took a while to go back and redo things in the high poly but I think it was a hefty improvement.
https://www.artstation.com/artwork/N6mwD
Thanks everyone for viewing, and feedback is still very welcome!
model
@huroshal Yup it's just straight up substance painter, with pretty simple materials. I think I only used a smart material on the leather corset and went in and reduced the wear.
That's a nice project, congrats on finishing it!
I really like the pose and hair/face work, though her chin looks a bit forward.
Here is a bit of feedback I think could help improve the project:
The textures/materials look flat in general and lack what makes Overwatch textures popping: gradients and grunge maps. Especially your leather currently look like metal because of the way you treated edgewear and the color of it. The edgewear should be a warmer yellow/light brown color and you should have handpainted the edgwear or at least used a base with your cavity, putting the dirt/grunge setting in your substance mask at 0.
I could go nitpicky and find other little things, but to me, the textures are what keeps your project from good to very good.
Here is a very quick paintover to illustrate what I meant, I hope you don't mind
I hope it helps, anyway good job on it overall, cheers!
Sorry I didn't see the thread earlier man! Anyway it's nice, looking forward to see your next project!
i've been playing overwatch ever since it launched and you almost completely got it right
i would actually love to know how you guys texture stylized characters . is it still all ( mostly ) hand painted ? using smudge and blend tools ?