Zobicide Game Character, inspired by Karl Kopinski concept

NinjaSocks

Hi everyone I started a new project and the idea is to use this piece to really show off some anatomy skills in my characters portfolio. I've been doing tons of research and this is where i'm at right now. I'm going to start work on some hard surface assets before I actually fuse together all the muscles and smooth stuff out a bit (so it made sense t get your opinions in the mean time). I know that I need to fix the area underneath his pecks but I would like to get some feedback on what is messed up first




 

Brian "Panda" Choi

First question:

Are you trying to make this realistic or stylized?

NinjaSocks

@Brian "Panda" Choi It's gonna be stylised.

Brian "Panda" Choi

The profile silhouette of the abdominals as it goes to the mon pubis slants inwards way too  much.  You'll notice with even fit individuals, there's a bit of paunch that happens before it dips into the pelvis area.  Yours feels like the individual is sucking in his penis, and it looks off.

NinjaSocks

@Brian "Panda" Choi Thanks, good point I didn't realise until you mentioned it... I'll update and post to see if I got it right let me know if anything else jumps at you! its a huge help

NinjaSocks

Ok so as I mentioned before I kept working on other stuff for this character and then I'll go back to tweaking the anatomy later. This project is basically to tackle four areas which I felt I needed to improve on (anatomy, clothing, hard surface and ability to work beyond reference art). At this stage I have clothing which is waiting for details such as buttons, zippers, stitching and some enhancement of folds. I have hard surface stuff blocked out and have started building some level of detail on the sneakers and shoulders. I feel like I'm better aquatinted with marvellous designer now and i've also figured out some good ways of building hard surface bits more efficiently with a more polished result. I know the topic is titled anatomy critique but would love to hear some of your comments regarding everything else which you think is worth looking into




Below are some images I keep looking at while working just to give you an idea of my train of thought. Also I've decided that this would be the only piece in my portfolio which devs away from reference art as I think it's a bit dangerous to not show an ability to keep closely to concept art...

NinjaSocks

Some more updates

Nuclear Angel

The hard surface stuff looks great! And I like the style of your rendering! 

But some feedback on the model. The proportions look a bit short. He seems to be a head to short, his calves and torso could both need an extra half a head. 
The legs are quite busy right now. Id say remove the numbers of folds to find more areas where the model is not so noisy in my opinion. Especially if you want to go for stylized you should only emphasize the important folds. 
Also what are those things hanging around him? Id consider removing them as they do not add anything interesting to his silhouette right now and I can not understand what they are or what they are for. 

NinjaSocks

@Nuclear Angel Hey thanks for your input! it means a lot to me I get what you're suggesting with finding less busy areas on the model. It's something which I struggled with on this one.. it felt like a constant struggle of deciding how much detail to add as I was aiming for something on the same level as this example here. As for the head count in regards to proportion I re examined the latest render and your comments make sense, the thing is when I look at the model without assets (first image of this thread) the head count adds up to roughly 7.5 heads which makes sense to me when considering that the proportions vary especially when going for a sort of stylised look right? I'm thinking that the helmet makes his head look bigger and then the head count looks off when you examine the latest render.. I looked at the reference and a couple of pictures of people wearing helmets and It looks like the effect is similar to what i'm getting with this model (although mine is more evident since the helmet has exaggerated features). Still not sure of what to decide on for this problem... Lastly the main concern I've been having and the one which you pointed out is the draped canvas around his legs. I think I will render both versions and decide in the end if i should remove them since they are meant to look translucent which will make them less in your face (even though i think I will probably remove them). I thought it would be cool to have them detach from the front as the character is flying (since in the final pose he will be levitating). At the same time they would serve as team colour indicators to easily figure out which side he belongs to. Could I ask what you look for in a character silhouette? This is something which I've read up on and figured it's important to create strong shapes which define a character from the rest of the players and looks balanced at the same time. 

Once again thanks for your constructive feedback it really helps me confirm certain points!

NinjaSocks

I went back and made some changes to the anatomy based on some helpful tips I got from polycount feedback. I also went ahead and smoothed everything out. Always trying to improve so cc is welcome

NinjaSocks

Took this one through retopo and texturing. Had some fun with new lighting techniques in marmoset, let me know what you think and what to improve upon for my next projects. Your input is very useful to me! Check out the rest of the project over on my portfolio page.