Elemental - Sectaurs - Air

Wells

Yay. more time. here's where i'm at now.

front:



back:



perspective:


the good folks at cgchat have pointed out that his ass is too meaty, so i'll be revisiting that.

snemmy

sweet model. love the wings. heh, that's a lot of alpha mapped feathers. yikes. i think the eyes add a lot of character to it that was missing before. gives it a real omnious appearence.

but aren't the feathers at the tips of wings supposed to be long than all the others?

Steakhouse

Are the colors on the wings there to help you tell the feathers apart? I somehow didnt really envision this guy having a lot of color, let alone warm tones.

Wells

oh, yes, i should have mentioned that. colors are strictly to keep me from going insane.

snemmy: i thought so, but the high-poly version of these wings (which i based the alpha map on) was made over a picture of a real wing. so at least i know it matches one wing in the world.

yep, lot of alpha planes, all tilted to over-lap correctly. that was fun... each wing is only 268 tris, i think.

Steakhouse

Wouldn't it have been easier to make some of the wings, specially the layered sets a set of alphaed planes?

Wells

easier? most definately. but i don't know how that would look when the wings were animated. this way the bigger feathers can all slide over each other pseudo-realistically allowing him to fold his wings more believably.

Steakhouse

I wasnt aware that animation was part of the contest requirement, that does change things.

Illusions

[ QUOTE ]
I wasnt aware that animation was part of the contest requirement, that does change things.

[/ QUOTE ]

I don't believe it is...

Wells

no, it isn't. but it seems good practice to make character models animatable.

Thermidor

I second that ... i still love the wings ... maybe just shape the ass out a little ? instead of thinning it ...

great stuff ..

Wells

well, i started laying down some colors. ass-tweaking should just be a matter of pulling some verts, so i'll do that a bit later.

i like the green, but i doubt i'll be keeping it as i'm not sure how 'air' it is.

extremely early WIP:

Steakhouse

Sectaurs' Model was a Bullfrog!
(sung to the tune of Jeremiah was a Bullfrog)

Asherr

seems to me that the wings should be about twice that size. doesnt look like it could fly with wings that small.

Wells

small texture update. new colors.


i'll see how the wings look scaled up a bit, but he's not composed exactly as a human is, the elemental nature of air with which he is infused allows him to be deceptively light despite great strength and agility. or something. plus, he saves a lot of weight by having atrophied legs.

Kayamate

more and more i look at it, this character some how reminds me of the Mass Production model from Neon Genesis Evangelion. If your still up in the "air" about where to go with the texturing, I think it might look cool if you made it more futuristic rather that natural or ancient looking. Maybe like semi armorish/tech/uniform.

Kayamate

o yeh, an i like how the eyes turned out, defanatly more chracter

Wells

not sure if futuristic is allowed in this particular comp, but after googling some images, there is a resemblence, yeah. fine by me, thats a pretty cool looking model (the mass production).

anyhow, one day left, working away. here's a small update.

Illusions

Looking good...skin shading and coloring and all...

can't wait to see the finished product

snemmy

very cool. love how the white front adds a glowing effect.

Wells

got normal maps working, even if what i have on isn't very good. will work on that now that i know i can utilize it.

also playing around with the self-illumination map.

LtEthe

That's starting to look hot! I really like how you're shaping this one up Sectaurs.

Steakhouse

Looking pretty sharp. Something fresh each time I look at this thread. Now for the crit.

I think he needs a few more dense patches of the splotches, semi irregular shapes like those around the eyes, to help give the various sides of him a bit more punch. Currently he seems to have the light sided belly and dark sided back, similar to amphibians and sea life. You could play this up further by haveing the eye lines ride the spine a bit longer and flare out to consume the area around the wings, as well as the base of the wing itself. Also a patch on the shoulder would help put some quiet strength there as well.

He really needs some color on the legs too, maybe have the green come down it a ways; it doesnt have to cover the entire thing. Also maybe a darkening of the green color around the knee and elbows? Human joint edges usualy have a redness to them to imply heavy use, the same could work here on this guy.

The Normal map is coming along very nicely. It's really adding some interesting detail to his fishy underbelly. Keep it rocking man!

Wells

thanks for the kind words, steakhouse i took your suggestion and changed the pattern on his back. you can't see it, but i did, honest

one last update, i'll post my final thread tomorrow when i get up.

Steakhouse

Cool glad to have helped.

Illusions

Can't wait to see this completed Sectaurs, I'm really enjoying the blend between a sort of amphibious skin and bird feathers

NVM...lol this is what I get for checking here before checking the submission thread...looks bloody ace Sec