Lizard Guy

Painreliever

Well I wanted to share this and see what everyone thinks before I put some more love into it. I am basically going for a Raptor like dinosaur/lizard with human arms and some armor. I am mainly thinking of him as a UT2004 character.

Basically do you see anything that could use tweaking or glaring problems? Besides fixing his chin horn, I was considering adding some more detail to his face, possibly even an inner mouth and some more armor pieces or equipment. What do you all think? More complex or simple?

Zergxes

He could use some definition all over. Try to get more character out of the face, too. IMO.

Zergxes

Quad mesh may be a bit dense already. What is your current P count? I think you can get more details with the geometry you have now. If you are in Maya, I'd go ahead and convert to tris and keep working.

Wells

give him a unicycle for his front arms so he doesn't fall over.

seriously, though, his posture looks painful and not sure how he'd run around with a gun.

his face is too friendly, i'd go ahead and make it a bit narrower, see if that doesn't help.

i'm with zergxes, your mesh looks a bit dense for the form you have. you could probably get better definition with fewer polys by adjusting the edge-loops so they follow the contour of the muscles, instead of keeping them all perpendicular to each other.

good start, though.

Painreliever

Alright I am going back now and trying to add more definition and make what I got work better. In the pics above I was at 2675 polys but I have already cut that down a bit.

I know he looks awkward in his pose right now, I still have some proportioning to do, but I kinda had the idea that when he stops he would rest similar to a gorilla, or if holding a gun would put one hand on the ground. I will probably end up making his hands disproportionately large. If I get a chance I will try to scan in my crappy concept art. I'll post some new pics when I get through adding more definition.

Thanks for the crits! Keep em coming!

Wells

ah, i was actually thinking that it'd be cool to scale his arms up and have him lurch around like that. might want to give him a slightly longer torso if thats the case, though.

Painreliever

Okay here is a shot of the progress I have made. I have tried to get more personality in the face, more definition across all the muscles and done some small tweaks to proportion. The arms and tail are a little longer. I just wanted to show the changes in this pic and see if there are any more suggestions before I post full views again. He is weighing in at 2643 polys right now.

What do you think? Better?

poopinmymouth

some of the smoothing groups look cool on his face, but I think you might be going overboard with them. Its not really helping the model as much as its making it all seem really disjointed. Looking cool though, I want to see him textured.

adam

I don't particularily like the stance you have him in. He's really front heavy and would fall on his face if he stood around like that.

Also, the smoothing group on his chest is weird. Unless it's going to be armour or something it seems to be a little sharp with the edge running from peck to peck. I really like what you did with his knees and can see him being even more cool looking once he's skinned.

Painreliever

Adam: The model is front heavy. I tried to thicken the tail and lengthen it to help balance it out and you can't see that so much in the picture, but having said that I intended the character to use his arms, or an arm, as support when he stops. If he is not holding a weapon he would be in a stance similar to a gorilla. The smoothing group on his chest is sharp because he is wearing an armor chestpiece that extends over the pectorials short of the abs, to the shoulders and to the small of the back.

Poop: When using smoothing groups to make details more evident, how do you decide which area should have hard edges or not? I realize that some of the details I have shown in the model probably shouldn't have hard edges and the details can be brought out just fine by using a texture. I think I am just using the smoothing groups at this point to help people get an impression of what I am going for in the end. The smoothing groups and edges you see that are hard are mainly to help differentiate parts of the model that might get lost in a non wireframe shaded render. I am not a specialist in rendering and certainly not in texturing. I know I am very slow getting textures done because I pay too much attention to detail. I would love to get this skinned and animated so that people can see my intent with the model, but I want this to be a quality piece, so I would like to learn what I am doing wrong and what I should be doing so I can get better.

Thanks for the input guys, please keep it coming.

Painreliever

Well here's a shot of what I have done with the head texture so far. I am not the best texture person and texturing tends to take me a long time so I thought I would show what I have now. I will post more pics when I get the head all done. I will probably try to add more texture detail after I get all the scaling done.
Crits appreciated. Thanks!

Painreliever

Well the slowest texture person in the world finished the head. What do you think? Any crits?

Here's the latest:

adam

Been watching this thread for sometime and was going to save my C&C for the texture as I think the model looks fine. Any crit I had on it had already been said.

What direction are you trying to go with this guy? A more cartoony look or something realistic looking? I think you're on track for that cartoony look and its lookin' really good. I especially like him with the variations on his scales. Up where his temple would be, and ears if he had them, it seems a little unfinished but I'm sure you'll change that when you get to it.

If you're going for a more "real" look (which I'm sure you're not as I don't know any gators with gotees) I'd use warmer colours and dirty him up a bit as alligators usually look a little 'dusty'.

ElysiumGX

The mesh is excellent. I believe the texture could use more variations in the scales. He's beginning to look more like a couch than a reptile. Perhaps angle the squares differently so they're not so parellel. The texture under his mouth looks great. The larger scales should blend easily with them.