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naruSol
polycounter lvl 18
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naruSol polycounter lvl 18
As is often the case with things of import, no one quite knew where The Gavol came from. But the force of his will was felt through all of Gethesa as he struck Toraq without warning, followed by the rusting and derelict battle-drones he lovingly called his children with a gleam in the dark sockets of his rotten skull.

For eighteen weeks he cut a swathe through the country, prefectures fell before him and it seemed no wall could hold his progeny back from their mindless rampage through the country. He made no demands, asked nothing of his victims and heard none of their pleas for mercy. By the end of winter, over a quarter of the population of Toraq was dead or dying, their homes in ruins.

But though they seemed invincible, his children fell aswell, though not for all the effort of the Imperial forces, they simply stopped. One by one, untill The Gavol was left standing all but alone against the forces of the Empire. One remaining minion at his side, a drone alike in all ways to those tracing his path through Toraq.

Only then, with his unstoppable force now decorating the ruins of Toraq in all their rusted glory like iron gargoyles, did he simply. . . stop.

As quickly as he appeared to carry out whatever it was he meant to accomplish, he was gone, apparently into the black of space. The remnants of his force were gathered and studied to no avail. It was technology they did not understand, they could not comprehend. And so over a hundred generations The Gavol became myth, a legend, The bogeyman of the Tori children. Coming perhaps to take them away to his steel castle in the stars should they disobey their parents. But he never returned.

A hundred generations later, as Gethesa sits in ruins from the war, rumors surface of The Gavol, standing watch over a new generation of his children. Allied with rebels of the new alliance and come once more to what once was Toraq to finish his work.

Basic bullshit mysterious villain story to help me brainstorm ideas. I've come up with a few sketches so far of what I have in mind for him:
consketch1.jpg

The porthole looking thing will be a window into a sort of bacta tank where a skull sits suspended and connected by wired and tubes and such. We can assume the skull contains a brain of some sort which runs the rest of him.

The idea is he is a remnant and likely sole survivor of a much older civilization and beleives the planet is his to claim for himself and his children. He fights only because they have promised him this world to do with as he wishes once they control the rest of the colonized worlds.

The drones that follow with him are connected to him in a sort of hive mind. He had to build new ones as the originals were less resiliant than himself and after untold generations they simply weren't up to the task. The new ones are a hybrid of ancient and 'modern' technology and thus not quite as strong as the originals in their prime but still a force to be recconed with.

Im not sure if Ill model any of the drones in addition to him, I was thinking of making them modular so some could actually be attached to him in some way. (they are rather small in comparison to him, though larger than a human)

Anyways, Its unlikely I'll be able to turn in a finished product for the competition unless I can find someone to texture him for me, but Im going to do the model and see what happens.

gauss has graciously agreed to do a once-over on the concept when he gets done with the rest of his list of requests, so Ill keep drawing so he'll have some good fuel to work with hopefully.

Replies

  • gauss
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    gauss polycounter lvl 18
    if you can get all that fluff or yours to show in the finished model then you'll be in great shape smile.gif i really dig on the action shot, like i said in #md it establishes the guy's massive scales as well as shows that he's a scary dude. looks like a strong silhouette and should translate well to the final version. keep crankin'!
  • HonkyPunch
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    HonkyPunch polycounter lvl 18
    Fucking Awesome.
  • rooster
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    rooster mod
    love the legs man, strong start smile.gif
  • naruSol
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    naruSol polycounter lvl 18
    Playing around with ideas for the skull inside the 'porthole'

    skullz0r.jpg
  • Snowfly
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    Snowfly polycounter lvl 18
    great look on the scuba suit! the porthole bit looks like itll be an interesting highlight. go go go
  • ScoobyDoofus
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    ScoobyDoofus polycounter lvl 19
    I dont think your design is selling the "powerful ancient technology" bit from the story. I think the little head in a vat thing is classic & lots of fun. However, it'll be hard to see. Go for a bigger more flash-gordon style vat with more exposure for the head, and it'll gain more expressivness as a character I think.

    The rear legs look really weak & ineffective. Beef them up. more powerful, more deadly. The antennae you've got are interesting, but you need to just PUSH this design a little further. Its a bit bland at the moment for me.
  • dur23
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    dur23 polycounter lvl 19
    Damn naru thats some deep thought;)
    Can't wait to see this done.
  • gauss
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    gauss polycounter lvl 18
    honestly i wonder if you need any of my help on this one naru. the design is pretty damn sound; what you need to do next is firm it up with some better linework. what would be really cool is if you made a new layer over your current drawings and then did a good strong black line drawing to crystallize the details and proportions, and then maybe just a very simple tone fill... like the recently much regarded Paul Richards practices: http://www.autodestruct.com/concept.htm
    yeah he makes it look easy, and dont punish yourself into getting line quality as sharp as his, but that style of concept presentation is as clear and readable as it is attractive. your pics are just too tentative--but they're good, so don't be shy! smile.gif
  • naruSol
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    naruSol polycounter lvl 18
    Updated the picture at the top, wanted to try to polish the sketches and see how the lines worked before attmepting a 2nd pass on the concept. Probably wont change much, but I do intend to give him hands at some point.
  • poopinmymouth
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    poopinmymouth polycounter lvl 19
    [ QUOTE ]
    consketch1.jpg


    [/ QUOTE ]

    I really like this update more than the first. It's more solid. I think you should push the dynamic of his post and his manerisms. He is coming across as a bit stiff, but I can see loads of potential coolness factor sitting under the surface. You just need to spend some more time polishing. I'd say start a new sketch really trying to capture dynamic positions of him, which will most likely help you infuse a few new design elements to really push him to completion on the concept front.

    All in all I think it's coming along nicely.

    poop.gif
  • naruSol
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    naruSol polycounter lvl 18
    Okay, I lied, I'm not feeling the lineart groove, so I tried out some color tests and an idea that perhaps his hands are made out of some sort of amorphous energy/liquid which is simmilar to the 'soup' that keeps his brain alive and also powers his robotic body. Heres my favorite color scheme so far:

    (Edit: See below for color scheme, trying to save bandwidth)
  • gauss
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    gauss polycounter lvl 18
    narusol is dragged kicking and screaming into the land of the solid black line! still a little less confident than you ought to be with your lines, but that just comes with time, can't force it. the updated concept does indeed look very nice. like poop says, keep sketching this guy and you'll resolve the areas that are still need firming up like the hands. good work.
  • Wells
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    Wells polycounter lvl 18
    This might be my favorite concept yet for this competition.

    Friggan love it.
  • naruSol
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    naruSol polycounter lvl 18
    Playing with ideas for the hand, the energy thingie on the color test inspired this thought:

    handtest.jpg

    The hand is robotic, and this sort of organic soup/liquid energy flows out and surrounds it. Its controlled by the 'person' inside who used to be organic, so the hand takes on a more organic appearance with the skeletal robotic hand seen through it faintly. It can also do other stuff, but Im still consdering just how much I want to weaponize it, and how powerful it should be. At the very least it'll probably form a big long spike that can pass through their body and basically burn them from the inside out. . . maybe a projectile, but that seems somewhat below him. However, he has to be able to fight somehow, even if he isnt leading the charge.

    The model would have both the robotic and 'organic' hand modeled and Ill use a semi-transparant energyish texture on the more organic hand (if I have time I might try some sort of animation for it) and hopefully particles if I can figure them out. . . then again I'm not very experienced at texture work, so it always leaves me the 'out' of just doing the robotic hand texture.

    (Updated with the hand attached to show scale. And yes, I know the energized hand has one less finger. . . I added the pinky after I attached it cause it just didnt look right as it was.)
  • Jhotun
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    Jhotun polycounter lvl 18
    I really like this one, but for some reason it keep hammering in my mind that is similar to something i have seen before. Maybe too much coffee...

    Excellent work man! keep it up! Those hands are really going to kick ass!
  • Belltann
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    Belltann polycounter lvl 17
    Youw got the saying "Less is more", spot on. smile.gif
    It gives me a malicious feeling...and thats good. :
  • snemmy
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    snemmy polycounter lvl 18
    looking great so far. the skinny waist and rounded head/shoulder combo remind of the first angel to appear in Evangelion. that's not a bad thing, gives it a bit more association with single mindedness to dominate the opposition.

    the skull in the portal is great but i think it will get a bit lost at a distance. you might want to play with the size a little.

    and let's see more of those back legs!! tongue.gif
  • naruSol
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    naruSol polycounter lvl 18
    [ QUOTE ]
    I really like this one, but for some reason it keep hammering in my mind that is similar to something i have seen before. Maybe too much coffee...


    [/ QUOTE ]
    I had a simmilar inkling earlier when I was doing the color test, but I couldn't quite place it. Im quite fond of it though, so I dont think I'll be starting over because of an inkling. =)
  • naruSol
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    naruSol polycounter lvl 18
    Ive been having problems finalizing the design for the legs, but I wanted to get into modeller and get back into the flow of things, so I built the skull this morning after a few false starts. I kept it rather low poly considering it will be pretty well obscured in there.

    Hopefully finalize the design by friday and start on the main model when I get back from wonder-con this weekend.

    skullzor.jpg
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