Frog from Chrono Trigger Redux
polycounter lvl 8
NECRO'D!
Current Progress
So i signed up for the Game Characters with ZBrush class over at cgsociety, taught by Jon Rush. The assignment for the class is to take a retro game character and bring that character to the current gen. I picked Frog because he's a cool character and i wanted to do something that hasn't already been done like Mario or Samus.
The first one is a shot of Frog from the animated cutscenes and second is just the concept and his block in.
Current Progress
So i signed up for the Game Characters with ZBrush class over at cgsociety, taught by Jon Rush. The assignment for the class is to take a retro game character and bring that character to the current gen. I picked Frog because he's a cool character and i wanted to do something that hasn't already been done like Mario or Samus.
The first one is a shot of Frog from the animated cutscenes and second is just the concept and his block in.
Replies
Looks like a good start so far. Looks like your concept is a little off from the screenshot of him. You may be changing it up a bit on purpose, but if you aren't there are some noticeable differences in clothing, and you made him a little too chesty/buff.
Your Zbrush grab looks pretty spot on to the concept. Your feet seem a little small (not sure if its from the Zbrush perspective) and your hands are definitely too small. Your fingers are the size of one finger joint in the concept.
Yeah, i wanted to update the original and kind of put my own spin on him. So the proportions being off is on purpose
I dig the whiskers, but it gives a sort of cat-fish style feel to it (in my opinion). Even though the original ref has whiskers, I would still tone them down a bit.
I would also like to see some leather straps holding onto the armor at some point.
I love the form and how it's all coming together though.
Now get back to work!
And Andrew just said almost exactly what I was going to say; tone down the whiskers just a bit. Maybe make them less wide and a little longer. At the moment they seem to stick out a bit too much and almost read as weird extensions of skin rather than whiskers.
Other than than, awesome work so far! Keep at it!
I've been learning 3ds max along the way so that's why there is a lack of updating. Armor shall be coming soon.
uneditablepoly - Thanks! and yes, the whiskers bother me as well. the original character has them, but wondering if i might just cut them out all together. I'll play with the size a little more
Been trying to keep on track, lost some time for the holiday. But here's where I'm at as of right now.
Here's a block in of the armor, most is just place holders. Not too sure how to tackle the traveler's cloak he's wearing.
Update of head sculpt. Getting to the point of adding in all the fine detail and such
The position of the head is the dilemma I'm at right now. The top set is how it's been.
I'm loving the concept and wat you have so far
Jungsik - thanks
So here's some more updates, started on the boots and pants, and been trying to get some detail going.
was just trying to figure out how i was going to do the detail
second attempt, turned out way too geometric and gridded out
so i'm going to try a combination of the 2 detail pics, the random warts with the nice stress lines between them.
a fly.
or a crown.
nice progress so far
divi - fly is a solid candidate, and i like the crown. Also in the animated cutscenes for the game, there is a flag with a dragon on it in the castle that frog walks out of. So might try all of those as well as this idea my teacher for the class, jon rush, drew up! which is crazy and i'll be trying it out. It's supposed to be a frog's mouth open with a giant spike coming out o_0
Is this your first time using Zbrush, or have you dabbled in it before the class that you're in now?
UnstoppableTank- Thanks
update, here's that shield
The texture work on the skin is coming along so well. I can't wait to see how the normal maps comes out, definitely post your workflow on that.
Shield is going great, I'd start thinking about texture for it as well. Is it going to be made of wood or metal or both?
mackie - yeah dude, ill see what i can do with the normal map process. The shield i think would be cool with the main portion being wood with a metal rim. But not sure. most likely will be all metal though... but if i go with wood i'm hitting alot of different materials with one character...hmm...
habboi - thanks! i know right? i wouldn't mind seeing a realistic Magus, who was my second choice for a character if i didn't go with Frog.
ok, so here's an armor update, played around with noise, fun stuff!
also throwing in the ugly attempt shot of the top of his cape. Going to be redoing this for sure. Anyone have a good way of making layered cloth like this? Im kind of going for how the capes looked in 300.
And here's an update on his gloves, found a good ref of some welding gloves
so here's a new "where i'm at shot" did a little modification to the arm proportions, and tried to give a little more love to the mouth/lips area. Trying to make it look more like hanging skin. Geez i need to get that sword done... still trying to figure out the cape as well. Going to go back over the pants, i was told "not to be such a p@#$y" and be bolder with the wrinkles/folds lol. And that pouch is harder than i expected to sculpt. Probably will just do the whole thing in maya.
One suggestion for the feet I'd give, is since he's a frog, maybe have the shoes be expanded in both directions perpendicular to the way they're pointing...because frogs have wide, podded feet! Another reason for doing this would be to support the fact that he is so large and weighty, that those tiny feet might be a problem for him to stand up... =D
Just wanted some crit on how to break up the high poly for the low res. Did a quick color coding. But I'm not sure of the best way to handle the cape. Should it be it's own geo? Should i separate out the shoulder pads? (which i forgot to put the straps in for this image >___<)
New question. Not sure what i can get away with for the buckles. was going to try something like this, maybe even just an alpha'd plane. Any suggestions?
oh, and as a general rule, if it doesn't need to break up the silhouette, might as well let the normal maps take care of the straps.
So with the straps, yeah, I'll do that next time for sure. Just want to finish this one. See way too much that I would change now, and don't want to spend that much more time on him. But here's a revisit to him with a base texture. Still need to add in the belt. But will throw color variation in next round.
Been watching Daphz stream, love the process he goes over with just using gradient maps and masked hugh/sat layers. Also, this is just diffuse/normal. no spec in there yet.
Also tried playing with xoliul but couldn't get the look that I have in Marmoset.