Hand-painted Kirin

Sukotto

Hey guys, my newest project is a diffuse-only character to practice my texture painting. I chose to model a Kirin, which is basically the Japanese/Chinese equivalent to the unicorn.

Here's the quick sketch concept:

And here's where I'm at now:

The planes on his body are for the whiskers and his fire stuff. I want it to be fairly low-poly, he's sitting at 2340 tris but I feel like I could get it down a little more. Anyways, critiques and comments are welcome!

Noors

The side silhouette is very cool, but from front and back, it's weird. The neck is very large and ther's too much distance between the legs.

That's not the best picture, but look for horse references from back/front.

SnaFuBAR

i was hoping to see the kirin logo from kirin ichiban beer done in 3d ;___;

to make this post useful, you should look that logo up. loads of character in it and might inspire you for your texture sheet.

Sukotto

Noors: Thanks I'll definitely fix the legs, dunno why I forgot about front ref, I got a lot of horsies

Snafu: Haha, I was waiting for someone to mention that logo. I was actually planning to emulate Japanese ukiyo-e paintings in the texture.

SnaFuBAR

hell, now that you mention ukiyo-e, might as well do a b/w version that looks like sumi-e. you have to admit, that bleed and wash grayscale has some appeal!

Sukotto

Sumi-e does sound interesting but may be a little harder to get that inkwash feel to a 3D model. We'll see when I get to texturing this guy.

Anyway, small update, just fixed what Noors suggested. Now to start on UVing

Sukotto

Here's some more progress. The colors are a little dull because I'll be attempting to shade with an inkwash style similar to sumi-e and other Japanese paintings. So far I'm having fun texturing this guy. Also, I just turned up the self-illumination(since that seems to be what you do for low-poly models) and threw a toon outline since it seemed fitting

Sukotto

More progress!

Lazerus Reborn

Do like.

Sukotto

Well, I'm calling this guy done unless anyone has any crits.

gilesruscoe

Paint it more. Get rid of the horrid darkblue outlines and build up some detail

Sukotto

Giles,
For this I was kinda going for a sumi-e style similar to Okami so I'd like to keep the outlines if possible, maybe just thin them up? I guess it is a bit strong in places. I'll see what I can do.

Wells

Okami used the black brushstrokes in a modified cell-shading effect, whereas you are simply using it to outline interior details, which causes them to look unfinished and out of place.

perhaps if you carried that detail out to define the silhouette with a shader it would feel more uniform?

n88tr

i'd listen to giles, he does this kind of stuff all the time

agreed your palette is very limited. darker shades, more detail will give it a ton of character

Sukotto

Ahh you got me Sectaurs I kinda wanted to stray away from some crazy shader for this though, keep it simple. But I guess the lines do muddy it up a bit.

N88tr - thanks! I'll definitely be taking giles advice