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Hand-Painted Goblin and Dragon WIP

jmt
I modeled these a long time ago and decided to finally texture them. They will be posed together in a simple scene with the goblin holding the dragon by a chain around its neck. They're original concepts, WoW inspired but higher tris/res. I'm not going to be doing normal maps.

The goblin is mostly complete. He is 2912 tris with a 512x512 texture.
gobmob.jpg

I'm in the middle of texturing the dragon. Right now the scales are just sketched in. I need to work on the wings and balancing the colors overall.It is 2216 tris with a 512x512 texture.
dragoncxr.jpg

Replies

  • snow
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    snow polycounter lvl 8
    Goblin looks schweet! I understand the dragon is still WIP, personally I think the scales look a little too noisy and with the pink colour its a little full on for the eye. But awesome work I'm very jealous :).
  • Maph
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    Maph polycounter lvl 8
    Goblin is really cool. Nice job on the textures, although I'm not sure how you'll use this, but it could do with a bit more top lighting + AO.
    I have to agree with snow on the dragon though. Get rid of the noise and just focus on larger stylized scales. The color is a pretty daring choice, but I'd personally add more purple to the guy.
  • Saman
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    Saman polycounter lvl 13
    The models are both looking nice, I like your designs.
    The textures need more love though. At the moment the saturation and brightness of the skin for example equally bright all over. What you could do is to create a focal point, the face for example and have the rest a bit darker.
    See this;
    Goblins_cataclysm.png
    As you can see the hands and feet are darker in order to bring the face more forward. It's the place where you would want the viewer to look at so having it a little bit brighter than the rest would help.
    Also I think you need to work on the metallic parts of your goblin. The weapons look like they're made of stone.
  • jmt
    Thanks for the critiques.

    @Snow & Maph: This is just one idea for the scales. There is too much noise in the face and wings especially. Most of the reference I've seen for WoW dragons etc. have much more stylized scales, sometimes just shaded circles with a color between them or even just cracks (yellow proto drake vs rusted proto drake).

    The color needs lots of tweaking - possibly an overhaul. I thought that I might as well make him as bright pink and ridiculous as possible. One problem I'm having is that I want it to stand out as pink, but especially from the front, the belly is so massive that its color sort of overwhelms the pink, which has some blue shading in it.

    @Goraaz: I'll try some overall body saturation and try to pull off that effect. I hadn't thought of that.

    Do you have any suggestions about how I can make the metal parts look less stone-like? I definitely see what you're talking about. I was trying to make the texture high contrast but I guess it isn't working out that well.
    gobweapons.jpg
  • Sukotto
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    Sukotto polycounter lvl 8
    Agreed about the scales on the dragon. And I think Goraaz hit the nail on the head(pun intended)

    I think to make the metal look less like stone is to get rid of any noise on it first. Lay down a base color, work in some bright edge highlights and wear, at least thats what I would do
  • gilesruscoe
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    gilesruscoe polycounter lvl 10
    jmt wrote: »
    Thanks for the critiques.

    Do you have any suggestions about how I can make the metal parts look less stone-like? I definitely see what you're talking about. I was trying to make the texture high contrast but I guess it isn't working out that well.

    Here's a paint over, Wasn't sure if you wanted to keep the colour of the blade the same, so i did two colour versions, i would suggest going with the blue one though.
    swordpaintover.jpg
  • jmt
    Nice paintover.

    I didn't want to have all of the metal the same color, but I'll keep trying out different hues. Right now the sword looks like the same color as his pants, which is not so good.
  • jmt
    I repainted most of the metal and applied a slight multiply/desaturate effect which fades out towards the face.

    gobmobedit.jpg
  • gilesruscoe
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    gilesruscoe polycounter lvl 10
    Definately looking better, although it looks blurred, try disabling mips/texture filtering
  • achillesian
  • Wells
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    Wells polycounter lvl 18
    i think your metal is still looking like stone.

    the texture needs to be a lot sharper, with tighter highlights and hotspots

    the entire model seems to hold the same texture qualities, if you can differentiate the materials more [skin vs leather vs metal] you'll be golden.

    it looks like you're just rocking a diffuse here, so you're going to need to paint in those qualities.

    any chance of posting the flats? i'd be interested in seeing how you laid this out.
  • Saman
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    Saman polycounter lvl 13
    I think you need another layer of highlight on your model. At the moment it's looking a bit matte. I think the saturation/brightness layer you've put on your model is too weak. You should exaggurate it more, look at the goblin pics I've linked in my last post.
    The sword paintover gilesruscoe is the values you should go for. Paint the colors as gradients on your sword to make it look more smooth(even worn swords have smooth blades but with scratches and what not on).
    ist2_4771315-sword-cross-swords.jpg
  • Frump
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    Frump polycounter lvl 12
    I think you need to work more on painting the forms and planes out, rather than just the colours, textures and soft shadows/ao. Just grab the brush tool and go nuts. Add highlights to planes that are facing up and shadows to planes that are facing down. Use small edge highlights to pop details out and contrast highlight/shadow to change how sharp or soft edges are and define material property. I can explain better in an image:

    jol.gif

    8ohtO.jpg
  • SimonT
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    SimonT interpolator
    really good tips in here!
  • jmt
    There are still things that could be improved, but I'm about ready to move on to texturing the dragon. I can go back later and rework some of the painting and try more of the contrast that Goraaz mentioned.

    I likely won't be able to make much progress in the next couple of weeks due to overtime at work.

    goblinfront900.jpg

    I improved my UVs, mostly to give the pauldron more texture space.

    goblintexture.jpg
  • PaulP
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    PaulP polycounter lvl 9
    Thats some really nice work jmt. I def got to improve my hand painting skills, lots of good tips here to help!
  • SgtNasty
    Looks good man. Let's see some dragon updates!
  • wester
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    wester polycounter lvl 13
    This looks great! I'm not crazy about the dragons design, but that's just me. The goblin looks incredible!
  • stoofoo
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    stoofoo polycounter lvl 18
    Honestly? This is nice. Refreshing. The material could really use some separation, but all in all you've done well bud. Good job.
  • jmt
    Some progress on the dragon's texture. The only way I could get it to look decent is by painting each scale. I might fade some areas away more to simplify it and remove some noisiness. They're more like lizard scales than what dragons usually have.
    dragonface1.jpg

    I'm not sure about the striped tail.
    dragontail1.jpg

    Here is what the texture currently looks like:
    dragoncolor13.png
  • Robbyh
    Rich information gold mine !

    Verry nice work ! i look forward to see more improvements. !
  • Rhoutermans
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    Rhoutermans polycounter lvl 12
    great stuff! Keep on texturing!
  • conte
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    conte polycounter lvl 18
    i love that dragon :)
  • jmt
    Thanks for the encouragement everyone! I'm going to post another project fairly soon.

    Here's some more work I've done on the dragon's scales. Right now, they're looking too much like bubbly jelly beans. I picked a very tedious way to texture these, but hopefully the end result will be better because of it. It seems like most of the painting of individual scales is done now, but I will likely do a lot of tuning.

    dragonscales1.jpg

    dragonscales2h.jpg
  • Sirdelita
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    Sirdelita polycounter lvl 10
    I REALLY like that goblin face, model and texture! Even more than the wow model. Awesome work!
  • Carl Brannstrom
    The scales of the dragon are too uniform.

    If you look at pictures of snakes, lizards and crocodiles, you will find that the scales have diffirent size, texture and shape depening on where on the animal they are and what purpose they have. Use reference!

    http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/ad/Crocodile.JPG
    http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/46/Ptyas_gab_fbi.png
    http://jimpix.co.uk/fs42sdf55df23aaa/photos/2006-09-22-chester-zoo-017.jpg

    Also there is no flow or direction in the scales either. That's why they just look like jelly beans.

    Did a quick paint over

    po.jpg

    One tip for a faster workflow is to start with a really dark color then use brighter colors with opacity to build up the shape.
    That way you don't have to paint creases>shading>lightning. Instead you just do lightning only! It will also be easier to get some nice flow and improvise some cool shapes!
  • Jessica Dinh
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    Jessica Dinh polycounter lvl 10
    They're more like lizard scales than what dragons usually have.

    What do dragons usually have? ;)

    Nice stuff! :D I love the goblin especially. I second Carl's critique though
  • jmt
    @Carl Brannstrom: Thanks, I agree. I'll rework/enlarge some of the scales, especially around the face and spine.

    @Jessica Dinh: I meant the repeating U or V shapes typically associated with dragons.
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