Alien Insect Soldier (WIP)

njc6425

EDIT!: Finished Piece
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Hey guys!!! Just started another assignment at uni and thought id start a thread to document the experience and
hopefully gain some good feedback from all the artists here on polycount

PREMISE:
Humans are invading an alien planet, the aliens are insect like in there appearance and resemble Praying Mantis'/Scorpians. They are not hive based, they are individual, however they do work as a team to some extent to kill the invading human army.
They are as intelligent as insects, so your basic survival skills, collect food, find shelter, defend shelter etc.

This character will be modelled for use in a game engine (Gamebryo in this case) however it will also be used in a short film (based on the humans invading the planet), as such the art director of the short film (who is also a student) will be in charge of where this character goes however as it is my own assignment i do have quite a bit more say in its appearance than i would if i were working for a client. (Complicated senario, be interesting to see how it works out haha)

Now if you've managed to get through all that I just thought id upload some ref images so you guys know what direction im gonna start with, then ill begin uploading silhouete sketches too. (I will also post the art directors comments should i recieve any) Maybe you guys can help me persuade him if you disagree with some of the decisions

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Texelion

Holy Mother of Sweet Jesus... What the fuck is this last thing ? Don't tell me it's a real insect...

Well, I don't think that this last ref is good, people won't believe it can be "real". I mean, it's not believable, even for an alien race.

Jarkis

Texelion wrote: »

Holy Mother of Sweet Jesus... What the fuck is this last thing ? Don't tell me it's a real insect...

Well, I don't think that this last ref is good, people won't believe it can be "real". I mean, it's not believable, even for an alien race.

I am fairly certain that one is not real, but it does resemble a camel spider.

http://animals.nationalgeographic.com/animals/bugs/egyptian-giant-solpugid/

njc6425

Nah it is a real insect, it is a type of camel spider i agree it is messed up, theyre massive too lol. Here is my first set of silhouettes will post the art directors comments when he replys lol. I like 1 and 6, and will probably head in that direction with next set which might just be a set of 3, so i can focus on more detail.

let me know your thoughts?

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Dysengaged

Looking good man, I like 6, 4
Nice direction on where your going with 6, nice and simple
Having a second glance I also like 5
looking forward to more (Variations of those and any other designs you come up with)
Other wise good work

pandora84

I like the overall shape of number 1 the most, and the head looks the most insectoid to me. But I do like the segmented tail on number 2.

njc6425

Yeh im thinking of combininh 1,2 and 6 together to see what i come up with haha

njc6425

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new sketches, will fill in the details a bit tomorrow, as im off to bed now but i wanted to do an update. i spent way more time on these as is evident by the structure of most of them haha. I was meant to be doing drastically different sketches for these but 1,5,6 are all variations off of an idea i have in my head which is basically a spider with the exoskeleton of a praying mantis, the stinger from a wasp and pincers for weapons at the front, i was also thinking of a huge head structure that it would use for mating let me know what you think

matsman

The last two are the strongest for what you are going for... but I would do another batch... just to get the stereotypes done with

njc6425

yeh i might do some more , i dunno if ill go with six this time maybe just three and then take some a step further, i think i might combine 5-6 from the last set as 6 is appearing a little too humanoid

Darkleopard

i like the second batch, probably the bottom middle the most, probably because im a fan of big pincers. Interested to see what the final will be

njc6425

Okay so the general consensus between everyone and even the art director (thank god) has been number 5 from the second batch, so im gonna do about 3 rough variations of it tomorrow and then basically continue on from there until I have a final concept im hoping ill have the final design nutted out by the end of this week and have started on the final concept by monday getting excited to start zbrushing soon haha been away from that program for wayy too long practising other stuff.

njc6425

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3 variations from no.5 of the second batch

Ill probably be moving onto the final concept from here, presuming all is a ok with the director haha.

Ill give a little explanation on the sketches as they are meant to be rough and not everything is clear. so going from left to right and top to bottom.

1) A scorpian like insect alien, with the body, legs and pincers of a scorpian. The abdomen is the abdomen from a poisonous wasp. the head piece is used to attract mates and also scare off enemies by changing its color similar to a triceratops (if thats how its spelt haha). it also has smaller front claws for it to latch onto cliff faces and trees so it can climb more vertical surfaces.

2) More or less a spider, it has six legs however the front two are more like scythes and can cleave a rock in two. Its abdomen can produce silk stronger than diamonds. the head is more human like than a spider and as a result it is more intelligent, has better sight and better hearing. it can also spit venom

3) A scorpion alien insectoid. It takes alot from scorpions including its overall body shape, pincers and stinger. Its head piece is used as camoflauge as it lives in rocky areas and that head piece will be rock. It has multiple eyes all of which have the same range of sight as a humans eye and each image is set to its brain seperately, so effectively it has quite a high range of vision. it can burrow into the ground using its pincers and its toxin in the tail can kill a bull within 15minutes.

Hit me up on any crits or comments or even questions you guys have and as you can see from my descriptions i am leaning heavily against the first 1 as its feels more alien and cohesive

Steve Schulze

I think it'd be worth doing some studies on different arachnid, insect and crustacean mouthparts.

For example, you've got the sunspider up there in your references with its massive chilicerae (He's also got some funky wriggly abdomen stuff going on too)
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fq1KQ90fV4M"]Rhagodes (Solifugae) camel spider eating and breathing. - YouTube[/ame]
Or for my money, the way more interesting crab feeding with its bunch of little grabby arms.
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZJyeFSq3STM"]How Crabs Feed - YouTube[/ame]

njc6425

OMG that is insane!!! thanks so much for these ref videos man, ive started looking at some more now the mouth/head was one i was worried about, now as ive finalized the rough design i need to start planning specific body parts and the head was a hard one... but after watching that crab eat i have an idea now kinda gross as well

thanks so much never would have thought to look at a crab haha, might include some of the abdomen jiggling from the spider too

Darkleopard

Hahaha all i can think of when i watch that crab video is 'omnomnomnom' I will pay you to put those little arms into your model and animate it

njc6425

Okay so ive started researching different insect, sea creature and general creepy crawlies specifically for body part reference, now that i have the general design im researching more to get heaps more detail for the final concept. However i am having trouble with the mouth, not a major part of the creature but still important. I was looking at more crab eating videos haha and have determined that although its cool it isnt the direction i want to go, way too many moving parts and not as menacing due to the way it almost spoon feeds itself.

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the first image is self explanatory,the second image is a blown up version of a lobster mouth. In the anamatic we were given one of the aliens bites off a marines head so i was heading toward this direction of lots of teeth that are flexible in the sense that they can move as a whole independantly of the skull....rotate forward and back (if that makes sense)

having trouble here to if anyone has any other interesting animals with cool mouths haha, please let me know

njc6425

okay after researching nonstop over the past day at different mouth types, and looking at many disturbing images/videos of freaky creatures eating i finally found a mouth design i like. i will tweak it a bit to appear more bug like but i love it.

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not my design obviously, let me know what you think on the ref

Oniram

pretty cool lookin. reminds me of the kraken from clash of the titans

walklikethis

test

njc6425

Slight re-design of the body, im following more of a spider in regards of anatomy and body structure with armor plates The art director is happy with my design although not massively fond of the spider idea but imho the side silhouette is much stronger than my first attempt earlier today, he did say however that because im the furthest ahead out of the artists that i can sorta lead the pack haha which is cool. Ill upload a pic of the new more detailed sils (Orthographics ) before i start the final concept which will be interesting also finding it hard to figure out how those pincers are attached to the mouth in the image i posted, any thoughts on THAT would be helpful cause im stuck, atm there just stuck on lol :P

Darkleopard

Thats a sweet looking mouth nick. It looks like that concept is missing pieces between the open and closed positions though so its hard to place.

njc6425

Yeh me and paul disected the image today cause a few people liked the idea, and we worked out that the images are actually individual of themselves. So not open and closed, which makes it harder to work out how it works haha.... something i think ill only fully work out in 3d just because in 2d its too hard due to the location of it... Im thinking of ignoring the shut version and just have those as mini mandibles that help feed it, similar to the crabs flappy things lol

njc6425

Hammered away at the concept tonight and got my orthographics done... im not sure if ill do a beauty concept, we will see how i feel in the morning haha
crits welcome as always

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njc6425

Okay so i got word back from the art director..... more or less said to go back to the drawing board. He said i deviated too far from my original thought, to be fair i kind of did but you never sorta understand that while your working on it... Gonna spend some time tonight after work on some new silhouettes, hopefully he replys to the email.... feeling a little cut down at the moment, but from my experience everything you repeat ends up stronger as a result. But at the moment its all still fresh so im still getting my head around the whole back to the drawing board thing

AlexCatMasterSupreme

Fuck this thread I'm going to go kill myself after I change my pants.

njc6425

? haha man its been a weird 2 weeks....having images like these and more cycle through as my wallpaper haha

njc6425

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My new orthos redone, only slight changes made as per the directors instructions...waiting for his feedback still im pleased with this version, seems more stealthier/faster and more dangerous the last one was too stocky and looked slow crits welcome as per usual

ClamJam

i think the body needs a bit more variation in it, the head is unique, the body should be to.

njc6425

Final orthographics need to get on to modelling tonight or tomorrow to stay on schedule Ill probably end up tweaking things here and there during the sculpt as it comes to me, sometimes things can work in 3d that dont in 2d, especially since im not great at 2d so its even harder for me to get that across. but practise makes perfect

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Lephenix

It's turning out into an Acklay (star wars creature in geonosis arena) :

njc6425

yeh i know, which sucks as my first design was original but then i kept going back to the art director and what not and this is basically what he landed on. Its probably just gonna be an acklay with an exoskeleton at this rate. *sigh* im gonna try and tweak it as much as i can during the sculpt but unfortunatly one must do what the art director wants.

Darkleopard

Its ok. I love acklays . I think we can find a cool look for the back. Colour will help a lot to that effect as well

njc6425

Yeh im hoping that the texturing is where i can really set it apart! Also because im still practising with 2d i couldnt get it across. The silhouette may be the same but its different sorta haha

njc6425

Little bit of an img dump before going to bed. So im finally up to modelling my character, because i love zbrush it will be done mainly inside that Before i started i put together a quick ref sheet to have as my wallpaper just to remind me constantly so hopefully i dont deviate too far from the concept.

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Next is my zsphere armature i roughed up:
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And then the dynamesh version (no sculpting yet)
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This assignment has been organised strangely so ill be sculpting this guy up a bit, then retoping tomorrow night most likely so that hes under 3k tris. Skin him up and give him to the art director so that he can give it to the animators (who are doing a film course, so they have complicated rigs). Ill then rig and animate it as well...because its a criteria and then go back to zbrush and just sculpt him up realllll gooood and texture, and then only if i have time re skin so im looking forward to the whole "3 week sculpt" part but not the beginning... and im also going to be doing a sculpt a day like many other people do but that is unrelated to this assignment lol

Night all !!!

njc6425

Okay so ive been slowly knocking away at the 'greybox' lol, actually started again many times over, a few people said it was looking too cutsey so ive landed on this for the greybox going to the animators, let me know what you think...oh and for once the art director is happy haha

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njc6425

Okay so a quick update, just finished skinning and a quick IK rig.. might add in some spine handles but not too sure. Basically the art director has taken this greybox, which has been quickly retopped (from 50k to 3k) lol so it looks a little different. Now he will make his own film ready rig and what not. Also for my compentancies i need to animate three actions, to give to some programmers doing a course at my uni for their AI assignment (if the rules of this assignment confuzzle you please let me know so i can make sure they change it for next year haha). The coders want a movement (run/walk), an attack, an idle and if we want to a death animation. Which ill get started on over the weekend, as well as continuing the final sculpt

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low poly grey box with simple IK handle controls

DGB

Are you planning on developing the frill and other details further in the actual sculpt? Aside from that little nick in the side, it looks kind of plain and uniform right now. Keep up the good work!

njc6425

Yeh i will be the idea behind the frill is that its used for attracting potential mates and for scaring off enemies, so a lot of it will be in texture but yes i will be developing it more. still practising my 2D skills and atm am not comfortable with drawing details

cheers man

njc6425

okay so ive been working on some animations lately and have only just gotten back to the sculpt, im sure ill also upload some animations later on too, probably at the end. so here is a little sculpt update, ive been working more on the underbody atm because im unsure of what it should look like haha. here are some pics
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I like the first one and have actually taken that through to a more chiseled appearance, which i like

DGB

I'm definitely liking the first one as well, although it would be interesting if you could somehow incorporate the rib-like elements from the second one into the first design.

njc6425

yeh i agree to a point. im still working out if i want all those sculpted bulges to meet at a pointed crevice (Theyre all chiseled now) or if i want a little gap in between. I saw the work you did and i like the little sections that glowed so i kinda wanna do something similar... figure out how to encorporate that into the design.

njc6425

okay so ive made a heap of progress and am nearing the end of the sculpting phase just a few more details here and there, then up to polypainting

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let me know what you guys think

Dysengaged

looking great man, really good job

-Underneath tail (finished or ? ) Looks like it could use more like the rest of the under side of the insect

Other than that man keep it up

njc6425

its meant to be a stingery tail lol, ill probably do something to it, unsure at the moment... probably be the last thing i do as a result haha

DGB

I'm diggin' the legs; how they're all sword-like! I also like how on the front segment of the belly all of the ridges are pointing forward - looks really great from that front view - although I sort of wish that the other segments were tilted forward as well. Also, those little twists in the back spikes might not read very well unless you make them part of the geometry when you go to bake them.
Looks like it's really coming along, though!

Ghostman511

This creature has come a long way. Its looking good!

If your looking for some ideas for the tail pincer you should check out some images of earwigs they have similar tails

njc6425

OH EARWIGS!!! ive been trying to figure out what insect that was haha cheers!!! Im still undecided about the back spikes, i guess we will see, i might get rid of them, also the polybudget may not allow for them ahhaha.

@Ghostman511 cheers man, im really happy with my progress

njc6425

okay so ive finished my sculpting, although ill most likely tweak here and there and have put on my base coat for the polypainting... im painting it quite saturated so i have prime control when i tweak it in photoshop later
heres the polypaint base coat
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crits pleeeeasse

njc6425

Okay so I nearly had a catastrophic breakdown, I couldnt import my decimated mesh into any program to retop, and i didnt want to retop inside of zbrush, thankfully i managed to salvage myself and used the remesh feature in zbrush which had slipped my mind at the time... hopefully it bakes okay, will upload a picture later

njc6425

Okay guys so Made a bit of progress. Got my high poly and low poly, unwrapped and retopped the low poly version, although the retop is sorta dodgy...not terrible, but could be much worse! Was getting some baking issues with xnormal due to the meshes being too small in world space so therefore it wasnt baking everything and then wrong sections and all this lovely crappy stuff. Easy fix, just need to scale up my meshes haha, just trying to get the zbrush version into maya though is a struggle lol.

technical stuff aside, my teacher did a quick paint of of the head for me, thought it looked too puppy dog like haha, so here is that:
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I much prefer that version so I went ahead and sculpted it up as per the paint over, and it looked awesome... I also had to do a mini presentation of my progress so far so i took a zbrush render and did a paint over in Pshop to see what i wanted it to look like

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Im never that happy with my work, but im really proud of how that paint over turned out, now that hard part, to get the low res mesh looking like that

Crits welcome as always