Cyber - Overwatch Style Character
greentooth
I'm making a character from a design a friend made. We thought it would be fun to go for an overwatch-like asthetic. It's probably hard to tell without textures but I'm curious if anyone feels the model is hitting the mark or if I'm off. We also are trying to include some samurai inspired armor pieces.
Replies
this is looking pretty nice!
Here are my thoughts to improve it towards an Overwatch style:
- The skirt design is way too blocky to fit in Overwatch; you may want to add thickness and play with large bevels. Breaking the triangle border shapes with smaller ones may also be a solution.
- The chest area may benefit from having small twists here and there. The golden line can be broken with angles so it's less boring.
- 2 materials are not selling it in my opinion: the metal one on the tiled skirt, which looks too realistic and flat at the same time due to the lack of geometry in the base design for it. And the dark red pattern in the belly area, which is too detailed/too high-frequency. I think this area should be less charged so your eyes can rest over there.
Other than this, I really like the face, anatomy, hair, and tattoo texture. Good start anyway.
Hope this helps, cheers!
Interesting direction mate, there's a lot to digest here. I do think there's quite a bit of work that could be done to improve your character pretty dramatically, but it looks to be pretty late in the process to make any large changes and I'm only just now seeing this. Regardless I have a few thoughts for you to consider (either to go back and completely redo or to learn from for the future).
Unfortunately I think one of the major flaws you're dealing with a sub-par concept from the beginning. So even with perfect execution you are never going to land on higher ground than where the original concept falls short. Granted I can't see the reference you're pulling from, but I'm assuming you're remaining faithful to your friend's concept piece. That being the case the primary concern here is a substantial lack of cohesive direction in the character's original design. The costume inspiration is all over the place, individual pieces do not mesh with each other, there are no repeated themes or materials, and a general shape language is lacking. Let's go over a few examples.
Phew! That's a lot to cover, but you also have a lot of strengths here. Your anatomy is working quite well, and I think you're REALLY close on your head/hair sculpt (it's a little hard to tell without closeups). Your modeling/sculpting execution on individual parts is also quite good and her boots look spot-on Overwatch. I took a moment to sketch out a few ideas based on the strongest areas of your design. I tried to borrow a bit from Overwatch's Hanzo for some of the samurai inspiration, but this is assuming you were considering more of a swordswoman concept to begin with. Regardless, it helps illustrate a bit how you might harmonize all the various parts of the model - big shapes, small pockets of detail vs. large areas of rest, cohesive and repeated materials use. The biggest challenge for you would be to find a way to blend the traditional samurai armor patterns into something that looks futuristic and techy (ex. expanding her 'back' implants into connecting with her powered armor).
A lot to take in, and I totally understand if you'd prefer to call this one done and move on instead, but at the very least let this be a great learning experience on the value of picking a strong concept design. Or barring that, finding ways to improve and bolster an existing inspiration piece.
Cheers!
I wish I could respond with as much depth as you both provided. It's too bad I didn't have this input earlier on but they are great points that I'd love to try out. My team for this little project wants to move forward so I may just have to keep this is mind for future work but if I get the chance I might go back and apply this.
Thanks again!
Just out of curiosity, do you have an image of the original concept? I'd actually be interested to see what the original inspiration was.
Also here's the very original design. We did change a few things after I started modelling to try to match the style better. But it gives an idea of how we started.
That concept is actually enormously helpful for figuring out how you navigated to where you did. She's definitely almost got a Kimiko Ross from Dresden Codak vibe going on. Bit of a steampunk aesthetic in there too. In fact I could see you taking this all the way with the steampunk influences as you already have a lot of the markers for it in the concept. The armored, copper/brass skirt there feels almost DaVinci-esque. That would obviously invalidate a lot of my previous breakdown, but if it makes for a stronger character I say go for it.