Low Poly Journey
I am a noob artist (about 4 months of experience) that uses Photoshop, Zbrush and Blender, my goal is to learn how to do low poly models with hand painted textures to be used in stylized games and projects.
I will post my low poly work here, and hopefully get some feedback by you guys
I will post my low poly work here, and hopefully get some feedback by you guys
Replies
Like more semi-realistic or more cartoony like world of warcraft?
Knowing this might help people with giving you critique.
For now the blade of you sword looks to bride/white and the metall looks a little to noisy.
Also some edge highlight on the metal might help defining the material. Especially on the bottom part.
Some examples:
Your sword is atm looking like a classic medieval one.
I know that my sword isn't looking as epic as these examples, I should've mentioned that I'm trying to build up on my knowledge on hand painting and modeling simpler forms so that later I know how to make something cooler
Improved a little, moving on to a different project.
Just started painting a new sword in Zbrush, what do you think about Zbrush polypaint? I find it more intuitive than painting in photoshop.
Right now your design looks like a lvl 1 player's weapon, make it epic! Check out all the color in these weapons
I've always had a really hard time visualizing how the texture is going to look on the model from Photoshop. It was always fine for blocking in details, but was excruciatingly slow when I started getting down to the finer details. Things have gotten much easier since finding 3dcoat, being able to paint directly on the model. There are a few other options you could look into like the Viewport Canvas feature in Max and the model painting mode in Blender.
At this point, tackling design, modeling, and texturing might be too much. There's nothing wrong with directly copying one of the WoW models posted earlier and trying to replicate it as close as you can. You'll free up the burden of "design" and be able to focus on getting a low poly model that represents the concept and understand the subtle nuances of the painterly style (like the color Moosebish pointed out). Just be sure you explain clearly it isn't your own design.
Keep going, man. It's going to be a fun journey!
http://media.steampowered.com/apps/dota2/workshop/Dota2CharacterArtGuide.pdf
1. Low poly parts in blender
2. High poly sculpt in zbrush
3. Polypaint
4. Baking texture map in Zbrush
5. Baking AO in CrazyBump
Now I have to figure out if I'm gonna composite the textures in photoshop and kinda go from there.
This is just an update on my "improvement"
As for the workflow, what do you do with the highpoly once you've sculpted it? Bake the AO onto the original low poly parts you built in Blender? Or are you gonna retopo off of the sculpt?
@Uberren I am simply baking the AO in Zbrush from the high poly model and then layer it on top of the diffuse texture in Photoshop