First off, Hello Polycount, and secondly, I made this thread to show off the progress of my making a Zelda game for CryEngine 3 in the form of game-ready models. Anyone else can share their zelda-based models if they so choose. To kickstart this off, here's my vision of the Hylian Shield...Modeled in 3ds max, textured in photoshop...
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The front of the shield looks great but the back seems to be a bit bland. Maybe a more ornate grip would help As well as the scratched and scuffed edges to help sell it more. If you are looking for something more maybe even a hand painted photo of Zelda to push Link on when he's feeling the fatigue kicking in.
As for the scuffs and scratches, nothing a little photoshop magic can't do. Same with the ornate grip. Also I'll try to fix the blandness in the back.
...though, that being said, I don't actually think you need them at all. I think the thing at the very top point works, and the detail inlay inbetween all of them is ok. But I feel like my eyes are looking for some relief somewhere, and those corners I think would serve that purpose if left blank. I certainly don't think you need anything of that nature on the back side.
I also think it's weird that your detail bits are a brighter color metal than the rest of it. Right now with the dark metal with those bright details on top of it makes the details look more pasted on. I think if you brighten up the darker metal (which makes up a majority of the metal on the shield) to match your detail shade, it will help bring it together much more. (If you do brighten up the metal, you could probably stand to brighten the wood on the back more as well.)
Also, before my tablet pen broke, I was working on a vision of Majora's wrath, and this is what I had before it broke...
Yes, I know it looks meaty.
also the leather? arm brace on the back has way too much noise going on, tone it down a bit and make it feel like it belongs with the rest of the pieces on the shield : )
Make sure the source that you get your base textures from is higher res, or else you will look like you have lower texture res even though your using a 1k.
Plus I reduced the polycount from 1,440 tris to 590. Thanks to Oniram for the advice.