Darknut Redux (Zelda fan art)

praetor187

EDIT: Final Model


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hello everybody, its been a while since i posted up a new WIP thread. I started working on one of my favorite enemies from the Zelda series. The Darknut (from Twilight Princess). Im currently still in the main block out phase which is why some parts of the model look pretty muddy but its enough to get the point across. The main idea is to create a Darknut character that could fit in the Zelda universe. crits and comments would be greatly appreciated, here are some progress shots and my moodboard i'll try to post my concept up later as well. Let me know what you think.

praetor187

bump

danpaz3d

Looks fine so far.
Only thing I'm not sure about is the chest/gut area. Seems like he's fat is 'in the middle' of his torso.
If he's fat, lower the bulge a bit, if he's not then raise it and make it thinner.
Do you have a shot of the character you're making?

praetor187

Thanks danpaz3d, his chest is bulging a bit because of the type of breastplate im using here is a nice ref of it.



As for the shot of the character this is the best photo ive been able to find of it.



My main goal isnt to really make him per se but to make a character in his style. I'll be sure to readjust the breastplate since it is easy to assume hes a little large around the waist lol.

danpaz3d

ahh ok, I get it now. I thought it was like fabric or something, but from the refs I get what ur doing. Keep going! Want to see progress on this.

praetor187

Man its been a while since ive posted. Didnt get too much time to work on this guys over the past few weeks, but I finally got a good chance today. Still working on the high poly, its starting to come along, but let me know what you guys think, thanks!

(due to my system resources I can really only show half of the completed parts, sorry if it looks a little funny :P)



shot of his cape.

praetor187

bump.

Garnet

Like the detailing on the chest piece Your proportions seem a bit off, with the waist being very high and the thigh being too long. Also if you made his waist narrower, like say a gap between armor pieces in your references, it would help to make him look more tough and less overweight.

praetor187

Hi everyone, got some time to work on my model. i managed to save a ton of polys in my model so I was finally able to mirror most of my pieces so you can finally see my character for what hes supposed to be seen for. i tried making him thinner in the waist as well as fixing the proportion problems that were pointed out to me. Im very close at this point in finishing the high poly just a few more parts need to be worked on. Let me know what you think.

Highway62

I think the reason he looks a bit overweight though compared to the actual picture of the armour is because the armour pic breast cover curves right in to the thinner waist, and the bottom of the chest plate clearly distinguishing it as a separate piece to the pelvic cover. With your guy the chest piece blends right into the fabric covering his pelvis and legs, under the belt, so it gives the impression that the chest piece is also fabric and his belly is causing the bulge. I also agree with the point about the length of the thighs. That's me just trying to give a bit of feedback, you've really done a great job with this, it does look absolutely fantastic!

ZacD

As far as I understand, that type of breast plate is really only for jousting. It is designed so the joust will be deflected off to the side instead of pushing them off their horse. It doesn't make sense to have that style of breast plate outside of jousting. Currently it just looks like you are making a missed matched knight and not a darknut

Lord McMutton

He looks pretty good, but if you're going for that Zelda style, his limbs and horns will need some serious beefing up.

terrybuchan

looking good but from a design point of view if he raised his arms up above his head, the spikes on his shoulders would contact his head. maybe reducing their size to something similar in your reference imagery would work.

praetor187

highway62 : Thanks for the kind words man Yeah you definetely have a point I tried to bring down some of this armor piece so they fit the original Darknut piece a little better, even modeled some leather buckle straps for the armor too.

ZacD: I understand where your coming from, but I think in this instance I like the aesthetic over the design, I feel the breastplate he has right now gives him more of an interesting shape than the usual flat chested knight breastplate. But I'm definitely going to keep what you said in mind if I decide to do another knight character.

Marshal Banana: Thanks man I agree about beefing him up, he is a little thin, even for a Darknut in the Twilight princess universe.

terrybuchan: Thanks man, I scaled the spikes down some and moved one onto his arm to try to enhance the silhouette a little more, good call.

So here is the new progress on the model as of now, I ultimately decided that the fur collar and cape weren't the best choices for this character, so I decided to get rid of them. i also tightened the waist up some more and pinched the middle part of the breastplate a little bit so maybe it would be better seen that it is armor and not fat :P I also moved the lower armor pieces down so they should feel like separate parts of the armor now. I'm also including silhouette shots so you can see the new silhouette of the character, I think he looks a lot more beefier and menacing. but let me know what you guys think too.

praetor187

Hey Everyone, Its been a looooong time. Got the chance recently to work on my model again. Got him unwrapped and everything and started texturing, Im still working on the weapons but decided to continue with texturing the character itself, I need some feedback on the texture so far.I think im going in the right direction but any feedback you guys have is a big help. The metal texture is driving me nuts. :poly142:

nathanbarrett

Holy hell this is awesome!

BenHenry

SICK!

Justin3d

This turned out pretty damn cool. Good job.

praetor187

Hey Guys thanks for the comments so far. There still a good amount to do but its good to see you like it so far.

Delzhand

That texture work is gorgeous. My advice to get more "Zelda-style" would be to shrink the head quite a bit and broaden the shoulders.

praetor187

Well I thought it would never happen but its finally done, here it is the final model, i'll be moving on to my next project, the Showdown project. Thanks to everyone who helped me out in this project. And of course crits and comments are always welcome.

Twister3

Wow that turned out really well! Just a quick remark: The character gets a bit lost in the dark background, so maybe brighten that up a bit? And maybe render him on a ground plane with a cast shadow, that would be a cool look (just my opinion though).

praetor187

Thanks Twister3, yeah i agree with you on the darkness of the background, it was my first time messing with post process effects in UDK and I think I got a bit trigger happy. I also need to do some more rendering techniques in UDK so i can figure out how to render a ground plane without breaking the continuity of the final render image.