[Mixamo Contest] Necromancer
polycounter lvl 8
Latest Update :
Hey Polycounters,
I don't know if I will finish this in time, but worth a try...
I choose the Necromancer, I want to do a kind of Lich but it's not really clear for now in my head ^^. So I did some sketches :
I thought that a kind of Monkey-Pirate-Lich-Necro could be cool but... it's also too difficult ^^. I will try some other things and maybe focus on the refs I have. Maybe I try to mix too many things ?
Also, question for mixamo : may I add other weapons than the staff ? I wanted to add a pirate gun and a sabre.
Hey Polycounters,
I don't know if I will finish this in time, but worth a try...
I choose the Necromancer, I want to do a kind of Lich but it's not really clear for now in my head ^^. So I did some sketches :
I thought that a kind of Monkey-Pirate-Lich-Necro could be cool but... it's also too difficult ^^. I will try some other things and maybe focus on the refs I have. Maybe I try to mix too many things ?
Also, question for mixamo : may I add other weapons than the staff ? I wanted to add a pirate gun and a sabre.
Replies
Well, first I want to apologies : I'm not able to do something really original, I tried but I lack the skills... so, I will fall in the pit of laziness and easiness, and I will compensate by... sexyness.
I went back and started a new one, more "typical" we can say :
Will do a lot of modifs, but there are the main forms... What do you think ?
The monkey thing was really not my cup of tea. (Not a character I would like to play, so to say.)
For me, (female) necromancers should be either really sexy or old and wrinkled... and shady. I think the base forms are working if you work a little more on the legs/boots and make them more interesting (like her head and neck area, which I liked on the monkey versions too). And give her some badass gloves or something. The hands/arms look a little naked
And even though the hat looks nice in the actual sculpt, I don't like its form in her silhouette (combined with the ears and hair), but that may just be my personal taste.
Yeah I will work the boots later, this area is not yet defined.
I reworked the hat and add horns to improve the silhouette ( I will put horns, skulls and other things like that ), and added the gloves. I added a big braid for the hair too.
And she has a skull in/on the chest, like this good ol' Shadowman, remember ? I really loved this game ^^.
Everything will be decorated ( well maybe not everything to avoid a massive confusion ^^ ) later.
Here is the last update for today, I begin to enjoy this character :
Also. I LOVE how victorian-ish some parts of her are. Idk if you were going for that, but I love it.
I like what you did with her back and her head. (Although I agree it's a shame the horns can't be seen in her side view silhouette.) You might want to continue that theme onto her gloves (like bones, skulls etc. stuff). Maybe make her bones slightly visible on one arm or something. This way you can give her some asymmetry as well. (You can also do that by adding a few accessories which might add to her silhouette as well - like small skulls, loose bones, bandages, etcetcetc... I guess you were going to do that anyway though xD )
I changed the horns a bit as you said, and I reshaped the dress which I didn't like. I reshaped the gloves too, and started to put some details, now this shit is becoming serious ^^. I did a test of a tortured guy, Instead of skulls I thought to put some screaming faces like that somewhere, maybe traped into the glove ( which could be made of glass or something transparent like a crystal ball ).
Also, I think I will put some device to absorb the souls in one of the hand, something like that - ok the pic is bad but if you know Stargate, you see what I mean ^^):
Personally texelion I prefer your earlier design. She has a much stronger silhouette and I like the flat tophat as well.
Maybe some skull knee pads would add to the piece.
Ok, here is an update... maybe, I say MAYBE I went to far... time to step back, watcha think ?
Soooooo... I added a lot of things, the skull knee pad ( original isn't it ? ), the Necronomicon ( I will sculpt it like the one in Evil Dead ^^ ), and a lot of horns/teeth I'm sure I have to remove for the tricount -_-' ... I indicated in red the parts I'm not happy with ( hair is not done ).
For the boots I wanted some kind of Witchblade look. They look really heavy, I think it gives weight to the character.
Yeah ro-zee I think I will add glowing eyes and this kind of stuff, I never did emissive on any of my work ^^.
I don't want to flood but here is a quick idea I had for the hat : it's a big crystal ball with metal stuff :
Also, I will put the book on the side instead of the back to break the symetry.
Honestly I don't know if I have to put something on the blank spaces ( dress, gauntlets and pauldrons ) as I already have a lot of details...
Need help ^^.
ro-zee : yeah, I didn't talk only about the sculpt but also the texture. Will see that later.
bg : I will sculpt the cover of the book with the Necronomicon Ex Mortis from Evil Dead.
Ok it' looks bad, maybe I will try to embellish it a bit ^^.
nech : I will keep the "googles". It's a mask, and almost everybody liked "the face" even before I sculpt the face, so I think they talked about the mask. It gives her some mystery, and the big round eyes will glow, will be cool ^^.
I will spend some time on the GW2 beta week end so I will slow down the sculpt a bit. I did a first pass on the details of the bust, still need a second pass, especially the head/skin and the mask. The corset is almost done.
I think I will do something original : an African necromancer... that's why her lips and nose are so big. But I'm not trully happy with the face, need more work.
Watcha think ?
Ok here is some progress, I did a second pass on the "hat/helmet/mask/thing" and the skin. I also finished the lower body, and found something to put in the blank spaces ( a kind of "human flesh leather" ).
I removed the spiral ornaments because I will paint them in the diffuse, they don't need to be sculpted.
I'm still not happy with the mouth, but I changed the chin a bit, it was too small.
Some close shots :
I removed the book for now, because I don't know what to put on it. Evil Dead's Necronomicon is really too ugly and don't fit the design. Any idea ?
Here is what I have for the moment :
I think it will be difficult to be under the 15 000 tris so I need to keep it simple, no old used book or things like that.
I also did another belt, the first one was wrong, and reworked the boots.
Can't wait to see how this turns out.
Character : 13 501 tris
Book : 570 tris
Staff : 912 tris
Total : 14 983 tris
I left some tris on the backside of the skirt, even if we don't see them here, it could move.
I added some tris here and reduced the nose and lips area. It's 14 999 tris now ^^.
For the texture we can use 4x1024 yeah, but I think it's not usefull, and it's better not to separate the texture of a single character if it's not needed. It's odd to put the weapon on it though, but using a 1024 just for the staff is a waist of space imo.
Anyway I was surprised to see that the weapon was included in the tricount and the 2048px². Between an assassin with small daggers and a knight with sword and shield, the difference can be really heavy.
But it's the same for everything. You can choose to put a lot of tris in the character itself, or do a simple character but with a lot of accessories. What's the most important ?
And I don't even talk about animation topology. technically, a game character should be able to move and talk, but here we just don't care...
About the 'weird' shading under the eyebrows and probably some other areas if there are the same issues, may be different smooth groups would solve the problem..
Also I would not spent triangles to hmm.. the laces on the torso cloth, but bake them to the normal map instead.
And by the way your high poly sculpt looks great
Looking forward to your texturing.
can do we confirm this info?
I spent the day making UVs, baking and optimization, then re-UVs and rebaking, and re-optimization, and re-re UVs and re-re-baking... FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU !
BUT FINALLY here is the "final" lowpoly rendered in Marmo with normal map and AO+Bent Normals ( green chan ).
14 996 tris, everything on the 2048. Hell ya !
And the wire :
Tomorow I'll start the texturing.
the character is sooo much cooler then the staff and I really think you should rework it.
Cannot wait till your first texture pass.
lotet : yeah I know, but I thought that the weapon was not included in the 15 000 tris and... it does. As I put almost all the tricount in the character, I don't have enough tris to do a cool staff ( plus, I'm not good at weapon design ^^ ), and I think that a really cool staff with interesting shapes could take at least 3000 tris.
But as we can take the weapon provided by Mixamo, honestly I don't think that the look of the staff is important. I mean, it's a character contest, not a weapon contest.
But I could do another staff later for myself with no restrictions.
Di$array : Thanks ^^.
Some news : I reworked the shape of the breast and added some tris to have a smoother silhouette. Of course I had to remove some tris elsewhere so I optimized the horns a bit ( too much edge loops ). I also removed that uggly and flat armband.
I'll start the texture now. The lack of concept will slow me down as I really don't know which colors and materials I will use ^^.
Here are 3 attempts, tons of shit, I just don't like them.
I tried to use "classical" color schemes, in my refs necromancer are generally violet/purple/pink, green and dark blue :
- green and red/orange : Poison Ivy, but it looks too much "Irish" and natural.
- purple and green : mad characters wear these color, as the Joker or the Mad Hatter.
- black and red : I had Harley Quinn and the Red Heart Queen in mind. But they don't fit for a necro.
HALP !
Also your character somehow reminds me witch doctor from Diablo 3 (I didn't play though)
From those variants you posted, I like the third one - black, orange and red.
have you tried one with less colors? right now EVERYTHING is either green, red or blue.