[Dota2] - Invoker - Bindings of the Learned One
polycounter lvl 11
Name is temp.
Basically it revolves around Invoker being a huge asshole.
As his lore states, he has mastered not one, not two, but a whopping 10 spells! This impressive feat is multiplied by the fact that he has memorized them all.
So for the set, I wanted to combine him being an asshole to everybody (his voicelines are brilliant btw) and him needing no aides to cast his spells. The idea I arrived at is that he would wear armor made out of scraps of paper with spells written on them as well as book, scrolls, etc. to taunt his enemies. It would be like dangling a weapon in front of his enemies' noses and being confident that he could still beat them.
Concepts to follow hopefully tonight.
EDIT 11.12.2012:
Model Progress:
Concept:
Basically it revolves around Invoker being a huge asshole.
As his lore states, he has mastered not one, not two, but a whopping 10 spells! This impressive feat is multiplied by the fact that he has memorized them all.
So for the set, I wanted to combine him being an asshole to everybody (his voicelines are brilliant btw) and him needing no aides to cast his spells. The idea I arrived at is that he would wear armor made out of scraps of paper with spells written on them as well as book, scrolls, etc. to taunt his enemies. It would be like dangling a weapon in front of his enemies' noses and being confident that he could still beat them.
Concepts to follow hopefully tonight.
EDIT 11.12.2012:
Model Progress:
Concept:
Replies
Getting some initial ideas down on paper. I'm not really too happy with any one of them right now but there are certainly individual parts that I like... more to come soon
The 3rd one which was initially my least favorite one is starting to grow on me... I might take the major design elements from that and combine it with elements from the other 2
Progress for tonight.
Working off of this concept for now, but I'm most definitely not married to it. I figured it'd be good to get a basic blockout in 3D for tonight so I can get a more clear idea of how it's gonna work together. The shoulders look a little wide to me in the side cam but then again, the stock ones are huge too. The big cylinder on his back is supposed to be a big chinese style scroll.
I'm starting to get a little bit scared of the poly budget because I have a lot of separate objects which is gonna be costly poly wise... we'll see.
Also, some stuff from the concept is still missing in 3D, namely the bracers, and the book belt thing (which I'm gonna throw in with the shoulder if the poly budget allows it, bracers otherwise). So much to do, so little time
Also, I'm keeping the "runes instead of hair" idea in the background for now, might come back to it later though... I think I'll prioritize the "main" 3 items though. Who knows, maybe I'll even get to do a Forged Spirit, maybe something like a small tornado that's caught bookpages and through the imbued magic in the pages has come alive, air elemental style... ah, I need more hours in the day!
/rambling
I was toying around with the idea of having the books (or maybe the candles) actually float above the shoulders proper, what do you guys thing of that?
The cloak is also very much still a placeholder until I can figure something unique out with it... It just seems too... standard right now -.-'
I was laying in bed last night contemplating this exact issue - not only would it be easier and less noisy, but it would identify it clearly as a book. Right now, the two shapes could be any rectangular shape because the book cover would be covered up by the scroll going across the top anyways... back to the drawing board, at least partially.
Whenever the face (top?) of the book on the shoulder pad is NOT covered up by the rolled out scroll, that means the book is open, with the pages upwards. When it's covered by the scroll it means it's a closed book on either side.
Focused mainly on bracers and shoulders. You can totally mix and match from all of these, even if you like one part of just the shoulders in particular but not the rest, tell me! Paintovers are more than welcome if you would like to see a more complex combo of different aspects. All feedback is good feedback, so let me have it!
This
Really good points! That's why I'm leaning more towards number 7 (left one on the latest image) because it's not quite as noisy as the other one. I'm still on the fence about the lanterns, I initially drew it up more or less as a joke because it is a bit silly but now... hmmm. What does everybody else think?
And concerning the left image: My hope was that the red bookmark hanging down along with the scroll (runes would be self-illuminated) and the candle (ideally would have a little flame) would draw the eye more than say the text on the book or the black of the shoulder, therefore giving the viewer a definite focus where the bookpage itself serves more as a background. Do you think this will work?
For the bracers, I'd say the focus is more on the form as the hanging down part would (again, ideally) be cloth sim'ed so the actual form would be more interesting than the color etc.
I'm not that strong in design, so if I'm making some obvious mistakes in my thinking here, please hit me over the back of the head and tell me
Hm, that's a tough choice. Personally I really like how the bookmark fits in to give that thing that your eye can follow across the design (in German there's a expression for it that literally means red line or red string ^^) and it synergizes well with the bit of red in the candle.
I don't really want to make the runes as big as in 6 because then it'll be only one rune per page which kinda lessens the feel of the book as being packed with knowledge and give it more of a picturebook vibe ^^ What if I made the runes on the scroll red instead of blue? They're already really close to the bookmark as it is and I think that they could join into one visual hotspot instead of two separate ones.
As for invoker not needing bookmarks, the "lore" on the set is that he's such a dick that he wears the armor to taunt his enemies, so the books technically aren't for him, but rather for his enemies.
I'm gonna take you guys' advice and at least try it with bigger writing, I have a feeling it'll turn out that you guys are right.
although, why all those scrolls/books if he has memorized all his spells?
Pooling my few cents, I would agree with Vindalia about the feathers/quills. I first read them as some kind of padding for the shoulder, like goose down.
Had an idea about the bookmarks, what if there where several of them instead? Not sure if it just made a mess.
Getting off work soon, now I'm super excited to redraw this!
Most importantly though, I feel I'm kinda falling behind my schedule so I'm antsy to push forward ^^
maybe you need to think of other symbols instead of those fake runes which currently looks like its an alphabet as if something is written
how about symbols like the bottom 5 in this image
which are symbols that can be seen as a full spell, like japanese symbols can mean a word instead of representing a letter.
EDIT: Also, thanks for that sweet reference of runes, will definitely use that
oh ok, seemed to overread that part!
that just makes it awesome! xP
Maybe I should adjust the name of the set to reflect that more, but I ain't that good with them fancy big city words - English is only my 2nd language. Maybe something like "The Learned One's Challenge", "The Belligerent Scholar", "Mocking Magus", "Dissenting Diviner" or "Affrontive Augurer"
Maybe I could adjust the "lore" so that he keeps the books and scrolls as trophies. Other heroes collect shrunken heads, he collects books.
The runes are gonna be bigger in, I'm not ignoring your guys' feedback, just a bit pressed on time.
UVs are only using half the space because I'll be scaling them to use all the space so when I paint on at 256x512 (or rather 1024x2048) I won't have to deal with stretching.
That isnt what makes it a great set though, it's the idea and execution. Keep up the good work!
something that worries me is the scrolls that are going to be hanging from the arms, are there any bones there to skin them to, or will they be static?
Also, unfortunately I can't duplicate and flip normals on the single planes because I'm already only 2 tris under the budget even for lod0
Also, how does it look from the player angle?