Hi there, in the past few days I've been revisiting an older model and updating it. I've reached a point where I'd love to see what other artists think about the choices I've made while designing the character. Like usual critiques and feedback are appreciated!
I'd try to make his armor non-symmetrical so that he looks more unique and his silhouette is broken up a bit. This is completely up to you but I would exaggerate some of his anatomy or stance so it looks less human. Great start! I really like the sword and facial structure.
Cool character man, but that shader isn't doing it justice. Upload it with something else thats easier to see, or with some texture work.
I'd like to see this under some lighting conditions.
Should be a cool piece when it's done for sure!
looks badass, i agree with deforges, the armor is symmetrical but like you said, its WIP, i would probably make the skull on the belt bigger or even on a different piece of armor, like a shouler pad or wrist guard, i personally always enjoy seeing that kinda stuff on armor, curious though, how did you create the straps on his legs and chest, i was trying to achieve this on my character and i was kinda having a rough time in max trying to figure it out and give it that cool overlapping look. but good work man keep at it
are you basing this on any particular "lore" goblin? ie. games workshop/blizzard/tolkein? do you have references for it?
if you're designing your own goblin, what is it's background? what are the traits of the race? what makes yours different from other lore versions of a goblin? these kinds of things will help us understand why, for example, your goblin is seemingly human height/build instead of the typical childlike proportions.
Deforges:
Thanks for the feedback. I broke up his silhoutte and it looks much more effective.
_DeadPixel_:
Thanks man! Yea, I hope this shader is a bit better
Kaelin Hinnant:
Thanks I did it in zbrush. I basically masked the area I wanted and extracted it. The trick for me is to use dynamesh and always stay at the optimal resolution. For me the most optimal resolution is where I can move and adjust the silhouette of the model while retaining detail. This is important because in order to get the kind of creases and sharp edges I use the move tool extensively. For everything excluding the body and rope, I use the same technique. With backface masking turned on I use claybuildup to get a rough idea of what I am going for and then smooth it out for a nice base mesh. Then I use damion stand brush to get nice clear intersections (such as fur or the bandaging edges). The simplest advice I can give is, keep the resolution low, and easy to read from a distance while youre creating the overall form and silhouette of the mesh.
almight_gir:
The design of the character is based off of what I find pleasing. When I first started this project I created the Goblin with WoW like proportions, it really struck me how I never realized how odd they were until I tried to create something similar. I then decided to change the body to something that I find more appealing. I kept the overall head design and used references from google images to create the kind of body I would have liked a Goblin to have had.
In WoW terms, I see this character as a mix of human, orc, and goblin. I didnt build up much lore behind my design choices, and simply concepted in Zbrush until I liked it. Perhaps this a weakness that shows within the design.
Wahtye:
Thanks man, Ill definitely keep that in mind and improve on my design choices.
Ravanna:
Glad you like it, yea one of the most common things that Ive gotten in feedback is that the character looked a bit plain with armor design. Hopefully the new pieces make it more interesting to look at.
Kridian:
lol! Yea, that was intentional. Ive been studying and trying to understand what makes for an interesting proportion, specifically for this Goblin. Perhaps the limitations in my design are merely a reflection of my lack of experience, or even bad taste =P
So I went back and made some overall adjustment, added a few spikes here and there and cleaned up some rough spots.
I'd love to hear which areas are working and which areas are not. I've asked a few friends/family members but the feedback I get is usually extremely vague. Overall, the most common advice is to make it more detailed.
Hey guys, sorry for being away for so long. I am revisiting the anatomy of the goblin to add some needed detail/proportion adjustments. Overall, I'll be updating much more often since school no longer fights for my time Like always, feedback is appreciated!
I like the sculpt a lot, but when I look at it 'Goblin' isn't what comes to mind, more like something inbetween the orcs/Urukai in LOTR, or even passable as an ogre, given its bulky frame and muscle definition. As has already been pointed out, they tend to be a lot shorter - maybe 3-4 heads high, with exaggerated hands and feet to further sell the stumpy look....although it looks like you're going for realistic proportions here... anyway, I digress!
Looks cool if you're sticking with your own bulky design, should be a good end result
Head is way too small compared to the rest of the proportions, so I'd suggest addressing it pronto. Plus I agree with everyone view of a goblin is a small spindly creature, similar to that of a child. Also, Goblins are scavengers so maybe an assortment of different type of armour may add a bit of character to your guy.
But as it stands its coming along nicely with the route you are taking but the head does need fixing.
The anatomy is awesome! But I agree with Di$array that it looks more like a troll (WoW) or a human with big ears. For a classic goblin I think you would need a bag of collected items. I like the reference Di$array posted. Jewelry from gold or bone. Perhaps give him some visible teeth or some claws.
Thanks guys for the feedback. If only I could change the title to reduce the confusion lol. Similar to my response to almight_gir, I am trying to make the kind of character id want to play. Its a mash-up of orc/goblin/human. When I was creating the thread, I thought it was more goblin than anything else so I titled it so. Ive always found the dwarf like proportions of traditional goblins to make them look a bit silly. However, I love the proportions of a goblins face.
Here is an update, I am basically working only in asymmetry now.
Don't be afraid to break that symmetry! Especially in the face/ears. The scars are cool but not enough, get in there and really mess him up . Dig the ab area.
Thanks lildragn! I'll keep that in mind, after a little break I'll revisit the scars and give them a beating Here is what I have so far, thanks for the feedback, I really appreciate it, it makes my job much easier lol.
I felt like the weakest area within the model was the forearm/hand, so I concentrated on that. I didn't want to get too carried away detailing the character without overall consistency throughout the body in terms of form. Next up on my list is the butt, and then I'll be focusing more on the lower body to bring it to the same level of detail as the top.
Last update for today. I made some adjustments to the legs, and made some tweaks to the butt. I went in and blocked in the toes, next I'll be going in and connecting the pieces together and cleaning up rough areas. My last attempt at posting hit a database error, I hope this one works!
Leinad what reference are you using for the body, have you been practicing anatomy for long? Seems like you have quite a good knowledge of it and wondered what sources you studied. Last wip looking great
Hey Torch, thank you I am glad you are liking the progress I am just using heavy amounts of reference. Like a lot of people here I've been trying to sculpt/draw anatomy for a few years. But having a male anatomy model in front of me helps (Ill post a picture of it below). I basically have that and a lot of bodybuilding reference.
i think his back muscles look pretty wrong actually, particularly the latissimus dorsi.
also, with traps that huge it would be almost impossible for his head to be jutted forward the way you have it, you would need equally big (actually, bigger) sternocleidomastoid muscles for this effect.
from the front the deltoid looks like a ball that's been stuck on, without thought for how and where it connects to the humerous or more importantly, how the skin wraps over the top.
and perhaps most important of all... he has no posture. it looks like you've sculpted on all these muscle groups without any thought to how they affect a persons balance or posture. in terms of muscle placement you're pretty much there, but that's only half the story.
Thanks for the feedback almight_gir. When you say the back is wrong, can you explain what do you mean? You say the latissimus dorsi (if someone can specify exactly what's wrong), but that is a small part of what makes the back. I genuinely want to know since you say it's "pretty wrong" which implies significant proportional issues that I am missing.
Here is one of the images I have been referencing for the back:
Yea, I'll look into the neck, I haven't had the chance to work on that yet. As far as the deltoid, I'll play around with that and see if I can come up with something better. Again, I'd love to hear about exactly what is causing these areas to stick out to you. I actually do put thought into the muscle connections, but simply putting thought into it is not enough. Is the deltoid too small, too round, or simply not defined enough? I wouldn't want to blindly try to fix areas that I have overlooked.
Again thanks for the feedback, I'll go try to figure something out with the neck for now.
see how it's a very large, flat muscle? on your sculpt (and on the ref) it looks like it's been bisected laterally, which only happens when, like in your reference, there is a huge mass of muscle acting upon it. look at how tense the guy is, that's probably the worst reference you could have used. he's pulling his shoulders back and hunching his neck to force all of his upper back muscles down and out, which is causing his lats (or at the very least the skin on top of them) to fold over themself. it's probably the most unnatural thing i've ever seen on a back.
as for the neck, you could either pull the head back, or push the shoulders forward and develop the neck and chest muscles to give him a real hunch.
Ronnie coleman is too big to use as monster reference. LOL. Looking a lot better as almighty_gir pointed out. I think the hips bicep area and forearms could use some more love now. Id also give him slightly bigger lats to give him more of a "V" tapper, but that's more personal preference perhaps.
/edit, oh and looking at the head from the side view it looks way too long. I would sorten that up like 50%
Thanks everyone, really appreciate the help. Yea Ronnie Coleman has some crazy shapes, it's really hard fighting a picture of him not flexing so that I can sculpt a neutral position of him...
BradMyers82 I'll revisit the model tomorrow and more closely do some of the things you suggested. Right now I just toned down some of the definition as I think that is what is causing some of the issues.
Thanks DKK, yea I figured it was a lighthearted joke, still cracked me up. I've made some adjustments but I don't think it's enough. I'll make sure to go back in and make more proportional adjustments. For now I need to go out for a little walk around the trail since I've been sitting in one spot the whole day lol...
This update doesn't look like much, but it did take me a lot more time than I'd have expected it to do.
Brad I made some further adjustments to the head, I made large proportional changes to the arm while adding detail. I also went in and increased the V shape in the lats. As far as the hips, I made some adjustments to the obliques, I assume thats what you meant.
DKK, yea I went and opened up some anatomy books. Overall they were somewhat useful, most of the figures in the books are too normal in proportion. The most challenging part for me is taking muscles that I am familiar with and scaling them up to a bulky/unrealistic body type (similar to the one I have).
I basically had to cut up the arm to really be able to sculpt it from as many angles as I can. Let me know what you think.
Here is a quick update. Next I'll be combining all of the separate pieces and see how it looks when they are more consistently sculpted on the surface.
lol, yea the ears are low in priority at the moment. Once I get the general anatomy figured out, I can go into the fun stuff. Here is my current state, please let me know if there are any obvious anatomy issues. I haven't gone into detailing the shapes yet, need to make sure it's fairly correct before I waste anymore time detailing it.
I brought the arms out just in case I decide to rig and animate it after I finish it.
I didn't like the direction I was taking the new proportions, so I went back to an earlier stage where I did like and worked from there. I am moving on from the anatomy and going into the armor. I'll be keeping it quit simple in terms of individual pieces.
Here is a paintover I did for you dude to better describe some of the stuff I was talking about.
-So I defined the hips more and gave it a lot more form, so its not so round cylinder like.
-I changed the proportions up in a bunch of places, bigger head, not so wide body, did a lot of repositioning of the body from the side view so he has a more natural balanced stance. I made his head a lot less long from the side view.
-I adjusted the hands, forearms, and fixed the insertion point on the bicep (which I see almost everyone do it that way). There is a gap where the bicep connects into the forearm.
-smoothed out a lot of those cuts you have. A lot of them are razor sharp and thats not realistic really.
-smoothed out the chest cavity, and gave him some lats.
-defined the neck and clavicle more.
-made the legs point outward more as you have the feet turned that way. defined the groin area and outer sweep of the leg.
Anyway, I hope you don't feel I'm tearing you apart or anything. Basically, I didn't see in this most recent update drastic enough changes as to what I expected. I see a lot of really good potential in this character which is why I took the time to try and help out. Keep up the good work man!
Thanks Brad, I really appreciate the time you put into your reply. I did keep in mind many of the points, but some of the proportion changes you made swayed too far from my original design intent. Sorry it took me some time for a new update. I found myself a bit burnt out in my last post, and decided to do some different art projects so that I don't rush through this just to "finish" without taking the necessary time.
Here is the new update, the model is roughly 6k polies (screen grab from marmoset).
Replies
I'd like to see this under some lighting conditions.
Should be a cool piece when it's done for sure!
are you basing this on any particular "lore" goblin? ie. games workshop/blizzard/tolkein? do you have references for it?
if you're designing your own goblin, what is it's background? what are the traits of the race? what makes yours different from other lore versions of a goblin? these kinds of things will help us understand why, for example, your goblin is seemingly human height/build instead of the typical childlike proportions.
Gotta agree on that.
The concept of it is sort of lacking.
It's basically a muscular human with the general 8-head-canon and a goblin-head.
Goblins usually have a pretty large head in relation to the rest of their body.
Keep it up!
plenty still to work with on the armour
In fact, it's too perfect. You have this perfect Adonis body that looks like a toy Action Figure.
I would recommend seeing The Hobbit movie.*
Thanks for the feedback. I broke up his silhoutte and it looks much more effective.
_DeadPixel_:
Thanks man! Yea, I hope this shader is a bit better
Kaelin Hinnant:
Thanks I did it in zbrush. I basically masked the area I wanted and extracted it. The trick for me is to use dynamesh and always stay at the optimal resolution. For me the most optimal resolution is where I can move and adjust the silhouette of the model while retaining detail. This is important because in order to get the kind of creases and sharp edges I use the move tool extensively. For everything excluding the body and rope, I use the same technique. With backface masking turned on I use claybuildup to get a rough idea of what I am going for and then smooth it out for a nice base mesh. Then I use damion stand brush to get nice clear intersections (such as fur or the bandaging edges). The simplest advice I can give is, keep the resolution low, and easy to read from a distance while youre creating the overall form and silhouette of the mesh.
almight_gir:
The design of the character is based off of what I find pleasing. When I first started this project I created the Goblin with WoW like proportions, it really struck me how I never realized how odd they were until I tried to create something similar. I then decided to change the body to something that I find more appealing. I kept the overall head design and used references from google images to create the kind of body I would have liked a Goblin to have had.
In WoW terms, I see this character as a mix of human, orc, and goblin. I didnt build up much lore behind my design choices, and simply concepted in Zbrush until I liked it. Perhaps this a weakness that shows within the design.
Wahtye:
Thanks man, Ill definitely keep that in mind and improve on my design choices.
Ravanna:
Glad you like it, yea one of the most common things that Ive gotten in feedback is that the character looked a bit plain with armor design. Hopefully the new pieces make it more interesting to look at.
Kridian:
lol! Yea, that was intentional. Ive been studying and trying to understand what makes for an interesting proportion, specifically for this Goblin. Perhaps the limitations in my design are merely a reflection of my lack of experience, or even bad taste =P
I'd love to hear which areas are working and which areas are not. I've asked a few friends/family members but the feedback I get is usually extremely vague. Overall, the most common advice is to make it more detailed.
Looks cool if you're sticking with your own bulky design, should be a good end result
But as it stands its coming along nicely with the route you are taking but the head does need fixing.
Here is an update, I am basically working only in asymmetry now.
lol, wow thanks for the card, made me laugh
giant goblin that still has goblin proportions is hardly "for the haters".
also, with traps that huge it would be almost impossible for his head to be jutted forward the way you have it, you would need equally big (actually, bigger) sternocleidomastoid muscles for this effect.
from the front the deltoid looks like a ball that's been stuck on, without thought for how and where it connects to the humerous or more importantly, how the skin wraps over the top.
and perhaps most important of all... he has no posture. it looks like you've sculpted on all these muscle groups without any thought to how they affect a persons balance or posture. in terms of muscle placement you're pretty much there, but that's only half the story.
Here is one of the images I have been referencing for the back:
Yea, I'll look into the neck, I haven't had the chance to work on that yet. As far as the deltoid, I'll play around with that and see if I can come up with something better. Again, I'd love to hear about exactly what is causing these areas to stick out to you. I actually do put thought into the muscle connections, but simply putting thought into it is not enough. Is the deltoid too small, too round, or simply not defined enough? I wouldn't want to blindly try to fix areas that I have overlooked.
Again thanks for the feedback, I'll go try to figure something out with the neck for now.
edit (here is an update of my current model):
see how it's a very large, flat muscle? on your sculpt (and on the ref) it looks like it's been bisected laterally, which only happens when, like in your reference, there is a huge mass of muscle acting upon it. look at how tense the guy is, that's probably the worst reference you could have used. he's pulling his shoulders back and hunching his neck to force all of his upper back muscles down and out, which is causing his lats (or at the very least the skin on top of them) to fold over themself. it's probably the most unnatural thing i've ever seen on a back.
as for the neck, you could either pull the head back, or push the shoulders forward and develop the neck and chest muscles to give him a real hunch.
/edit, oh and looking at the head from the side view it looks way too long. I would sorten that up like 50%
BradMyers82 I'll revisit the model tomorrow and more closely do some of the things you suggested. Right now I just toned down some of the definition as I think that is what is causing some of the issues.
Thanks DKK, yea I figured it was a lighthearted joke, still cracked me up. I've made some adjustments but I don't think it's enough. I'll make sure to go back in and make more proportional adjustments. For now I need to go out for a little walk around the trail since I've been sitting in one spot the whole day lol...
This update doesn't look like much, but it did take me a lot more time than I'd have expected it to do.
Brad I made some further adjustments to the head, I made large proportional changes to the arm while adding detail. I also went in and increased the V shape in the lats. As far as the hips, I made some adjustments to the obliques, I assume thats what you meant.
DKK, yea I went and opened up some anatomy books. Overall they were somewhat useful, most of the figures in the books are too normal in proportion. The most challenging part for me is taking muscles that I am familiar with and scaling them up to a bulky/unrealistic body type (similar to the one I have).
I basically had to cut up the arm to really be able to sculpt it from as many angles as I can. Let me know what you think.
I brought the arms out just in case I decide to rig and animate it after I finish it.
-So I defined the hips more and gave it a lot more form, so its not so round cylinder like.
-I changed the proportions up in a bunch of places, bigger head, not so wide body, did a lot of repositioning of the body from the side view so he has a more natural balanced stance. I made his head a lot less long from the side view.
-I adjusted the hands, forearms, and fixed the insertion point on the bicep (which I see almost everyone do it that way). There is a gap where the bicep connects into the forearm.
-smoothed out a lot of those cuts you have. A lot of them are razor sharp and thats not realistic really.
-smoothed out the chest cavity, and gave him some lats.
-defined the neck and clavicle more.
-made the legs point outward more as you have the feet turned that way. defined the groin area and outer sweep of the leg.
Anyway, I hope you don't feel I'm tearing you apart or anything. Basically, I didn't see in this most recent update drastic enough changes as to what I expected. I see a lot of really good potential in this character which is why I took the time to try and help out. Keep up the good work man!
Here is the new update, the model is roughly 6k polies (screen grab from marmoset).
I think the renders could use more intense lighting to describe the forms.
As for the ears I like the size, they just need more ear-like definition.