Torn - Angel Character

Wilder4690

A new character that I am working on and I am planning on teaching myself to sculpt on. This is the base mesh and I will start sculpting as soon as possible. I would like to get the proportions correct and make sure the design is good before beginning to sculpt, so any advice on that front would be much appreciated.

_DMage_

Epic (try to bring you character into Mudbox and do a fast color /Projection paint

praetus

umm.... what exactly do you intend to sculpt on this guy? Not to say you can't sculpt armor, but most of your base mesh seems pretty thin which is going to cause errors when you sculpt and try and bake out your maps. I can't say for sure since you didn't post wires, but how is your topology laid out? Right now when you subdivide I think you're going to get really uneven topology.

Wilder4690

@DMage

I checked out projection painting and it looks like a great method for getting some photo realistic details. I will definitely use this technique. I will have to do the UVs tonight so that I can get started on that and play around.

@Praetus

Well this is my first time sculpting a mesh so I am not really aware of the limitations of what I can sculpt or not. There are details I wanted to add to the one shoulder pad, the boots, some runes in various places, and just general scuffs, dings and scratches that I wanted to add. I am not planning on adding any extra geometry, though.

I don't know what you mean by having thin mesh or what that means in terms of sculpting. Can you tell me about a specific area?

My topology is laid out in quads and I tried to keep everything as even as possible. I can put up topology shots to get feedback on that as well.

praetus

So, some things about sculpting. You need to be careful with thin meshes as it is really easy for ZBrush to grab the faces that lay behind what you're sculpting and inadvertently pinching your mesh. Basically where you have any chains or those wing blades seems like they're really thin and are just going to be destroyed by your sculpting program.

Just keep it in mind when you sculpt to be careful in those areas.

Lloth

Even though it doesn't negate Praetus advice, you can turn on backface masking in Zbrush under Brush -> Auto Masking -> Backface masking. This will make sure you have less issues with thin meshes. Still, very thin meshes are tough to work with. If this is your first sculpting practice, it might be worth to start with something organic so you can get a feel of the tools and their restrictions.

Then again, best way to learn is to get your hands dirty and just try

I like the design on your character. The pose is very strict though. It could be a quick win to pose him in a more relaxed pose. More fun to sculpt on

Wilder4690

Hey guys these are the color mock-ups of the character. I am extremely bad with color schemes, so any suggestions would be welcome. The story for the character is that he is an angelic warrior that has been cast out of heaven for siding with humans against his god. After his fall from grace he is Torn between hating/blaming the humans for his situation and his original compassion towards them that was strong enough have him speak out against his god.

So the gist of it is that he is a pure character who has recently become twisted and much darker. Any suggestions as to how I can convey this through the color scheme as well as the structure of his armor would be much appreciated.