[WIP] Roman Cartoon character
Hi there polycount community Im a newcommer to the scene of gaming development and the unreal 3 engine. Recently my roommate highly recommended to post any progressive work to get feedback from the community and how doing that helped him progress. Seeing how good he is makes it more of a reason to post so Ive taken an old project of mine and been trying to learn unreal 3 through texturing,material,etc,etc and currently texturing the sword and shield any feedback is welcome.
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JK JK
From what I can see so far the cape is looking pretty good. I would say some things to keep in mind as you go further is to push the finger detail a bit. Its a big part of his body and making the fingernails and creases on the fingers in the diffuse map a bit more pronounced. Next I would get some more shots up for critique of him in the straight from back and side views without the tilt and maybe a close up of the face so people can see what you are working with.
Also host your images here so you can place the images directly into the posts
http://imgur.com/
Just quickly a few things that stand out:
-The folds on the cape have areas that don't make much sense. The Y shaped folds normally appear in areas where the cloth compresses or folds over itself.
-If this character is going to be animated modeling him with a facial expression may cause problems down the line. But assuming that he's just going to be a static posed character I'm super glad you gave him some life, I'm so tired of seeing finalized characters in T-pose with a thousand yard stare. I'd like to see his pose be a bit more dynamic and expressive to match his face though.
-He's very stubby and squat at the moment. I guess this is part of the cartoony stylization, but apart from the face he's been given a fairly realistic treatment. I would push the proportions on his armor and helmet more and maybe exaggerate his body even further. Perhaps giving a painterly look to the textures would sell the cartoony look more as well. It really comes down to taste how you wanna do it, but at the moment the proportions read more like a mistake than a deliberate stylistic choice.
Your character strikes me as more of a Miles Glorioso than an average troop. You might want to add a horse hair plume to the top of his helmet.
The sword seems a bit long for a gladius, although it does have the correct shape (allowing for comic exaggeration). The blade of the gladius was typically a bit under 2 feet long. A spatha was about the length of your sword, albeit a bit narrower, but was from a later period when the rectangular tower shields had been replaced with round shields.
Roman plate armor (lorica sementata) was not a single piece typical of plate armor (whether ancient Greek or medieval European), but several overlapping horizontal strips of metal. Unlike earlier armor, it was made from iron, not bronze.
Also note the leather strips covered with metal studs to protect the lower torso.
Roman citizens were almost invariably clean-shaven from the time of the Republic until late in the empire. They considered it a sign of being Roman rather than Greek.
Thanks Fingus for your input, your assumption of why I didn't leave him in the T pose and give him an facial expression is correct its just a static pose character and will never be Rigged but I do agree that I could have pushed the pose more. Interesting how you came to the conclusion of the stylization because that's the style that I was going for a hybrid of realism and cartoon but saying that you do make a good point of it might read as a mistake because usually when someone choice one of the other style they usually stay in that realm and is definitely something to keep in mind the next time I go for a stylize approach.
Thanks DWalker for the input, o man your right my character does look like something from the Asterix comic which is awesome since i loved reading those story in my childhood. About the armor I actually made three character two of them have that type of armor and for the purpose of practicing low polying, texturing, mapping and rendering I only choice one and just added the shield and sword for accessory look. But you do bring a good point that even if its a cartoonist style look it might look bad not basing the character armor on the type of soldier he is. Could give that effect that I didn't do my research or have any reference while doing this, it is definitively something to keep in mind for future projects.
Thx for the love bud