Pyxis' Art Dump

Pyxis

Hi everyone, I'm a game dev student in my second year, so I'm still learning how to make everything look shiny and amazing. I'll be posting shots of my projects here, and I'd definitely love some heavy crit and advice on my work! Anything I can do to improve, lay it on me.

Current Project:



Little girl and her backpack.

Pyxis

I'm working on a sculpt of a Manticore for a project right now, which will eventually be rigged and textured. I'm still relatively new to the art of zbrush, I know my way around but I haven't done a whole lot with it yet. This is my design:



And this is the rough lowpoly in Maya.



Is there anything that's not looking right here? My prof advised me to sculpt in the mane in zbrush when I start to define the muscle structure, so that's why it's not in the lowpoly.

Got the sculpting sort of done, I really like using the flatten brush for a cartoonier style. I still need to refine the detailing on it and do the tail.

Pyxis

Since I last posted I refined the shape some more and did the detail pass. The fur didn't turn out how I wanted it, but I'm strapped for time so it'll have to do.

Evil raz

I wouldn't sculpt the hair or either do it in a different sub-tool just for visual reasons.
You need to work on your animal anatomy. Look at dogs/lions musculature.
I don't see why you are stiffing the tail, you can loosen it like in the concept, the spiral shape. The face looks like a hog than the creature, In concept face looks closer to chimp or something, so try to base your face structure more closer to that.
Since you'll be making a low poly and if you do it as the position it's going to stay the most, there will be no stretching.

Those are just my opinion, but good start.

Pyxis

How could I do the fur in a different subtool? The mane I understand being separate (and damn I regret not doing it separately now that you've mentioned it), but how would I do the fur on the body? I hemmed and hawed a lot over how to do it and settled on doing it like this because I wanted to go with a more stylized model (ie. Dota2 or something similar). Not sure how well I hit that mark, though...

Where do you see the issue with the anatomy? I kinda feel like there's something off with the front legs especially but I haven't been able to put my finger on what it is or how to fix it.

The tail is stiff because my prof told me it would be easier to lay out the joints with it straight out, then I can curl it later once the joints are in place. I didn't actually think about the issue of texture stretching though, this is my first time rigging such a complicated model so I never thought of that being a problem.

I agree that the face is more like a warthog or something now, that concept was more of a basic silhouette guideline and after I showed it to my prof he wanted me to go with a warthog snout. This project was done kind of backwards so I didn't actually have the concept done until after I started sculpting.

Thank you for the advice, it's much appreciated!

DWalker

Your front leg seems to have lost definition around the elbow joint. The feet are also a bit flat, at least for a canid.

Pyxis

Ahh, I see now! Thanks DWalker.



Hookay, so I've started polypainting since time constraints required it. I also have hopefully fixed up the front leg a bit (I found this picture of a housecat's leg/paw as reference because I imagined him as more feline in the front legs).

minorthreat

This thing is really creepy, I love the texture on the tail.

Pyxis

Thanks, minorthreat! It's nice to hear he's hitting the creepy mark.



I continued with the polypaint. I had such trouble coming up with a colour scheme that looks natural, even now I'm pretty iffy about it.

I'm also going to change the eyes to solid brown or black, he looks too friendly as it is now.

minorthreat

I also think the tongue should be black, pink makes it resemble a friendly dog. Also, maybe you could fit some kinda pattern on the lighter fur, like darker stripes or something.

Pyxis

minorthreat, thanks for the suggestions. I ended up making his tongue very dark reddish pink to help break up the black and tan a little but hopefully still get rid of the "friendly dog" look. I also was initially going to put in stripes of some kind, but it didn't end up looking too good when I tried it out.



I'm gonna have to call this done, since it's due Monday. Not my favourite piece, but hey, I learned some things I guess. Now on to the lowpoly and rig...

dpadam450

Just because its due doesn't mean you cant fix change it up for your portfolio. My suggestions:

Rig the tail and put the curl in or just statically curl it for render.
Meaner eyebrows? Looks like a sad dog than a beast.
Put a couple quads with alpha'd fur covering the base of the tail. The hair is just too perfect like the dog got a haircut around the tail base.

Pyxis

Very true, dpadam. This is a project I'd like to come back to once I get some free time and a little more practice. I added the tail curl, tried to work in a heavier brow ridge and a meaner expression, and I've added some alpha fur tufties to try make him look scruffier.



My rendering skills aren't too great yet, I only just started using Marmoset for rendering purposes. I used the Ennis House skybox for lighting, at the time it looked nice but on my monitor at home it seems to lack contrast...

Ugh, I just noticed the seams on the pedestal, I thought I'd gotten rid of those.

Pyxis

Doing some more experimenting with Marmoset. I didn't make the meshes, just did the textures. This was part of a collaborative game between myself and some classmates that was supposed to end up in Unity, but never really got off the ground.

Pyxis

Started on a brand new project now that it's summer. I've been wanted to do something with this character for a while, so I'm going through the full pipeline with her to get some practice. So far the second picture is what I'm at for the design right now.

Pyxis

Started sculpting. So far she looks like a creepy baby doll whose hand got mangled in a shredder. :poly117: I also really need to work on that side profile...

Pyxis

Put other project on the backburner to follow some tutorials instead. I think I bit off more than I could chew with her, so I'm taking a step back to learn some more techniques.



I need to completely redo her head, there wasn't enough geometry to make her eyelids properly, so they look really mangled up close. Going to dynamesh her head instead and add it onto the model. She also needs some work on the feet and hands, and I think she's off somewhere proportionally.