The Cossack

seth.

Hey Folks, I just finished up the high poly for a character that I'm working on and I could do with a few sets of eyes on it just to get some feedback and maybe point out some dumb stuff that I might have missed

He's loosely based on a Ukranian cossack, but it's not an exact historical representation so don't stress that aspect too much...

anyway pictures:



bigger shots here: Cossack High Res

and a close shot of the head, hair and droopy 'tashe will be dealt with via alpha in the textures.



Next up will be the low poly, I'm thinking about PS4 Xbone specs for the character just to have a play with some serious polycounts and texture res...yay!

thanks for looking

crazyfool

hes looking great, the cloths feeling really nice aswell.

I did a quick paintover of things you could try to get him a bit more natural looking (hope you dont mind). It might be completely the wrong direction though so take with a pinch of salt

The main things Ive done is widen the face, thicken the nostrils, lower/bring in the eyes and shrink his chin. You might want to look at the eye to brow relation aswell, clint eastwood might be a good reference for the overhang, generally it doesnt split like that in the middle, would be lower down. Otherwise stuff I like to do is emphasise forms and generally stay away from cuts, like the laughing lines for example, they usually only look cut in from 3/4s and not from front view where its quite smooth, and if they do cut then it fades out usually rather quickly due to where it meets mouth muscles.



Hes looking great though dude

Torch

Daym XO Great stuff Seth - he looks ace!

/anty/

Nice one, probably good costumes and faces reference would be Repin's Cossacks

Pix

I believe this painting above my post is the famous one when Cossacks wrote letter to Turkish Sultan as a response, it was very insulting and hilarious.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reply_of_the_Zaporozhian_Cossacks

seth.

Hey Tom, I don't mind at all man....that's exactly the sort of thing that I was after... I will be making some adjustments to the head tonight then...again thanks for taking the time to do me a paintover.

Phil, thanks mister

/anty/ yup that ones in my ref folder for the project, its a little later in period than the guy that I'm going for, but its a fantastic painting none the less.

Pix, yeah, I have a Ukrainian friend that has been telling me all about the history of the Zaporozhian Cossacks...amazing stuff.

again thanks for looking

vahl

very good stuff Seth needs more random noise though
now get back to it !

seth.

hehehehe! you dont have time to post here...you have another video to record

Thanks for the kind words though....even though to type them must have cut you like razors

i'm back at it now I promise.

Envart

Lovely work dude!

seth.

Thanks Walrus

updated head shots... I think that I was too influenced by some shots I had of Willem Defoe, but not in a good way :d

again thanks for the paintover Tom, I think its pulled everything to a much better place.



thanks for looking

af3d

looking brilliant... mind sharing your rendering process?

crazyfool

proportions are looking alot better great job. If Im nitpicking to annoy you I think the nostrils could come further back towards the skull, they usually lineup with the eye and maybe check the jawline from underneath, you might have the pointey chin and too straighter jaw possibly!?! alot of people accidentally do this on female characters and you end up with a bobble chin haha

otherwise he looks awesome, might be an idea to push some Ukrainian/european features aswell, Klitschko brothers may be a good ref, I think they are Ukrainian.....cant remember,

http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_ma1xq9uOV31qbzyr6o1_500.jpg
http://www.saddoboxing.com/boxing_images2/wladimir.jpg

things like the downturned nose and outer eyelids, heavy brow, distinct lip shape and more shapely mouth. All depends on where you want to go though

great job though dude apologies for my nitpicking hehe

seth.

af3d: thanks very much, nothing special on the rendering front just zapplink character sheet stuff with a level and saturation tweak in PS using an old matcap I have....its called Z2...I dont know if anyone can shed any light on where its from? If its not a commercial release then I will happily pop it on dropbox for you.

Tom, thanks tons again mister, I don't mind you being picky at all....you cant ask for crit and then not accept it can you

I have changed up the nostrils and I think sorted the chin, its helping the jawline look a lot stronger I think...I toyed with the idea of a more Klitschko nose, but pulled it back in the end

progress:



thanks for looking

seth.

well then, progress.. low poly done and baked and spent the day throwing some textures at him... all terribly "in progress" at the moment. No eyes yet either, I'm going to create some nice ones for him, and then move to his hair, before creating a few props so that I can have a play with some dx11 trickery...anyway:



once the hair alphas are in then I think he will sit at about 23k...so nowhere near as next next gen as I wanted, but a good stepping stone for the next piece I think.

also getting featured in the recap was ace...if you read this than thanks very much for putting me in with so much amazing art Sean

thanks for looking

Torch

Really nice textures and good job on the recap man! When sorting out micro detail do you model in the weave of the cloth materials as well? I was reading up about some next gen techniques and they spoke a lot about micro detail methods, etc. so thought I would ask. Please pass down your knowledge Cheers!

JFletcher

Hey Seth, awesome!

I really like the face and the detailing around the belt!

I know you said textures are in progress but I think some whitened frayed edges to the cloth and leather would be really nice. (especially on the glove) maybe even that sort of matte-ish fluff you get underneath leather. You know what you're doing though so I'll shut up, heh.

Look forward to seeing more!

seth.

hey Phil, cheers mister. Generally I wont model in fabric weave or leather etc.. on the high poly. I will get the large and medium detail in, and then use height maps generated in Ps and merged with the normal bake in crazybump. This allows me to control the scale of the detail so that I can make sure that its still readable from a distance, and it gives me greater conrtol over the spec values etc too. hope that helps man

Hey Jon, thanks very much There is a scuffing pass to go yet, but I completly agree that it needs it...the waistcoat is way to ney and shiney at the moment...the glove is going to get a nice heavy wool knit and then I may try adding some fray with a few alphas....lets see how that works out huh

can I pick your brain Jon....where you using height maps for the material details on the huntress? if so how were you combining them with your normal bakes cos if I remember right she had a 4k texture on her, and crazybump is hating that....I'm about to install Knald, I had a look at Ndo2 and it seems way complicated for what I want from it...your advices would be greatly appriciated.

thanks very much for looking guys

seth.

began properly working into the upper texture tonight, got a wear pass done on most materials and just worked on material definition...recent dirt coming up next then on to the lower half



silly res shots and mora angles here for anyone that can be fussed :HIGH RES

Knald is pretty ace btw, especially for cavity and convexity maps....very tidy, along with the tesselation viewer...no normal map mixer yet, but I stumbled upon a work around for that...you can mix a 2k height map with a 4k normal balke and they line up...the height may require a little sharpening before crazybump, but it will do for now

thanks for looking and stuff

garriola83

This guy is such a BAMF, please keep it up!

Muzzoid

This looks wonderful!

Gav

This looks great man, has a Witcher vibe to it

duncan

haha THIS IS ACE!.

I am really keen to see him with the facial hairings.

ghost-d

Excellent job so far! I love the way you texture the skin. Keep us posted, please

rollin

this is getting more and more sweeeet

seth.

garriola83: thanks man, I will try my best

Muzz : thanks very much

Gav :Thanks Gav, funnily enough I just grabbed the first two Witcher titles on steam.. if he ends up looking half as good as some of the stuff that I have seen for the Witcher 3 then I will be a happy boy

duncan : cheers man....yeah I'm kind of itching to see what the hair is going to come out like too...I have an idea in my head of what I want, but it never works out quite the way that I expect with me and hair

ghost-d: thanks very much ....and see below

rollin: thanks very much....still lots to do and refine yet but glad that I'm on the right track

ok tonight's work was focused pretty much on the lower half of him, the boots trousers and underskirt...I also made a start on the pouch texture....tomorrow I will get the dagger sorted and tweak some of the stuff in the upper texture before I do a final detail blitz and then shuffle onto the fleshy hairy bits



again silly res shots here: CLICKY CLICKY just cos I have 25 Gb of space on dropbox

again thanks very much for looking and taking the time to comment folks

afisher

Looking great Seth! Can't wait to see him finished

almighty_gir

i love the leather man...

Zoltus

very good detail! whats your final tri count?:) Im curious about the next gen specs.

Hazardous

dude... top notch work man !!!!

Brian "Panda" Choi

That leather, what the heck is the texture process for that??

seth.

Morning all,

afisher: Thanks Adam, me too...once I have him in the folio I can start applying for a jerb again

almighty_gir : Hey Lee, thanks man oh and see below...

Zoltus : he's currently sitting at about 23k...which will go up a ton now that I have seen the last of us character dump on ZBC...damn those hair alphas's are amazing Knowland is a beast!!...lots to study...here's a link to the wireframe rotations, they are a bit large I warn you WIREFRAME SHOTS !CLICKY!

Hazardous: Thanks man, I will be back in the bliss stream tomorrow night, your tunes are ace to work to

JadeEyePanda: heheh I will find the time to get a breakdown done for you in the next day or two....its really quite simple but it will require pictures cos I'm really bad at explanations....here's a close up of the dagger though, so that you can have a better look its all I got done last night cos other stuff got in the way and the handle still needs work....it wants to be carved bone but its not yet



as always thanks very much for taking the time to look at my nonsense...hopefully I will have something worth updating next time

Zoltus

hmm its a ton indeed thx the wirefram grabbed to my inspiration folder... yeah i saw that, pf... he went nuts ..lots of to study.
awesome details X.x I have to dig to this heigh map mixing normal map process

tristanCarter

This has been an unbelievable thread to watch, and it's really inspiring me to kick my ass into gear and properly work on stuff to finally post to polycount. As for the bone, I think the thing really throwing it off is your color choice and specular.

I'd expect to see a more muted spec on bone(unless highly polished) as well as a range of bleached yellows and tans with some hints of brown from dirt etc. As it stands now, it feels a little more metal than bone.

seth.

Zoltus, it's just a matter of leaving the high frequency details off the sculpt and then creating a height map in Ps as you texture, using the same overlays and detail as the diffuse so that they all merge together nicely in the final model....I use crazybumps merge maps feature, bringing the baked normals in, and then adding the height map over the top. Hope that made some sense.

thanks tristan, it pleases me greatly that I have inspired someone else to create art....yeah agreed on the bone, my other half pointed out that it looked more like badly done bronze too....better fix that then.

been working the last couple of days on facial hair and face in general, still the eyeballs to do and the fur alphas but here's a silly size shot of the tash:



I did the stubble in alpha just to try it out...its pretty pointless at a distance of more than 12 virtual inches from the model but what the hell

HDaniel999

That model Is just so amazing, I loved the colors, great work, I want to see more!

seth.

HDaniel999 thanks very much

ok I have pretty much finished the textures, just the hair alphas to go and I can move onto his shashka for the final pose.



marmoset renderage

further angles available here : CLICKY

comments crits etc.. much appriciated.

AimBiZ

That mustache added a lot to the character. Overall this model looks really good. I'm not sure if I like the color choice though but it's hard to tell without knowing what background colors he'd reside in. Would definitely be cool if you put him in an environment anyway, perhaps a little diorama telling a little bit of story, like he's casually looking somewhere while sheathing his sword or something.

af3d

Looking forward to seeing this guy posed! The textures are really giving the sculpt justice right now. Great work

JFletcher

Awesome work Seth.

Right now the skin seems a bit flat, maybe a bit of a softer ambient light / skin ramp would help a bit along with a more blue-ish specular? Although I'm judging this off of the close up shot, it seems like you changed a bit in the next one which is cool. (Also perhaps a bit of AO from the hat/gloves/neck area to soften things?)

The wool material (right?) on the cap, hood and wrist seems a bit noisy, I guess it depends on what you're going for but personally I think too much in the normals for that sort of stuff (especially when the diffuse is so bright) leaves it looking a bit coarse when the material should read as something more soft and cosy

http://www.texturevault.net/wool_surface_sjpg4414.jpg

http://i1269.photobucket.com/albums/jj592/honestfashion/Dolce%20Gabbana/shearling%20wool/100_4213.jpg

I really like it in these soft materials where cavities have a very warm pinkish-orangey hue to them, also perhaps adding a gradient will soften the material too:



Sorry, I missed your question from before! I didn't use height maps no, I dont really use crazy bump, it's great and all but I just dont like going out of Photoshop, maybe im a bit stubborn, heh. I just do that kind of stuff per layer with the nvidia normal map filter and adjust it a lot after.

Cool stuff though, looking forward to seeing the shashka and the pose!

af3d

I agree with JFletcher on the skin actually. Would be cool to post your texture flats for the head. I think there can definitely be improvements made on the color variation especially on the nose and eye socket areas. Additionally given the thickness of his mustache it seems appropriate to add a higher frequency of stubble on his chin and jawline and give it a nice subtle fade into the cheeks.

seth.

AimBIZ: thanks very much, I think I flattened out a lot of the colours with the lighting in those shots...so busy trying to get the skin to look interesting that I forgot the rest of the piece, I will try to bring it all back together. I have a vignette planned for him, but nothing too expansive

thanks af3D, and yeah I agree with fletch's comments too I've added current shots of the skin and hat below...let me tidy up my flats a bit and I will get those posted too

Jon great call on the shadows man...I wasn't even thinking about that...totally going to work more on the wool...its updated a bit from those shots but I see what you mean, my "interpretation " is way too harsh
seriously thanks man I'm not sure if the skin is still too "orange" I'm relying pretty heavily on Marmosets skin shaders here so the skintone changes a lot in different lights...I will work on it some more too.

took tonight off cos I'm a slacker, well I had a play with CAT in max but that was it...I should have something worth looking at tomorrow



again thanks for taking the time to give feedback guys

almighty_gir

you should break his nose. give him some asymmetry man.

seth.

hey Lee, yeah I think at this point the more I look at the head the more I feel that I got so caught up in the technical aspects of him that I have developed something that's just too bland...I'm not sure a broken nose will fix it tbh but I will give it a try. I'm going to push through and get him finished but I think that I have learned a few valuable lessons on this piece that hopefully will produce something a lot better for the next one....balls...heheh

Luke_Starkie

Looking raaate nice man, love the facial hair. How'd you go about doing the stubble?

seth.

thanks Luke, thanks man...the stubble was a bit of an indulgence. I threw about 1200 tris at it in single hair strand alphas. I think I got a bit carried away looking at some of the last of us character beards I'm sure that there is a better way to do it out there somewhere though.

praetor187

This just has shmexy written all over it. can you share some of your hair alphas by any chance. Im just curios as im horrible at creating hair myself, maybe seeing it from a pro will shed some light on it for me.

seth.

Hey praetor....I'm far from pro especially when it comes to hair, but I will put something together for you....along with the leather breakdown that I haven't forgotten about....honest.

Heres a high poly Shashka in the meantime:


also if you check my folio I think that I've sorted out the lighting issues, nearly finished now....still got to adjust the wool more in line with jon's crit though.

Fomori

This is fantastic. Turkish Cossack is a really interesting choice as well.

Are you displaying him in Marmoset?

EDIT: never mind just saw it was in your portfolio.

Hazardous

Dude, this is shaping up to be an ultimate piece!!!

I hope you dont mind man i made a scribble here with some thoughts!



I think these might be some things you could do to the actual mesh and some texture bits too.

1) rotate one of the eye sockets ever so slightly, and increase the size of both eyes just a little.
2) Changed eyes to green, just to add some pop because everything is is such a similar hue.
3) more grit / roughness to the skin
4) Lowered the cheeckbones a little.
5) touched up the blends between the stache and teh facem added more stubble etc etc.
6) Lowered entire eye socket area.
7) added the eye shadow layer under the top lid.

Luke_Starkie

Definitely do what Hazardous has pointed out, will fully top this great piece of bro!

seth.

Fomori: thanks man
Haz: amazing paintover, thanks for taking the time to do that mister....I subscribe to everything that you have posted. I hope to get back to working on him this week, and I thought that he was nearly finished

Luke: agree completly man...lets hope that at the end of it all my crappy skinning does the rest of him justice huh? so much to learn so few braincells