Hand Painted Texture Practice
greentooth
Hello everyone,
I tried to make some hand Painted weapons this week, it's the first time i try this and it's pretty cool to do.
Critics are welcome
All weapon's concept are from Tamara Bakhlycheva alias FirstKeeper.
I tried to make some hand Painted weapons this week, it's the first time i try this and it's pretty cool to do.
Critics are welcome
All weapon's concept are from Tamara Bakhlycheva alias FirstKeeper.
Replies
something I think ppl overall are not doing enough when creating hand painted assets are gradient/Importance passes.
Did a quick paintover, sharpening up the handle and added a gradient to focus the eye more on the blade then the handle:
You definitly have the right direction and your modeling skills capture the essence of your concepts,
But your textures are lacking to capture that same quality. I do realize you stated all of these were done this week and it's your first go at hand-painted, so please take my blunt critique as a positive motivator and not derrogatory
Concepts, while in some cases are simply conceptual and something for you to base your work off, this isnt always the case. In the specific ones you have chosen, they are beautifully accomplished concepts that depict a final result, for a very specific style, for a specific product. In this case, you need to follow your concept (and even with that, in any case where such a detailed concept is available, not following your concept as closely as possible will only hurt your work). As portfolio pieces it only exaggerates at what you failed to notice or deem important from your personal perspective as an artist. You have your color palette laid out in front of you, you have the details of where dents and scratches go, you have the lighting established; there are several areas for improvement. As stated, your models capture the essence of the concept perfectly, and I know of you put a couple hours more work into each piece this week, you are going to BLOW AWAY what you posted here.
1)
Materials
Study your concept; what is each piece made of? Who was it made by? Is it new or old?
Asking yourself those questions will really help. Sure it's a weapon for a game, just make it. But understanding some of these can only benefit you. If it was carefully handcrafted in an elegant palace made of the finest metals and dyes in the land, surely it requires a different approach as opposed to one that was crudely pieced together by a hardly intelligent sub-human by found materials in the woods. Knowing this can help focus on details that may be subtle and not picked up on immediately, such as more evident hammer marks from forging the blade or how much rust there is. Study your materials; even do speed paintings of a material you are going to work on in a small square off to the side of your concept to get a feel for it
In most lf your pieces, but most noteably your first sword, there is so much character and "background" missing from the blade from the absence of the feeling of that uneven metal work; and at times how the blade appears almost jagged...it could be it has seen many battles, but most likely it was created somewhat quickly (maybe at a time of war?) or forged by someone who didn't require the most pristine of weapons
Of course, maybe that's looking too much into it, but I guarantee letting that kind of mindset take over just slightly would improve your focus and detail
Color
All of your pieces are lacking a TON of color that could simply be color picked and applied. Blues greens browns reds purples; just because the majority of a metal appeara grey or blue or bronze. Doesnt mean that purples and browns and teals and other colors don't shine through from what the metal is made of or the shadows. Aside from that aspect, rust and other gritty details seem to be relatively left out of your work. This is something I recently have been focusong on myself (prob since december or january) but get your base colors down then start mixing the other elements together and blend the colors in. Nothing is ever really just made of one color, especially in regards to unpainted organic compounds such as metals and woods and cloth. Some areas really come across as almost lazy or quickly produced in regards to some colors not even being applied or implemented in the same manner. The flat side of the blade on the first sword is a lot darker and has more green in it to infer aged copper like pennies or even mold or something.
Lighting
Once again using the first sword as an example, I have the perfect thing to critique to show you where you can improve. The cloth work around the hilt guard is a fabric wrapped around a circular metal (its probably faceted, but regardless it is curved and is probably more circular than faceted). Even if u can infer this from the cloth, at the end u can see a small bit of metal that is uncovered that, according to the lighting, implies this.
Anyway, looking at how she lit the cloth, there is definitely a light source shining on it from above, However, she still implemented a thinner "hot shine" around the top third of the cloth. This is most visible around the center of the actual hilt...again lighting is an area I'm personally working on myself, but your intensely lit cloth sort of detracts from the focus of the piece, and sometimes keeping those things darker can really enhance your work as seen in the paintover posted above. Bounce light and color off of the different materials can even be seen on that cloth with the blue tones in it. Wow uses a very specific style and it's these elements that really make things pop and show off theor vibrancy and bring the eye to certain areas.
Also, in regards to cloth, remember that this style is handpainted and everything you texture is suppose to have implied depth. Your cloth shouldnt be flat as if it were .0001 inches thick...it also can buldge and fold and can be extruded even further out by being wrapped around itself. All of your cloth looks to be on the same height; it disregards what's underneath and the cloth pieces that are beneath it.
Scale of details
During my art test, one of the biggest critiques I got on one of my pieces was the scale and visibility of detail used. While small micro details can be beneficial, they need to be used in a larger manner; if not, things either need to be large enough to be seen or be exaggerated to compensate. Remember, this a weapon in a players hand, of a third person game. It will not take up a large part of the screen most likely. Your engraved/extruded ornate detail of the first blade is so thin that looking at it on my phone scaled to fit the entire width of this page, the detail is almost lost and definitely doesnt read the same as the concept. You also created it to be extruded (which I think it could also be flush but actually carved into), but you created it as flat, extruded metal, whereas your concept is rounded, bulging, and doesnt read at all as flat ornate detail. In the concept, Because of the lighting, contrast, and style used, at a distance it reads as separated rounded and curvy runes, which on closer inspection can be seen as carved detail.
I know I said, "a lot", and thats an understatement, but I really think a lot of this can help you. I would LOVE to see what you could accomplish on all of these pieces if you put a couple extra hours into each one...seeing your progress on that would be simply awesome. Good luck man, and again please dont take this critique as a negative. If I didn't think you could do it or I thought these were poorly done, I wouldnt have taken the time to type all of this critique on my phone
Hopefully another polycounter can either agree with me, add more, or tell you I'm wrong and what really to do ;P
Oh...my...God....
So...I knew i wrote a lot, but after posting it and seeing how long it was, I think I am more than embarrassed at how long my post was...no one is going to read this; aint nobody got time for that
I do apologize OP for how long that is, I hope you can find something useful out of that novel...im going to go cry in a corner and pretend no one will point and laugh at me for rambling like an idiot
@ Lotet: it's a very cool trick the gradient passes , i'll do this when i do the retake.
@ [SF]Three9: Wow it's a very long respond , i read it and thank you , i try to take one hour more on all of my textures to improve it .
Here's a little improve i do in half hour to improve some detail you pointed
Really loving the tweaks dude, it looks so much more like the concept now!
Glad it was helpful and you def listened and applied some things
Could still use work to take it farther and more polished, but keep trucking and I'd love to see updates on the others
I think i can do better improvment but i try to make this in less than an hour by weapon(i have a lot to do).