Blizzard Student Art Contest: Blood Scarab

CSOConnor

Gave the Blizzard Student Art contest a bid, I tried last year but never got around to finishing it, so this time around I plan on seeing it through.

Im doing a character, it's a blood scarab race that lives in a very arid climate. I'm drawing a lot of influence from scarab beetles obviously, but also from Egyptian culture.

Here's the final submission. Thanks everyone for all of the incredible feedback! I wouldn't have come close to this without it:

Brian "Panda" Choi

How does its mouth work?

CSOConnor

Quikc update, changed the proportions to fit the WoW style a little better, and changed the veins and inset gems to a green hue to add some color variance.

CSOConnor

How does its mouth work?

He has an under bite that protrudes far enough out for the pincers to attach to the sides of his mandible. Almost all of his mouth is bone or cartilage.

CSOConnor

This is the weapon he'll be holding

sargentcrunch

n/a

CSOConnor

@sergentcrunch: great idea, I'll add some teeth or skeletal spikes along his lower jaw!

sargentcrunch

n/a

Dethling

Very intresting project. I would look to current races ingame (especially the Ahn'Quraji and Klaxxi) and use them as guideline for it.
Also take care of the normal "color codes" in WoW: Neon green normally means "Fel injected" (Blood Elves, Burning Legion).
Even if the second concept has more color variation it looks very strange...
I would go with the first one (especially if you call them "Blood scarabs") and try to add more colors to the body of the creature (like the color fading at a scarabs shell)

CSOConnor

Thanks for the advice Dethling! I'll spend alot more time working out the colors when it comes to texturing. It's pretty desaturated atm, so if I add some brighter reds and maybe some oranges it'll pop, at least i hope:) I'll stick to the red though.

Here's the beginning of my lowpoly, struggling with loop flow a bit, and don't know what to do with the shoulders and knees:/

Dethling

If you do the texturing try to put the highlights on a special layer, so you can easily change them with filters etc. to test what looks good

CSOConnor

Yeah I'll probably have a few layers set to overlay to get a good effect

Another update here, broke up the silhouette and enlarged some forms

CSOConnor

Haven't posted in a while, so here's an update on proportions and overall forms.

I'm really trying to develop a strong contrast between is exoskeleton and what is going to be his "soft" inner portions. This will hopefully become more apparent once I begin texturing, but silhouette is just as important imo, especially with Blizz.

I need to rework the groin/legs, but once that's finished I'm off to UV mapping and texturing

CSOConnor

Super Mega Update!!!!

Done Modeling and UV mapping...now on to the diffuse!

fun fact: I used 5998 of the 6000 polys

Dimfist

I was a little skeptical but the latest silhouette looks pretty boss.

Rafferty_Eggleston

Really nice update. Looking forward to see some texture work!

CSOConnor

Thanks you guys! I Finished up with uvmapping, baked out the AO and applied it to a very very simple color block in...This is how it's looking so far.

I'm probably going to go in now and start breaking up the colors some more, but I like where it's headed so far. Any critique is welcome!

87roach

Keep going man, it's looking great.

N4meless

I was a little skeptical with your concept but i really like your modeling, i wan't to see this textured

CSOConnor

Did a texture pass and tweaked some forms slightly (abdomen got thicker and so did the wrist and ankle cuffs). Still in the airbrush/blocking in stage

CSOConnor

Still trucking along, I'm trying to get more color in there, but I'm having a tough time deciding how to do it...perhaps the wonderful folks of Polycount have suggestions?? Here's what I've got so far. 5 days left!

CSOConnor

I think I've solved the color issue

Dethling

At the moment it looks more like a Borderlands art piece then a WoW one.
Not totally sure why but I guess its the AO map, Blizzard really use those, normally they paint the AO by hand.

But neitherless it looks awesome

CSOConnor

Yeah I see what you're talking about Dething. I think my darks are too dark, so I went in and adjusted the levels a tad...Seems to work a little better now! Good call. I also made all of his horns (excluding his teeth) black with a really sharp spec, I'll post an update soon.

Torch

Looks really cool! I think you could do with some color variation though, right now the colors are very blocky. I would say all the 'claw' pieces (teeth, claws on feet and hands, etc) are very white, although I don't know if you're going to be working on those later. It would be cool for them to have an ivory color like elephants tusks, or even a very dark color like Onyx. You could add some faint glow around the symbols on the ankle and wrist bracelets too.

You're pretty much there with a solid design, the texture just needs some tweaking now. Good going

CSOConnor

*double post*

CSOConnor

Thanks for the feedback guys! Here's how he's looking, I'm breaking up the forms some more, made the claws and spikes a darker color and bumped up the ambient glow coming from the wrist and ankle bracers a bunch (some of it spills over onto the forearm). I'm going to sharpen up the secondary forms a little so it looks less muddy and see if changes need to be made from there!

Torch

Looks really cool with the orange and black Another crit, its a bit late to mention now but I'd say the 'spine' area connecting the pelvis to the rib area is a bit too cylindrical, to the point it looks kinda like a pipe with rivets along it. You could probably get away with it as it is but I think it would help your design if you made it look more organic. Apart from that he is going to be awesome!

CSOConnor

More changes and additions and such. I feel like the forehead needs something more....hmmmmm

Andy H

You've got some really cool proportions going on and I think you're heading in the right direction in that regard. I still think you really need to visit your ambient occlusion and make it way more soft. I feel like your inner geometry is getting lost in all the darkness from a distance (this may be because your values are still kind of harsh). I recommend taking a look at this post, specifically in the under arm regions of the models. Everything is a lot more soft and painterly and there are hue shifts here and there (for example, on the green troll where the green sort of shifts to a reddish orange to bring together his vibrant hair). I'd also think about the temperature of your model and how you want to convey that with your shadows and highlights. Basically the more color you can pump in to the final piece, the better.

I think the little "fel gem" in your original concept was interesting and may be something you may want to add. It'd probably be a great way to get some bounce light in his chest region and may help guide the viewer to his face. These are just my thoughts, I'm looking forward to seeing this completed!

kmactastic

So I did a bit of poking around, and noticed that some feedback a past entry got from Blizzard was too much AO like Andy said. You don't want a lot of black or almost black on your texture sheet. Maybe try dark purples/blues if you need to. Have you tried using your ao bake on color burn instead of multiply? Or maybe a mix of both? ALso it looks like you mirrored alot of your UV's which is good. However it looks like it flipped the runes on your metal pieces. You can probably get away with not flipping the UV, if it is just a straight piece (not sure what your map looks like) I hope that makes sense. If not I can show you an example.
~Karen

P.S.
I am glad you posted your stuff. I only posted my final image, and probably should have gotten more feedback from people on polycount.

CSOConnor

@Andy H: Good advice, I really appreciate it man! I think that's my biggest worry right now, the AO is overpowering the whole character, and that's probably what is pulling him from a WoW aesthetic. I adjusted the levels to turn down the blacks, but I think i need to go even further with it. I also created a gradient map using the 25% darkest values, then adjusted the hue to make it purple/blue and overlayed it onto my diffuse. Do you think I still need more color?

@kmactastic: Thanks for the feedback! Unfortunately I merged my AO into the texture a while back so I cant isolate it and turn it down that way. Like I said above i found another fix. Also, my UVs are pretty set in stone, there isnt much room to peel off the bracers and make a unique texture space for them wish I could though haha.

Here's what I have now:


I created a gradient map in maya and layed that on top of everything. I noticed from my references that all WoW characters have that gradual increase in value as you go up the character.

Here's my texture as well:

Torch

The resulting texture map is ok, but there's still stuff you could do to improve it. The map itself is kinda muddy, the chest and shoulder/wing area is nice as you have a lot more sharpness to it, but the rest is kinda blurred. I'd recommend going over it and sharpening up some areas, increasing the value range (dark to lights) in some areas too.

The overall color scheme is very 'orange'. I know that sounds obvious, what I mean to say is that you should be looking to add complementary colors in other areas of the model. Look at Firstkeeper's stuff:

http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?t=128955&highlight=thunder+king

Even on the orc where he has a lot of bare skin he's not just 'green', he has varying areas of blue on the feet, or yellows in the muscle cavities.

CSOConnor

@Torch, thanks for the advice! I took a day break to refresh my eyes haha, but when I come back to it today I'll apply what you're suggesting. Firstkeeper's characters are too good haha, I was using that emulsive toad thing as a reference earlier actually, her other stuff is badass!

CSOConnor

Here he is now, the last bit I have to do is the stinger on his back and then it's on to his weapon. Looking for some final critiques!

Torch

Nice one dude, update looks great

Dethling

I would increase the saturation of the shoulders a lirrle bit (or maybe it's only the lighting), on the front view they look a little dull.
Otherwise awesome work which could really fit into WoW

stevston89

It's looking good. Though I wouldn't say it's close to done. The whole model is feeling really soft. There are very few details that are sharp. Your color palette has almost no cools in it which makes it hard to read you model especially at a distance. I think pushing the skin towards a desaturated blue/green would help. Also it would be nice to have a soft gradient over the whole character to ground it better. It might help to put some pink tones around the lip, eyes, and more fleshy bits as well. I made a paint over really quick to show you what I mean.

Torch

I hope you don't mind me saying Stevston, but I think the grey skin kinda detracts from the character - the original yellow skin gives it much more of an 'insect-ey' feel which I really like, just my preference though

stevston89

@ Torch - yeah no worries. It was just an idea to break up the warm colors. I just feel all the warm tones are overpowering.

Haftoof

I've always been a fan of turquise and orange, but that's just a classic combo. I would also look at sharpening up the lower bangles, they don't glow like the wrist ones and that caught my eye. I'm not enamored with the jawbone "bandages"? they look out of place... Other than that love the paint, its eyepopping and truly the style.

CSOConnor

I really appreciate all this feedback! I decided to tone down the yellow just a bit(desaturated/lightened it up). I think it creates a better contrast like you were suggesting @stevston, while maintaining the yellow hue. I think it's a good mix, but its Blizzard's opinion that's going matter:P

I added some detail work to him, making him lessy "fuzzy". I also riged, skinned and posed him with the weapon. BUT idk if i'm going to include the weapon in my submission, since the guidelines say you can only have one 1024x1024 for the character. Although the weapon isnt technically the character so I might be able to get away with another 512x256. So I dont know what my best option is. I think he would benefit from having a weapon.

Here he is posed with the weapon base mesh though:


I think the pose could be stronger...thoughts, suggestions, critiques?

looprix

Love the hand painted quality I wish I could do that!

CSOConnor

Thanks looprix!

I'm done! Decided not to go with a weapon, I didn't wanna be DQ'd just because I used 2 maps, so I played it safe and went with what I had.

Here's the image I submitted as my final! Thanks everyone for all the great advice and critiques, this community is freaking awesome and I'll definitely be posting here again soon!