Shadowstep's Workshop
polycounter lvl 9
I've been lurking for awhile, looking at all the pretty things everyone makes. It's been quite daunting to post anything. I figure that since I have time to work on stuff myself, it's time I start posting the stuff I'm working on.
Except it's all crap.
My goal with this thread is to get better. Generally speaking, I like the visual style you'd see in colorful games like Fable, Psychonauts, etc, so that's what I'm focusing on for the moment. I also find the hand-painted texture and low-poly threads rather inspiring, so that's also what I'll be working on.
I'm currently working on: a giant!
My first project was: a wooden crate!
My thought is that this crate has been left in the mud all throughout the rainy season, thus leaving the surface is rough and uneven, and the bottom muddy.
[SKETCHFAB]6c0745e457d848e68101b7e30055278e[/SKETCHFAB]
To make this (awful) texture, I started with some lineart, used the Render Fibers filter in PS, and painted some AO. Then I colored each board individually (it's to make selecting each board with the magic wand easier--the coloration was just a bonus), added the rusty nails, added the little bit of grime under/around the nails, and then painted some purple mud in the bottom crevices. I started doodling the shadows and highlights last.
After doing a bit of work on the top-left quadrant (the top/bottom of the crate), I realized that I don't know how to do wood grain. Currently what I'm doing is looking for interesting value changes in the PS-made fibers, doodling some shadows to make shapes, and then adding highlights to try and force depth. My light source is supposed to be coming from the top-left corner (bottom left/center for the top-right quadrant, since it's rotated 90° CCW), but I'm not terribly consistent with that. The surface is supposed to be rough and I'm not quite sure how else to suggest that there are minute ridges and valleys going in both directions. As it is right now, it looks like bark to me.
I think the texture I have and how I'm working on it is a dead-end. How can I turn it around?
Except it's all crap.
My goal with this thread is to get better. Generally speaking, I like the visual style you'd see in colorful games like Fable, Psychonauts, etc, so that's what I'm focusing on for the moment. I also find the hand-painted texture and low-poly threads rather inspiring, so that's also what I'll be working on.
I'm currently working on: a giant!
My first project was: a wooden crate!
My thought is that this crate has been left in the mud all throughout the rainy season, thus leaving the surface is rough and uneven, and the bottom muddy.
[SKETCHFAB]6c0745e457d848e68101b7e30055278e[/SKETCHFAB]
To make this (awful) texture, I started with some lineart, used the Render Fibers filter in PS, and painted some AO. Then I colored each board individually (it's to make selecting each board with the magic wand easier--the coloration was just a bonus), added the rusty nails, added the little bit of grime under/around the nails, and then painted some purple mud in the bottom crevices. I started doodling the shadows and highlights last.
After doing a bit of work on the top-left quadrant (the top/bottom of the crate), I realized that I don't know how to do wood grain. Currently what I'm doing is looking for interesting value changes in the PS-made fibers, doodling some shadows to make shapes, and then adding highlights to try and force depth. My light source is supposed to be coming from the top-left corner (bottom left/center for the top-right quadrant, since it's rotated 90° CCW), but I'm not terribly consistent with that. The surface is supposed to be rough and I'm not quite sure how else to suggest that there are minute ridges and valleys going in both directions. As it is right now, it looks like bark to me.
I think the texture I have and how I'm working on it is a dead-end. How can I turn it around?
Replies
Here's the new one:
I noticed in Wind Waker that the artists chose not to paint a bunch of wood grain. There was some, but almost exclusively at the edges, which also suggested a bit of weathering.
So I repainted the texture with that same kind of suggestive style. I decided on a light source: UP. I sort of played with saturation shifts for the highlights and shadows, but I kept things monochromatic because that's how it's done in Wind Waker. I'm not sure if it really works here, though. I'll eventually put together a whole scene like this and see how everything looks.
Next up... a tiling hardwood floor! Gotta figure out how to paint wood better.
The concept I'm working off of is zephyri's giant from the 2D ConceptBank thread:
Here's what I've so far:
The topology on the side is a bit of a quandry for me. I've not done a fat character like this before and so I didn't know how to shape the gut or enfatten a typical character. So instead I started by tracing the side profile with some verts and then extruded it horizontally.
Not sure how to deal with this. Does anyone have some obvious, why-didn't-I-think-of-that-myself advice?