[WIP] Demon Shaman

Abidus

Revisiting an old model I started but never got around to finishing. I'm kinda coming up with it as I go along, but I'm trying for a demon shaman/witch doctor aesthetic.

At the moment, I feel the legs don't feel structurally sound, but I'm not sure how to fix them exactly.

Any comments, critiques or suggestions at all would be very much appreciated.

Abidus

Some progress + a fancy shader




Any comments, critiques or suggestions are welcome.

OctoKube

hey it would be cool to have eye holes, just my opinion, the eyes could glow behind the mask

Abidus

That's an interesting idea, didn't think of using the hood as a mask. I'll try it out. Thanks!

Abidus

Tried out the mask idea... what do you think?

OctoKube

looks pretty sweet to me!

Abidus

Been experimenting with zremesher + guide curves for retopologizing, was able to get a decent mesh out of it fairly quickly. I'm probably just gonna redo it manually once I gather the willpower.



Normal map needs a lot of cleaning up but not too bad a bake otherwise

OctoKube

hey bud, before u go into baking normals, I would spend just a bit of time on the anatomy, especially the arm. Look at the elbow, u have not properly defined the bending part of the arm. His forearm hits his bicep right away..u could make his arm longer. same thing for the area behind the knee, it needs room to bend

Spoon

The overall design is pretty cool. I agree that if you fix the anatomy, this could be a solid piece!

Abidus

Thanks for taking the time to comment!

You guys are right. I don't know how I didn't notice how silly the arm looks. Although tbh I just did the bake because I wanted to get better at using the zRemesher tools (decent topology, getting rid of spirals etc.).

I'll work on fixing the anatomy now. I got a little carried away with this model because I was excited about it, but I'm gonna take my time to get this one right.

Abidus

So I've studying some anatomy and decided to bite the bullet and pretty much redo the anatomy from the base. I've only put a couple hours into it so far but I think it's gonna look much better in the end.

Nina I.

Nice improvements! Personally I like the idea of a cloth over his head with eyeholes in it, the piece added some mystery to him

As for anatomy, I would suggest you work on the legs a little more - to me the feet look a bit too much like straight stubs from the knee down, there could be more curves where the hoof meets the leg.

I digged up some reference images for you:



(Source: http://www.thebeefsite.com/articles/719/selecting-bulls-for-structural-soundness-in-beef-cattle )



I know many beef cows have pretty straight looking "stub" feet compared to many other hooved mammals, but I think your half humanoid half minotaur-ish demon character could benefit from more definition in the legs. I think it would make his weight look more balanced and better grounded too!

Abidus

I'm still planning on draping the hood/mask over his head, but the mesh I had before was a mess from too much dynameshing (torn edges, etc) that I decided to just remake it more cleanly.

I feel kind of silly that I didn't think of looking up cow legs for reference, but I knew something felt off about the legs. I'll work on fixing them!

Thank you for taking the time to gather those references, I really appreciate it!

Abidus

small update:


I'm having trouble with the hands, might have to redo them as well. Lessons learned about forward planning -.-

Abidus

Gonna move on to the lower body now. Still using the original hood, still have to redo that. Comments/critiques most welcome!

Suba

I prefer the picture you posted before the last one. Anatomy is better now, but I dont know why you put these stripes. Doesn't really make sense.

Abidus

The stripes on the torso? It was just a quick idea to make the character less "clean". I felt without them it would seem too much like a bodybuilder in a costume, as opposed to something supernatural. It's not final, by any means.

Torch

Hey man, looks really cool I would say firstly the forms need to be more defined and as Suba just mentioned, the striations you've added along the arms and chest are kind of unnecessary, they're more secondary forms. Your last image was better but I think the muscle definition needs to be more apparent.

If you look at the famous David statue there's not a hell of a lot of detail, but a lot of focus has been put into primary forms and defining them well.



I also think the loincloth area could use some work as I imagine it would hang more loosely, rather than fall 'inward' so to speak. Looking forward to updates

Abidus

Thanks Torch! I got rid of the striations and defined the forms some more. I think it looks a lot better than the last image I posted.



change list:

- defined forms, ditched striations.
- retopologized old hood, I have a nice easy to manipulate hood to play with now
- changed hood design somewhat (felt it was hiding too much of the model)
- added superficial details (scars, veins, etc.)
- cleaned up the arms and redid the bandaging/wraps
- tweaked loincloth (still needs work)
- bandaged the lower legs for some visual interest
- beefed up the lower legs in general to give the character some more balance
- other things I can't remember at the moment

Would love to hear what you guys think!

butt_sahib

Looking so much better!
Its great to see how much better the sculpt has gotten over a few posts. Kudos for that definitely

But yes, you can only learn so much from a character before you get really sick of it lol. Id say if you dont find anything major just move on get the low res and textures done and be done with it!

Torch

Hey man looks cool, I'm not so convinced that the loincloth at the front just under the buckle would 'bulge in' at that area, but just my opinion I would say if you think you've finalised it, start cranking out the textures

JackNelson

Looking good man Any plans for extra skin detail? I kinda get where you were going with the lines from the previous posts. Maybe something like that could work but not as extreme. Even if you left the skin like that it'd be fine though.

Abidus

Thanks butt_sahib, much appreciated . I'm definitely starting to burn out on this, so I'm just gonna polish it in some areas and move on to the next step... eventually.

Torch, the lack of a blue teletubby head creates a vaccuum there, which is why its bulging inwards like that

All in all, despite the hassle I'm glad I took the time to go back and work on this again. Learned a lot!



bonus before and after:


Thanks again for all the help. On to the next one!