[Riot Art Contest] - Christoph Lehmann

Moshbeast

Hi it's been ages since I've posted anything on polycount and I think doing my first contest is a good way to pick it back up. I hope I'll be able to finish it considering the time I have left but I'm hopeful

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EDIT: it's finished

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So what I would like to do is create a turret, that is heavily influenced by the Freljord champions since I love winter and love the designs of them. For the purpose of that I made a quick concept using Anivias wings, Tryndameres sword, the emblem of the freljord, Sejuanis Spauldrons and helmet and the ground spikes from Lissandra




I wasn't happy with tryndameres sword though since for the tower it felt to bulky so I exchanged it for the axe, that's on sejuanis emblem

SimonT

I like the hammer more than the sword. It gives the whole figure a less noisy silhouette. I think it's much more readable now.

Do you have a concept for the sideview? I'm not sure if i understand exactly how "he" holds the shield.

Moshbeast

I didn't make a sideview for it since I already have a set idea in my head for it. Since the shield is essentially a kiteshield the statue would hold it in a similar fashion with the lower arm attached to it with two straps however I'll model it like the statue has been made out of a single piece of rock so the entire lower arm will be molded to it.

I'm making one more change though which I started modelling already which is that rather then making the statue a male figure I'm making it female since the three leaders of the Freljord are women. I'll still have to concept out some changes for the shield and axe though since they are both to bulky for a female. I expect I'll leave the height of the shield the same but make it slimmer and the axe will be scaled down slightly aswell and made into more of a halberd with a long slim shaft

SimonT

I could imagine that a rough block-out in 3D could help be finding the best pose and good propoortions. Looking forward seeing the next steps!

Moshbeast

WIP 1

Here is the current WIP any tips or criticism welcome specially on the arms since I've only modeled a person once before and that was about two years ago :P

SimonT

Nice start! To me, the hands look a bit too small and the arms might be a bit too short. But i can't say that from that perspective. I would pose it into t-pose and compare it with an anatomy reference like this: http://thumbs.dreamstime.com/z/anatomy-overlays-female-front-3536792.jpg

Or you look for one which fit more to comic-proportions if you need them. I can't judge the head/neck because of the helmet. A common mistake is, that the neck/through is made too short but it might be perfect - without helmet it would be easier to tell

Moshbeast

I did model it with a t shape to get the length right but I think I may have messed it up when rotating it to get the arms in the right postions but ill make sure tomorrow. I actually shortened the neck since it looked a little strange (even though i used an orthographic female figure to model it) I should change it back though and keep the original shape.

I'll post another WIP tomorrow

Moshbeast

here is the new WIP ive altered the arms the lower arms were a bit short after I compared it to the t shape model and i made the neck a bit longer

SimonT

Uw, nice! I would love to see a version in t-pose. From that perspective the lower arm looks a bit too long now But it's hard to judge! Anyway, what do you plan with the wings? Which pose shall they get?

For me, the feather-spikes look a bit random. If i compare it with a real world statue, i can see more "flow" even in the silhouette. Maybe it would help if yo post a front-view of your model But it's really good too, that you show it from the perspective, it will have in the final game.

Moshbeast

For the wings i'm planning to take references from anivia which is why its so spiky since the wings are ice crystals but in the statue it would just be rock

as for the pose I'm looking at something along the lines of this:

I agree that the angel statue flows a lot better so I'll have to try to make it work in the pose

SimonT

Ah ok! Looking forward seeing the next steps

Moshbeast

As requested here is the tshape of the statue

unfortunatly I don't have much else to show since I'm UV mapping at the moment :P

SimonT

Oh you're already unwrapping? That's fast! I did a small check regarding the t-pose and i thing you could work out some anatomy details. Besides that the arms seems a bit too short, you could make the whole silhouette a bit more female. I took the woman on the right and put her silhouette over your screenshot. Especially the form of the torso and the hips could gain something from that step. Also, the silhouette of the neck is "floating" into the head. If you look at the picture, you can see that the jaw-bone is actually "breaking" the lines and "hangs over". Not a major thing since your figure wears a helmet, but i guess for learning it's good to do it right just from the beginning.

Not sure if you are able to change stuff after you're already uv-wrapping, but i think it's good to spend a bit more time until the basis.

Moshbeast

I haven't actually gotten around to uv mapping the statue yet ive just done the bits around so far so making those changes isn't a problem I did have to move the chin back quite a bit to make space for a diamond shape eye but I'm thinking of reworking that at the moment as well :P

Moshbeast

Here is another WIP ive changed the hips, made the chin more pronounced, shortened the lower arms a bit and curved the wings

SimonT

Nice! Did you check the hands too? I don't know ... somehow the seem to be too small. But i might be wrong. Another thing i wanted to mention: I'm not sure how wings would exactly look (didn't find a good example picture) but the seem a bit stiff to me. I imagine wings more round and with volume - yours are a bit flat for my taste. But like i said, i don't know how it would look like in reality:



Here are some examples for wings with more volume ... maybe you should add some addiational polys?

http://th08.deviantart.net/fs70/PRE/i/2013/292/e/c/wolf_with_wings_by_darthmischee-d6r26n1.png
http://fc04.deviantart.net/fs71/i/2013/341/4/6/folded_furry_wings_silver_by_thy_darkest_hour-d5dondb.png

p.s. Also your reference-bird has more roundess at the area i marked in your picture. For me that works better. What do you thinkg?

Moshbeast

yea you make a really good point it does need a lot more volume I'll get right on it

Moshbeast

Here is another update unfortunatly I haven't had the time to work on it to much the past week

SimonT

Nice! Looking forward seeing more! Just an idea: Why not ive here a weapon with long shaft like a halberd? Would explain here "relaxed" arm while holding such a heavy weapon

Moshbeast

and here is the finished statue once with snow once without I'm not sure what I like better yet but in any case it's time to enter the jungle :P

SimonT

Cool! I like the one with snow more, because it has more contrast. Two fast things you could do:

1. Add a gradiant to the whole figure to let their top stand out more.
2. Add some color to make it less "boring" grey. Notice, that the color gets more and more desaturated to the ground.

These are basic tricks from the awesome Dota2 character art guide from Valve. You could even think about giving your wings another gradient ...

Moshbeast

I think I might have added a bit to little colour and made the wings with a more turquoise colour for the clean ice feel