A Low Poly Sorcerer's Tower

Lumpizaver

Hey,

I am more or less a beginner when it comes to digital art. I watched quite some tutorials about how to create low poly 3D models and then how to hand paint the textures on them. I am big fan of stylized hand painted game assets. Here I will be posting the progress on my first solo project - a sorcerer's tower. I will create everything by myself, from concept art to the final, hand painted, 3D model.

Here is the concept (I need to work on my drawing skills ):



And here is the current state of the model:



Any comments are more than welcome!

Lumpizaver

This is progressing way slower than it should ... Anyhow I finished modelling and unwrapping and am currently hand painting the tower. Below is the current state:

nickcomeau

Interesting concept. I like that you made the highest tower a bit bigger, definitely makes it more stylized and I think it will go well with the painting style you're doing. I would maybe push that a bit further and make the midsection skinnier? Could be interesting.

Lumpizaver

I was thinking in a similar direction ... I will try and "warp" some elements after I am done paiting in order to make the tower a bit more stylized. I was thinking of warping the roofs on all towers and maybe the balcony. I will also test your idea of making the midsection skinnier. Thanks!

Lumpizaver

The bottom part is somewhat done, any tips on how to make the bricks look more like rock? They look a lot like plastic at the moment.

LSheridan

Avoid using complete black in the crevices. A nice dark shadow color is fine, but black is generally best to avoid, especially in hand-painted textures. Your highlights are also too strong. Look up references for stone as compared to metal or plastic. Right now your stone looks to have too much specularity. Also, focus on larger shapes on the stone pieces rather than trying to make small details like lines. Try using subtle value changes to bring out different heights in the stone.

PacoCasares

I really like where its going! You should certainly put some good love on painting them textures do. Pay close attention on doing some research on how rock behaves with lighting and grab a couple of images of stone walls to see how they behave. Never use 100% blacks or whites in textures.

Lumpizaver

Here is the current state:



Thanks for your help, I think the rock looks much better now. Top rows are not done yet, just blocked in the basic colors.

Lumpizaver

Some progress was made, a lot of work to do ...

Uberren

I feel like those stones on the tower proper are way too huge right now. They're way bigger than the base. It just feels off and not to scale. The stones in your concept are about half the size of the ones you have painted on the tower right now.

Lumpizaver

Yeah, I started with small ones but since I don't have that much free time I decided to go with big ones to shorten the process. I will probably cut them up to smaller bricks once I am done with the first pass on all materials.

Jessica Dinh

Hi Lumplzaver! You don't have to paint more stones, you just need to tile your UV's more if you want the stones to appear smaller. Can you show us your texture flats?

As far as texture painting goes, your last update is better than the first, as you are using brighter values of your midtone color instead of pure white. Still too much black though, and you can work on placing sharper edges here and there, etc. I would recommend doing some master studies of other handpainted stone that you like though, to get ideas of how other artists interpret materials and what they do to help them read (aged stone shows wear in different ways than aged wood or metal, etc).

Some artists I might recommend are Fanny Vergne, Oleg Linkov, Marie Lazar, and Grace Liu (you can also study handpainted textures from 2d concept artists and illustrators).

Keep it up ^_^

Lumpizaver

Hey, thanks for the references they are brilliant!

Below you can see my flat texture.



I modelled everything in Maya, then I moved to 3D Coat to UV map and paint (I am more familiar with painting in PS but wanted to learn a new approach). The end results would probably be better if I sticked to PS. As you can see my UV map is quite wacky and I don't see a simple solution to increase the brick density except by hand.

By saying there is too much black do you mean that the crevices are too thick or that the crevices are too dark? The value (lighntess, brightness in HSV/B) of creavices is currently at 15%,16%.

Jessica Dinh

Do you know how to make tileable textures? You will be able to get a lot more space covered with more resolution for a lot less work xD

Lumpizaver

Yeah I know , like I said my approach with this "project" is far from optimal (in most ways ):

Jessica Dinh

Oh OK so you do know, haha. It might have been better to study 3dCoat with something smaller and more suitable for uniquely laid out textures (such as a prop). In any case, it's still good you're trying new things.

As far as your dark values go, they might still be too dark, as well as the deep crevices themselves too wide.

Lumpizaver

Yeah I found out that 3D Coat might not be the most suitable for this job after I already spent quite some hours painting .

I brightened up the crevices and made them a bit narrower at the most problematic spots. It looks way better than it did a while back but I am still far from satisfied with my rocks. I will leave them for now and return back to them once I am done with the other things like shingles and mini towers.

Lumpizaver

Just an update ... Didn't have much time over the last couple of days so the progress has been slow + I am modelling the chest for May noob challenge.

I did some work on bricks in general, painted in top bricks and the side tower.