Hand-painted texture doesn't look right- Can't figure out why.

JoshuaCrew

Hi guys, I'm new to this forum and hand-painting in general. I've recently started to make a hand-painted dwarven dagger. I'm working on the bronze/gold bits at the moment and can't get it to look right... Any tips?

mon246

What exactly doesn't look right about it? Looks fine to me.

JoshuaCrew

It just doesn't 'feel' metallic enough... I don't know if that just comes from hand-painting that I'm not used to yet.

JordanN

Are you strictly going for a diffuse only look?

If you want it to look more "metal" you can use PBR. It works with hand painted.


In general, metal is very shiny, unless it's rusted or has grunge added to it. You could fake those reflections in your diffuse but they might look weird in a game (because that information gets baked in and wouldn't look right under certain lighting).

JoshuaCrew

Yeah, for this one I'm taking a World of Warcraft style approach. I've not done any PBR yet, I'm still very new to 3D modelling, it looks great though, I'll be sure to give it a go in the future

pigart

Add more contrast, make the highlights sharper and brighter, shadows darker.

JoshuaCrew

Pigart! It's your Youtube videos and the r/handpainted forum that brought me here I love you work by the way.

Thanks for the tip, adding lots of contrast is always the hard bit for me... I'll give it a go and post the result in the future

AzzaMat

Metal can be really tricky to paint with just diffuse. What makes metal look right is reflection, otherwise it will just looks like stone.
Try to paint in some generic reflection.
Add gradients and a strong highlight.

JoshuaCrew

Thanks Azzamat! I found that it was looking a lot like stone, couldn't figure out why though :P Thanks for the tip!

MeintevdS

I think you should chose between gold or bronze since they're completely different, doing a gold/bronze mixed bit isn't gonna work, practice with an existing material before you're gonna mix and make up your own. It mostly looks like gold to me, in which case the grey scratches/dents don't really make sense, gold has no grey colors in it.

As for contrast you might wanna mess around with your levels (ctrl+L in photoshop) a bit to get that contrast going.

JoshuaCrew

I definitely need to practice with colours and representation of material, I was planning to aim for a bronze material but found it tricky to get the balance of colour right. I'm working on the contrast now, thanks for the tips MeintevdS!

AzzaMat

Good point MeintevdS

Here is a paintover to help, its just a rough idea, wish I had bought my tablet now :P

JoshuaCrew

This is exactly the kind of thing I was looking for

Because I'm new to all of this, after a few hours of looking at my work it all becomes a bit abstract and I find it hard to progress. Getting someone else's view on light values really helps, thanks Azzamat

JordanN

If I can add one critique.

Since you wanted the gold bits to be shiny, shouldn't the rest of metal blade also be shiny as well?

I just consider it somewhat of a paradox that one part of the dagger can maintain its luster but the other part is completely worn out.

JoshuaCrew

Thanks for the comment JordanN To clear things up, I initially started on the blade and then proceeded to the hilt. After working on the hilt for a bit I realised how much the blade was lacking in contrast, and planned to revisit it after the bronze areas were finished.

billymcguffin

Maybe you've already seen it, but I recommend this tutorial for blender:
[ame]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jR7Axe2hbz8[/ame]

edit: actually now that I look at it, it doesn't accomplish the metallic look you're wanting very well... but maybe it'll be useful anyway

tomenjerry

Hey!

I did a paintover for you (in 3 steps), hope it helps. If you really want to get in to the handpainted stuff, check out 3d motives handpainted weapon and shield series, by Tyson murphy. It's not free, But I learned a lot. Hope this helps.

Tim

Try to think about where the light is hitting. try to imagine what should be dark, and what should be light (or something in between). Try to really accentuate the edges by placing highlights. And don't place highlights directly on dark spots.

Tim

polymator

Tomenjerry's paintover is pretty spot on IMO. And yes Tyson Murphy and/or Kelvin Tan are the guys I'd recommend for learning hand painting metallic surfaces. And hand painting in general.

JoshuaCrew

Thanks so much Tomenjerry, that's just perfect! I've just gotten into hand-painting and 3D modelling in general, so getting the right feel for things is still difficult for me

And thanks Polymator, that's really useful I'll have to wait a while though, because I'm a bit poor at the moment... it looks like a worth-while investment though.