Draenei Character WIP/Process
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Hey fellow 3D folks!
I'm a Game Art student from Germany who wants to specialize in Character Art. I'm a little timid about my stuff, but following the advice in John Troy Nickels Character Art Podcast, I'll get this out here now and see what you think of it. So this is my first Polycount post ever!
Now let's get to the character: I'm hugely in love with the art of Blizzard and their games, so I thought I'd make a fan art piece of a Draenei wearing Protoss armor. Said armor will be Luke Mancinis concept for Artanis: http://www.iamag.co/features/itsart/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/hots-artanis-concept.jpg
As for the style and proportions, I don't want to copy what Blizzard did, but try and develop my own style in the process. It's a really early WIP, so there's lots of stuff still missing, especially in the upper back area, as well as the joints and overall details. Still, I'm curious about your opinions and feedback. I'll also try and keep this post updated with progress on the character, but as I'm currently writing on my bachelor's thesis, that may go a little slower than usual.
Here's an overview of her body:
And here's her face with some basic shaders to visualize what I'd like her to look like later on.
I'm a Game Art student from Germany who wants to specialize in Character Art. I'm a little timid about my stuff, but following the advice in John Troy Nickels Character Art Podcast, I'll get this out here now and see what you think of it. So this is my first Polycount post ever!
Now let's get to the character: I'm hugely in love with the art of Blizzard and their games, so I thought I'd make a fan art piece of a Draenei wearing Protoss armor. Said armor will be Luke Mancinis concept for Artanis: http://www.iamag.co/features/itsart/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/hots-artanis-concept.jpg
As for the style and proportions, I don't want to copy what Blizzard did, but try and develop my own style in the process. It's a really early WIP, so there's lots of stuff still missing, especially in the upper back area, as well as the joints and overall details. Still, I'm curious about your opinions and feedback. I'll also try and keep this post updated with progress on the character, but as I'm currently writing on my bachelor's thesis, that may go a little slower than usual.
Here's an overview of her body:
And here's her face with some basic shaders to visualize what I'd like her to look like later on.
Replies
When I had this reviewed by some fellow students, they pointed out her arms were a little too thin and her head was too small. I took a closer look at it and changed some stuff in the shoulder and upper arm area as well as the head size. Also, her waist is a subtle note rounder now. As for the sudden green: I didn't really like the warm and cold greys on a grey background, they seem to be clashing. So, greenscreen ex machina!
Here's the new orthographics:
Now that I try to make it 3D, all the thoughts that went into the Purifier Artanis concept slowly unravel before me. Figuring them out and how to get to acceptable results was fun, I got to mess around with primitives and booleans a lot. Next problem were the borders between the plates, getting them big enough so they still read from some distance (and bake into the normal map properly) while not softening the overall structure too much. A double bevel finally did the trick, one to establish some perimetric planes and one to maintain the edginess of the style, distinguishing the planes from each other. I think these perimetric planes really give it a nice look, plus they're (hopefully) quite bake-friendly.
Also, I had to find a way to get around the awkward bevels you get in concave angles. The solution was to just not bevel them at all, since the general mesh density was high enough to get some round corners and lines that (in my opinion) go well with the roundness of protoss style, without breaking the edginess up too much. Some convex angles I did support though, to avoid strange gaps in the silhouette/surface.
It's all made in Maya so far, as I'm not comfortable enough with zBrush at the moment to get the precision out of it that I want.
Making a chestpiece that's close to the concept has proven much more difficult than expected. In the meantime, I've updated the nose to get a better transition into the rest of the face. Her waist/chest still seemed a little too thin, so I adjusted the width to more "realistic" proportions to shift some visual weight from her hips to her torso. At 1,80m height, she's now about 41cm/27cm wide for hips and waist respectively, as the slightly wider chest fits her voluptuous body better in overall perspective. Same goes for the slightly wider elbows. Also, her chest is a little more angled now, as most of my references suggested that.
Here's the new pics:
As for feedback, I can tell that her lower legs are kinda flimsy to support that massive body. Her horns are also looks a bit unnatural sticking out like that. In WoW, draenei horns look more like flowing out of their foreheads, not just sticking out to the sides. Head feels small, especially from the side view. And I would make her waist and hips a bit thinner. She is looking like one of those plus size models, which is no good for any warrior type whatever character.
The head definitely looks better scale wise! Keep it up!
When I initially made her body, I wasn't sure about what armor she'd get, and also thought about using her to train ecorche studies. The horns will definitely get a better transition into the head. As for the head's size, I think it may look a little small at the moment because it's not joined with the body, so there's some neck meat missing, and because Draenei have a chin that's not as protruding as in humans. I stuck to the 8-heads "heroic" character proportions, so her head currently is one eigth of her height. At her hips, she's about as wide as the WoW Draenei, and I'd like to stick to her "plus size" even though it may not be entirely fitting for a warrior. If I'd be seriously going for that kind of look she'd be much more muscular. Instead, I've taken the opportunity to try and reverse-engineer Blizzards stilized style to try and find my own. I'll give her lower legs some additional looks though.
And of course, thank you for the feedback!
Edit: I've collected some additional references and compared my model to them, turns out she pretty much matches any kind of size 12 model in terms of body size, which definitely isn't plus size. Her head is a little smaller due to the 8-head heroic proportions, but I think that nicely helps convey her actual height, since I estimate Draenei females to be about 2,4m, compared to humans in WoW.