[Alt Helmet] - Excalibur - Isurus

Coridium

Hi All,

I have been wanting to enter this awesome competition as I have always loved the unique and interesting aesthetic of the Warframes. I have started with the Excalibur Warframe mainly because I love the mix of styles in this design and felt it could be a cool place to start. I started doodle-sculpting an idea few days ago, my free time is a bit limited but I am hoping I might be able to finish. Here is a very rough inspiration board showing some of the elements and inspirations I am hoping to combine.



Any thoughts, comments or feedback is always welcome! Good luck to everyone, really looking forward to seeing what everyone comes up with!

Cheers,
Chris

Coridium

Hi All,

I am hoping (work allowing) I might get some time to work on this later on this evening but in the mean time I thought I should upload some really rough block-outs of the idea that I created a day or so ago.

STYLE A -






After exploring with these rough designs above, I decided that I wanted to try to make the front a bit smoother more like the default Excalibur design and integrate more features from the shark reference to see how it looked. This is what I am working on at the moment its been pretty difficult trying to get it all to "fit" but hopefully I should have something to show tonight or tomorrow.

I think I will revisit this design after I upload the alternate idea so any thoughts, comments or feedback would be very much appreciated. My current plan is to develop the front to be more in keeping with the mechanical elements on the default Warframes legs/back.

Cheers,
Chris

Coridium

As I mentioned in my last post after creating the above designs I felt it was missing the Mammal like skin/shape that the default Warframe has and wanted to see if I could try to integrate more of that. I have to be honest I went round in circles for a very long time, trying something then scrapping it, trying something else scrapping it, etc. (I have a video of most of the design process showing the many failed attempts, lol, might post it if I have time and anyone is interested in seeing it.) Like the designs above this is pretty rough still, a bit more refined that the last post but still a decent amount of detailing and tidy up missing. Still not convinced that its interesting enough, I tried really hard to keep it quite subtle but worried that its too bland.

STYLE B -








The back attempts to continue the mechanical elements style to help bed the helmet and body together, the front tries to hint at the Mammal like features found on the default Warframe suit and the overall shape is inspired by the shark reference found in my first post. I still worry its too vanilla next I would really like to push and pull the shapes a bit and also add a little more Mechanical detailing to the front but before that I am going to play around with style A and see what I can do with it.

Any thoughts, comments or feedback on either of the styles would be useful and appreciated.

Thanks,
Chris

kary

Nice unification between body and helmet at the back there.  Shark comes through clearly and it touches the three part harmony of tech, elegance and organics.  Just a minor suggestion:  You might want to try a sketch with a small bit of tech on the front as well.  Perhaps at the chin, or around the cheekbones -- mainly to give yourself a bit of separation from the default helm when viewed from the front, and to echo some of the small stuff that is on the body (echoing the tubes running down the sternomastoids ending in a metallic connector etc, etc).

Coridium

Thanks Kary I really appreciate you taking the time to give feedback and pleased that you like the back (Was pulling my hair out trying to replicate your teams cool work on the back must have done about 20 different versions. lol) I 100% agree with you the front needs more tech elements, hopefully I might get some time at the weekend to give it a go. Thanks again for the Feedback!

Coridium

Hi all,

As I mentioned in my last image update post, I planned to go back to the style A quickly then back to style B... well I ended up getting rather involved in style A, lol and spend way longer on it than I had planned. Unlike Style B where I was trying to create something with a similar feel to the default helmet + shark for style A (taking on board Kary's feedback about separation and tech) I though it would be interesting to try to take the style of tech elements from the Mordred  Helmet, a older more worn version of the default helmet "mammal skin" and the shark ref. The idea was to make it look as if the tech was almost braking out of the skin (particularly at the back), Similar to how the back of the default body is but with more layers, the main reason for this was to give a more interesting layered view from the back, Since the player will see the back a lot I felt it was important to try to spend similar time on the front and back. Here are some quick and dirty renders, some alignment is off and a few areas are a but blurry but this is where I am currently at.





What you's think? Any thoughts, comments or feedback would be very much appreciated.

Thanks,
Chris

Coridium

Realised that I had stupidly left a layer on in Zbrush, making some details a bit stronger than they should be in the above images, not had a chance to update the images above but hopefully will do soon! Its not a huge change just tones down a few areas.

After fixing that I started to play around with polypaint to try to figure out what the design of the texture might look like, below is what I am thinking...



Any feedback would be very much appreciated, tomorrow/Sunday I hope to make a start on the Low Poly.

Thanks,
Chris

raymond dela cruz

This is one of the more interesting looking ones. Looking really nice! I'd be careful with the thin lines though, they might become pixelly when it gets in the game.

Coridium

Hi Raymond, Thanks very much for the feedback and comment! I am also a bit concerned about some of the lines/details, my plan is too get it unwrapped, baked at game resolution and test it from various viewing distances. Then for any problem areas either tweak the Highpoly and/or the texture design and then re-bake, just running a bit low on actual free time to get it done but hoping to get a good run at it tonight/tomorrow. Thanks again!

Coridium

Well pleased to have managed to finish, due to other commitments it was all a bit of a last minute rush but I think I managed to get everything in. The only thing I can think of that I did not do was update the HIgh poly renders images (in the final submission thread post). As I ended up changing the High poly quite a bit after listening to Raymonds feedback and looking at the results of various bakes it some of the lines and details needed to be enlarged to help with the ingame resolution. Most lines where increased in size by about 1 1/2 times and some of the smaller rectangular details had to be recreated at a bigger size and with a bit less detail to help with the readability. I will try to find time to update the high poly images and post them here. In the mean time for consistency here is the final submission images.




This image below need to be updated to a slight newer model...





Massive thanks to anyone that took the time to look at this thread and to anyone that commented!

Congrats to all that finished.

Cheers,
Chris

TJLaw3d

damn man this is great Awesome job! 

pior

Well done !

Chase

Every time I check the steam workshop I see this at the top of the heap. Great work Chris! That shark inspiration really comes through.

Del

Masterpiece yo

Millenia

Beautiful work as usual!

Coridium

Sorry its taken a while to reply, I literally finished the helmet the night before I jumped on a flight for a 5 night break, lol, was shattered the whole time I was away.  

TJLAW3D - Thank you, congrats to you too! Like the sharp front and flowing shapes of your design!

Pior - Thanks mate means a lot! You totally showed how it should be done though, not 1 but 2 very cool designs!

Chase - Thanks very much, I am pleased that its still visible in the design as it was toned down and down iteration by iteration. Talking about the workshop your design seems to be doing v well, congrats!

Del - Not sure about that but thank you very much for saying! Massive congrats on the final design you created!

Millenia - Thanks mate very kind! Nice work on the Fallout 4 stuff... looking cool!

novabjorn

Congrats on being picked, I love the mako inspiration.

Coridium

@novabjorn Thanks very much pleased you like the theme, took quite a while to get something that I felt could work but obviously very excited to have made the final 12. Congrats to you too, cool sculpting on the infested weapon, nice work!