Biological Weapon

Carabiner

Hi all! I'm starting on a quick project to model this weapon:

https://www.artstation.com/artwork/biological-weapon-concept

Here's where I'm at right now with the highpoly (side note, I haven't quite figured out the best way to approach the new Polycount - I hope uploading images is chill?):





I just noticed that there a few details missing on the "claw" pieces, so I'll go in and add those. I'm still getting the hang of high>low workflows, but I think I remember reading that slightly messy booleans (e.g. those on the claws, etc) are okay in a highpoly? 

One thing I'm struggling with is the helix/drill front. As you can see in the WIP shot, it's currently not looking super great. At first I was thinking of just laying down some skewed/rotated slices of a sphere to emulate a drill, but then I realized that obviously wouldn't be a helix shape so that's not ideal. Anyone have any suggestions on how to approach this? I'm also going to think on it too.

I also struggled with capturing the darker piece that the claws are attached to, on the outside of the helix/drill front. Does what I've made read okay?

Carabiner

Update on the highpoly (this time featuring fancy beauty render)! I still need to rework the drill bit piece at the very front, plus a few other pieces, but I'm generally happy with how things are looking. Any input before I start the lowpoly?

(Edit: Just noticed that there's a large piece that I accidentally had hidden, will fix that!)

Carabiner

UV'd, baked, and most base materials masked out (will be tweaking colors/values a lot still). I'm still not completely happy with the piece with a bunch of holes at the front, but we'll see how things go. I also noticed a UV issue with the vents on the tank area, will fix that. 

Any thoughts so far?

Carabiner

I think I'm done? Renders for the portfolio; feedback for next time would be great. Thanks!

Ged

really good but for 2x2k maps it doesnt look very textured, also if it had nicer lighting and the metal didnt blend in with the background colour so much that would help too. Seems like those pipes could use a few more edge loops to round them out. Oh and it seems like youve drawn the bubbles on the outside of the fluid containers? what if you made the bubble on a seperate alpha card and floated a bunch of them inside and actually made those containers transparent?

Carabiner

Ged said:

really good but for 2x2k maps it doesnt look very textured, also if it had nicer lighting and the metal didnt blend in with the background colour so much that would help too. Seems like those pipes could use a few more edge loops to round them out. Oh and it seems like youve drawn the bubbles on the outside of the fluid containers? what if you made the bubble on a seperate alpha card and floated a bunch of them inside and actually made those containers transparent?

Oooh, I like the idea for the bubbles. I did just paint on the outside because I wasn't sure how to approach it, but I will likely go in and make that change.

I'll also look into adding more detail to the texture maps. That's something that I've struggled with before, I guess I don't know what exactly to add? But I think I need to look up reference photos more and use those to inspire more details.

Ged

look at stuff like ratchet and clank and sunset overdrive, they have paint splats and erosion details but its not overdone or particularly realistic.