Sergi Brosa - Stylized Cowboy Character

chaselt

Hey everyone!

I've been working on this character based off of one of Sergi Brosa's concepts


I've mostly moved on from an initial Dynamesh sketch phase into locking down the forms -> finishing up the high poly.

Here is my current progress.


The uglier/rougher stuff is either subdiv 1 or still dynamesh and the stash is going to be haircards. 

At this point, I'm trying to get the the overall feel of the character down (major forms). He doesn't feel quite right to me at the moment, anything you notice/any tips? Let me know

Ged

cool character looks like fun to work on, good start!

chaselt

@Ged - Thanks! yeah, the proportions of this guy really drew me in. Definitely a fun character. 

Knightjordan3d

looks like a fun character.

chaselt

@Knightjordan3d - Yeah it is! Sergi's stuff is always fun to work off of.

chaselt

So close to finishing the high poly. 
Still some things in the face, coat, and pants to tweak/add (at least in my eyes 0.0)

As always, I'm totally open to any critiques. 

chaselt

High poly at ~95%

Not quite pleased with the hair sculpt and there are some wobbly bits I want to straighten out. 

After that it's time to bring the belt to the same level as the rest of the character and model his pistol. (shivers)
Had some fun with the composite...

Fradnor

Awesome design, very toonish style while being realistically and highly detailed. Impressive.

lotet

saw this in the WAYWO, just wanted to drop buy and say it looks awesome! Keep it up!

chaselt

@Fradnor Thank you very much. Definitely the goal with this piece, combining an overall stylized feel with realistic detail.

chaselt

@lotet well thanks for dropping in! I was totally digging your render of the beast character you are making for the challenge. I think it's a unique direction for it.

chaselt

Spent today learning and messing around with Fibermesh, along with learning some cool BPR techniques.

I'm still not done with the Fibermeshing but will need to move on to ACTUALLY finishing up the high poly to move on to the retopo and baking process.

Nuclear Angel

He looks awesome. I personally think you have gone a bit to far with the blur, cool none the less though. 

chaselt

@Nuclear Angel Thank you. I can totally see where you are coming from with the blur, I think I am definitely going to tone it down in later renders.   

lotet

@chaselt  - Thank you  the fiber hair is coming along great btw, are you planning on making this a lowpoly model btw?

Ferg

killin his style, nice work dude, cant wait to see finals

chaselt

@lotet Thanks man. yeah fibermesh hair is a lot of fun. I am planning on making a finished low poly model. I'm on the last little bit of the high poly, throwing in stitches and stuff like that. Soon.

@Ferg Thank you man, love your work. I'm glad you like it.

lotet

@chaselt - Cool! so are you gonna bake down the fibermesh somehow then? Ive always had trouble doing stylized hair so im a bit curious on how your gonna solve that issue aswell.

chaselt

@lotet - I don't think so. If anything, I might end up using the curve data for hair card placement. But my plan is to basically paint a hair texture and hair card the crap out of him. I'll def be posting progress shots of that to get some feedback and opinions.

chaselt

* P R E - F U L L U P D A T E  *

Just because I have to do a little bit of traveling I'm only throwing the headshot pic on here for now. I'll be posting the actual turn around of the high poly once I'm able to sit in front of my computer again later tonight.

Afklamer

Sooo good! love the shapes  great work, cant wait to see the big update

chaselt

@Afklamer Thank you man! Working on the low poly as I am typing this, I'll have to take a little break and throw the renders together

chaselt

- H I G H P O L Y -
Here is the state of the high poly. I've decided to add a little to Sergi's original concept. I've added some damage to parts of the character and fleshed out the gun holster (totally blanked and didn't render out any shots of the guns/belt up close).
I felt the belt ended up looking a bit bland and upon looking up some ref for I saw a bunch with bullets lining the outside of them and thought that would solve my problem. 

At the tail end of the retopo. Hopefully will be inside of Substance tomorrow 0.0

lotet

Cool, Cant wait to see how your gonna texture him, and how ur gonna do the hair too.

Afklamer

gogogogo wanna see  the textures =D 

chaselt

Thanks guys!  

@Afklamer so close to being done dude, so close! 

Here is an update pic FINALLY... I didn't really know how to "render" this other than by just taking a screen cap of my screen so forgive me for this not being that pretty haha. (other than the screened dust of course)

Basically I am about 80-95% with texturing I'd say. This is my first time using substance and spent the first couple of days just learning and playing around with the program before I really dove into actually texturing this guy. 

A lot of the base is here but there is still a bunch of color tweaking I'd like to do to get it as close as possible to the concept. I haven't actually textured the guns yet which is why they are copper. Let me know what you are thinking, especially if it's about getting the colors/mats where they need to be.

Thanks!

DanielJohnsson

haha yes!. this is great! you nailed the textures to

chaselt

Quick update before posing this guy and taking final render shots.

(Edited colors a bit)
Pretty happy with the texturing, though I do still have to fix couple weird normal issues on the collar. Other than that I'm calling the textures done.

Let me know what you think!

Intervain

he's awesome!

chaselt

Thanks @DanielJohnsson ! Learning and using Substance Painter has been an absolute blast. Has totally changed my texturing forever.

Thank you @Intervain glad you like!

lotet

I know you just started learning substance painter, and its an amazing textures tool! but, im not gonna go easy on you because of that, I think this guy has a lot of potential, so dont ruin it with sloppy textures!

right now the skin is your biggest problem, way to much ao, makes it look muddy. you also have a lot of weird color variation going on in the skin that i dont get, it looks like a weird mash of painted in shadows mixed with the real shadows, and some color variations that are just way to strong. 
you should probably get some SSS in there too, but you mentioned this isnt the final renders.

next up is the mustache, right now I feel its a bit noisy, I would try to lower the contrast of those hairs, also (depending on style) get some color variations or gradients in there to make it a bit more interesting.

I think the hat looks a bit lowres too, or maybe its just the details you added there, there is some red sticker or something I cant make sense out of. come to think if it, it might be a hole in the hat or something, if thats the case you need to work on that making it way more readable.

I also think a slight gradient on the jacket would be a nice touch to draw focus to the head, making the sleeves darker and the top collar lighter.

dont settle with mediocre textures, you can do it!

chaselt

*Blows dust off of thread

It's been far far too long. I've been doing quite a bit of traveling as of late and while these last couple months have been awesome and full of new experiences, traveling had made it very difficult if not impossible to really do/finish any sort of work. 

Until now.

So over the last week or so, I have finally been able to put in the time necessary to finish this got damn cowboy... Or at least get it to a point where I am happy to move on to the next thing.

Firstly.

@lotet - Dude, thank you for your crit. While I don't think I hit all the points you brought up, your suggestions are awesome and duly noted. I took out a lot of the ao that was painted/infused in the texture. I personally like a bit of the effects that it has but do agree it was way too prominent. That 'sticker' was in fact a transparent hole in his hat but it totally didn't read haha. I just painted it black instead. Once I took the final renders, the mustache didn't bother me as much as it did in the previous shots AND I ended up using iray to render the final shots and I'm not entirely sure if there is a way to add SSS. Perhaps you know of such a way? I would love to know. But again, thank you for the critique. It's much appreciated!

Here's where he ended up.

 

Overall, I am pretty happy with this and even more happy with all that I have learned going through making this guy. Of course there are plenty of things I would have done differently and will do differently in the future but this has been a fun one.

Thank you to everyone who checked out this thread and an even bigger thank you to anyone who landed their their thoughts and advice.

p.s. Thank you Sergi Brosa for making such a fun concept.

lotet

Hey you finished it! Nice presentational shots! I must say Liked the wood floor better then the sand though, its darker and makes the character pop better.

Ged

bravo nice finish!

Nuclear Angel

I agree with Lotet about the sand. But damn great finish, you really nailed the character! Good luck with your future projects. ^^  

chaselt

@lotet - ahh I could see that. Good point. But thank you, and thanks for coming back! 

@Ged - Thanks so much, man!

@Nuclear Angel - Thank you, dude! Put a lot of work into this guy. I'm sure I'll see you around.