Building Better Busts - LOTOR Inspired

Alemja

Hey everybody! I finished up some freelance that was taking up my spare time and I'm back to making some portfolio pieces.

I'm creating a few busts with the hope of learning some new techniques and tools I've never messed with before and try to push myself to get into some smaller details I normally gloss over.
I'll be making 3, an Orc, "Undead" and Elf, all kind of Lord of the rings inspired and all using the same base mesh to try and simulate how some characters are made in studios. Here are some loose concepts with references of what I'm going for. I may modify the designs as I progress is something isn't working.


Going for a bit of a Lord of the Rings styles, hoping to make them look grounded in reality.

Here are the meshes, currently all of them are at subdivision level 2, trying to focus on larger anatomical shapes before I get further


Critiques and feedback gladly accepted

Saman

These are really cool and it's a nice start. Will you be making busts or complete bodies?
You should block the clothes in and polypaint those tattoos etc
Edit: Oh, god. Just saw the title of the post, must have missed it when I wrote the post . Sorry!

Alemja

@Saman Thanks! These are just going to be busts because I'm working on all 3 at the same time, I don't want to spread myself too thin. Blocking in stuff will be happening, I just like to concept out ideas a bit first otherwise I don't know what I'll be making and will lose interest. I also wanted to make sure I'm getting the proportional feel of these looking good.

I forgot to mention that because the Orc is the only one that will be showing it's torso the anatomy will matter most on that one, the other 2 will be covered in armor. Still wanted to get some anatomy in there because I'm feeling a little rusty

Saman

Ah, I see. No female though? Looking at the concepts I thought the elf was a female until I saw the naked body. You should post the reference material you're using too so feedback would get easier
Shadow of Mordor maybe?

Alemja

@Saman I tend to make females, figured I should do some dudes for once

I have been working on some block outs, trying to get a feel for the shapes and what's working or what isn't.

I'm making the elf based off a model named Leonardo Taiwo, I liked how regal his features looked.




Also added some reference images in the first post to hopefully give a feel of what I am going for.

Critiques and feedback always welcome!

Alemja

Some progress on the Orc and Undead, I haven;t messed with the elf as much. Trying to get past my fear of asymmetry when sculpting faces, also learned about micromesh with the chain-mail, which I have never used before. Some design changes here and there, figuring out what works as I go.



Comments and crits always welcome!

erroldynamic

Looking awesome so far Alex! Just a small critique on the chainmail - maybe make the links a bit larger and more evenly sized. You can do that by adjusting your base/placement polygons. Also NanoMesh is fun and has a whole bunch of ways to edit and add variation. The pierced swords and arrows are a nice touch!

Alemja

@erroldynamic Thanks Errol! I used micromesh for the chain-mail, which so far has been a pain to deal with. I either have poles to even out the polygon size, but then the chain-mail doesn't look seamless or I don't use poles which results in stretched geo... so yeah, neither has been desirable. I will try nanomesh, it looks like it might get better results, thanks for the suggestion! Since the goal is to learn some things I've never tried before in zbrush I'm not sweating trying again

Alemja

Some updates, I have figured out what I want the elf armor to look like. Slowly getting more details on the rest, really trying to get comfortable with asymmetry in the faces of the Orc and the Undead. @erroldynamic thanks for the tip on Nanomesh! I think the results for the chain-mail came out much better.