New Character- need help with material definition and such

EtTuBrute

I'm doing a concept based on Eduardo Garcia's work (https://www.artstation.com/artwork/6elKx), And I was wondering what you guys thought about how it was going so far, and also if i could get some help on the materials that are going on here that would be appreciated.
For instance, is the piece under the face mask leather or metal? Is the shoulder pad armor painted metal of some kind? What are those spheres made out of?
Any help would be appreciated

emerald-shine

Wow, thats an awesome character and Really sweet model to go with it . Its tough to nail down what the material definitions. I think the part under the mask looks to be the same as the part that is under the all the padding on the skirt. The sphere on the shoulder pad looks to be indented into the pads and held there with rope. Its hard to make out but it deffinitely receedes inwards. Your model just has it hanging off, where as it should be more intergrated into the shoulder peice. The edges look to be slightly raised too. There also seems to be some paint, sparadicoly placed throughout, at least I think its paint.

The legs look a bit off too. Below the knee theres a protrusion which might be a boot cuff. The shin guards also seem a little thin. In the concpet they look like to be fairly chunky and angle out more towards the top.

hope this helps, I look forward to seeing this progress.

EtTuBrute

Thanks for the feedback Emerald, really appreciate it!

apllana

I'm afraid there are not as many things as you might think you can do at this stage to improve the material definition or the overall quality of your character. There are many details in the concept art which are simply missing from your highpoly mesh and cannot be further detailed by texturing alone. Taking the pauldron as an example, you could have modeled in all kinds of details ranging from the edgeloops and patterns that go alongside them to subtle details such as shape variation, wear and damage. Don't be afraid to break them up into separate subtools/polygroups and detail them individually. Once you have all those shapes modeled you can start thinking of texturing in big variations, rust, edge wear and scratches.

It's a lot of work, sure, but I'd say the complexity of this character is at most average.

EtTuBrute

Thanks for the feedback apllana, you're probably right, this is the first time I've tried using the DDO texturer and I wasn't sure how much I should leave to the program. Wasn't really thinking about maybe having to go back and do more of the normal detail manually. Thanks again, appreciate it!

Kiyamlol

I agree with apllana. The concept for this character looks awesome. It would be a shame not to complete it to its best

I would go back to high poly modelling and define the details and shapes. Your textures will only look as good as your sculpt. I will reiterate the armor and the folds on the turban to look as faithful as possible. You will get better results in the texture then