[WIP] Pyromancer

gillmeister74

I'm currently taking Jason Martin's character course through Game Art Institute. I've been learning a lot, but I want to make sure I get as much feedback as I can to get a killer final product. I started out by doing some quick character busts to get a feel for which character I should do.
 I ended up going with number 4, making her into a pyromancer with a bit of a candle/chandelier motif. I used a combination of wrought iron, plate armor, fabric, melted wax, and skin to break up her forms and provide contrast between the materials. From a more narrative standpoint, the wax acts as an occult or religious influence on her pyromancy. Below was 1st week's progress.

 There was a lot of elements that I liked, but I needed to focus more on underlying forms. As a result, I removed some elements to help me focus a bit. Below is where I am currently at with the character. Still a ton of clean up and tweaking to be done, but I'm on my way.
Certainly a long way to go on this character. I may add some elements back on to this character as I progress, but who knows.

Any feedback is greatly appreciated. Thank you all a ton. I'll post more as soon as I can.

dGreenberg

Hey @gillmeister74! I really like the way you figured out your concept, and the idea of the pyromancer having something like wax in her design seems really original to me. One thing that stands out right away is the lower part of the body (mostly just the armor on her legs). Compared to the upper body design it's just a little too similar and symmetrical. The skirt design could keep that candle-base look for your silhouette but I think it would be great if you had something else to switch up the design for her legs.

On the note her silhouette; my personal opinion would be to push things a little more with her demonic-wax-arm. I don't think it's so much a problem with the design (although it might be cool to play with some different ideations) but more the size. Right now it's slightly larger than her normal hand but it might be worth trying to see if you can make it even more dynamic. Either way really cool process so far. I look forward to seeing where you take it next!

gillmeister74

Thanks @dGreenberg ! I appreciate the feedback. I do need to break up some of the symmetry through out, and I certainly feel like I was too rigid and safe with the wax arm. I will do some iterations and play with some ideas. For now, here is a quick update.

gillmeister74

Update on my Pyromancer. Moved some forms around and started working on secondary and tertiary details. Added the cage frame back in, as well as some other elements to break up the silhouette.

gillmeister74

First round of bakes. AO, normals, and a first pass skin material. I also lengthened the legs from the shins to fix up the proportions a bit.

Elithenia

just came across this.
I would say that the shoes are a bit disturbing for me. The way they tuck in in the front makes me feel like there would not be enough space for her feet/toes in there. Also, in general her feet/shoes seems to be very small and dainty compared to the rest of her frame, and makes her feel a bit unbalanced. 

Xelar

I ike the head and the arm but overall the sillhouette feels a little cluttered.
The boots are very chunky and play-doh like compared to the rest and the chain feels out of place.
You could also try to open up her neck area a bit. Right now it looks like she wouldn't be able to move her head at all.

David-J

Awesome sculpt. I agree with Elithenia. One of the first things that jumped to me was the shoes. There is no way a normal foot can fit in there. You don't want a small detail like that to detract from your work.

Cheers!

gillmeister74

Thanks for the feedback everyone! I'm going to go back and take another go at the boots and feet. I will also look at balancing the forms a bit more so it's not cluttered.

gillmeister74

Quick update. Playing with colors and materials. Switching out the awkward boot feet for bare feet. That will help balance colors/materials a bit and I'm already digging the change. I'll have textures baked for the feet at some point soon. I'm also thinking about wrapping some cloth around the shin gaurds/ex boots to bring a shot of the cloth color down by the feet to vary things up.

as for colors, I may change the cloth from a greyish green to a warmer deep red. I'm also trying to figure out what color to make the wax. I'll probably play around with some things before I commit. As always feed back is appreciated.

JimmyRustler

Looks so freaking cool! The bakes and early material came out nicely. Cant wait to see it fully textured!
Yeah, adding some color variations could look nice. Personally, i would love to see the wax in the usual candle wax color, yellowish white.

gillmeister74

some progress. Materials and textures still wip.  I'm thinking about reworking the wax a bit.

JimmyRustler

Liked the changes you made and the metal and cloth textures. Are you going to redo her boots? because making her boot-less actually looked quite nice too.

The wax looked nice too, but about my earlier suggestion, i was thinking into making it to something like this



Adding a little bit more yellow into it, and rendered it with an SSS could look a bit better. like this picture for example : https://corona-renderer.com/stuff/helpdesk/sss/sss1.jpg