[RIOT CREATIVE CONTEST 2017] Character Art - Dragonlord Nami
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>:) >:) >:) DRAGONLORD NAMI >:) >:) >:)
LATEST UPDATE: FINISHED!!!
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Howdy folks!
I'm super stoked to be joining in for my first Riot Creative Contest! I know it's a little late in the game with only a few weeks left, but I'm aiming to spend these next few weeks living and breathing this project!
I went through most of my favorite characters looking for some folks with interesting base designs and to see if there were any characters that could use some love and attention. I had a lot of characters I was interested in doing at first- Xayah, Vi, Quinn, Ornn, Viktor, Kindred, etc. But of all the characters I looked at, I felt that there was one that needed a little more love- Nami!
First off, I love Nami's base design and her kit, and I can imagine her being a lot of fun to sculpt normally. The issue I've found is that, while she does have 6 skins, they all seem very similar to each other (which, to be fair, kinda makes sense, since it's sort of difficult to give a mermaid variety). That being said, I had been mulling over the idea of how cool it would be if she used lava instead of water, and thus came about the idea of a volcanic dragon Nami!
I've spent the past couple of days grinding out a concept for her and doing a whole lot of revisions, so it's a good thing that the design process is already done. Now I can jump right into 3D!
(Quick thumbnails!)
(Original sketch whilst experimenting w/ staff shapes!)
(Final design!)
(Progression!)
As this is my first contest, I'm a little new to how things work, so I might jumble up here and there. Wish me luck everybody! :3c
LATEST UPDATE: FINISHED!!!
model
Howdy folks!
I'm super stoked to be joining in for my first Riot Creative Contest! I know it's a little late in the game with only a few weeks left, but I'm aiming to spend these next few weeks living and breathing this project!
I went through most of my favorite characters looking for some folks with interesting base designs and to see if there were any characters that could use some love and attention. I had a lot of characters I was interested in doing at first- Xayah, Vi, Quinn, Ornn, Viktor, Kindred, etc. But of all the characters I looked at, I felt that there was one that needed a little more love- Nami!
First off, I love Nami's base design and her kit, and I can imagine her being a lot of fun to sculpt normally. The issue I've found is that, while she does have 6 skins, they all seem very similar to each other (which, to be fair, kinda makes sense, since it's sort of difficult to give a mermaid variety). That being said, I had been mulling over the idea of how cool it would be if she used lava instead of water, and thus came about the idea of a volcanic dragon Nami!
I've spent the past couple of days grinding out a concept for her and doing a whole lot of revisions, so it's a good thing that the design process is already done. Now I can jump right into 3D!
(Quick thumbnails!)
(Original sketch whilst experimenting w/ staff shapes!)
(Final design!)
(Progression!)
As this is my first contest, I'm a little new to how things work, so I might jumble up here and there. Wish me luck everybody! :3c
Replies
Spent a bit of time going over the workflow for creating Riot-esque assets today. I came into the project with a preconceived notion that I would be doing a way more complex process, so I had to spend some time today taking a focused look on how to do the character model the right way! I spent a lot of time looking at the Xayah game model to figure out how they worked with shapes for her, and I think a lot of her angular forms can apply for this Nami skin.
Other than that, I spent some time playing around with ZBrush and getting some basic proportions and body features down for Nami. I spent a while fretting over how I would do the fins, but ended up deciding that I'll just do those later when I bring it into Maya for retopo.
Primary objective for tomorrow: block out the armor in Zbrush!
C&C is very welcome! I would greatly appreciate some pointers on how I could improve my workflow or suggestions on how I might tackle some elements of my design!
Thanks and goodnight everybody!
So far so good w/ the armor! I've pretty much got the entirety of the back, butt, and torso set, so I'll move onto the chest, neck, and crown tomorrow. I'm still sort of deciding whether or not I'm going to do the high poly sculpt, but I'll wait to make that decision once I take it to the retopo phase.
Tomorrow's goal: finish the armor (crown and collar)!
Feel free to give C&C!
Side comment: looks like since I'm new to Polycount, I wasn't able to edit or post images on replies? But since I've posted a few more things, MY POWERS HAVE RETURNED- AHA!!! >:D
Made a lot of progress today and finished up the remainder of the armor (collar and crown), as well as looked into doing some facial details! Frankly I feel like I might have made the face appear too detailed rather than stylized, but I can fix that later as long as I have a base to work off of. I took another look at the Xayah game model to try to get some point of reference on facial construction in League's character models, so I may most likely dumb down these details that I put in for the final low-poly version.
Additionally, I also did some extra digging into how Riot handles Nami's hair and fins, and it looks like they all use geometry rather than planes/"hair cards." I'll most likely be blocking them out very roughly in Zbrush tomorrow and then manually tweak them after I do the retopo to give them that nice jagged look I've got going in the concept art.
Overall, I'm starting to see the end of the sculpting phase and am more than ready to get the retopo done with. I still haven't touched the staff yet either, though, so I'll want to knock that out quickly.
Tomorrow's task: Block in shapes for all of the fins and hair!
Stretch goal for tomorrow: Perhaps get started on the staff?
Goal for the end of the week: Have everything sculpted and get the retopo started!
Thank you to everybody who's been giving feedback and support lately by the way- I greatly appreciate it!
Quickly want to say thank you to everybody's comments and feedback- it's great to hear how much you guys like my work and is very much appreciated! I'll make sure to keep working hard and do this project justice! It's been flying by quickly but it's also been a ton of fun!
I think I can safely say that I've completed the sculpt and block-out for our spicy little dragon empress! Adding the fins really helped to bring it together, and I also added some extra details like some small rocks on her shoulders. I still have to do the staff, though, so that'll be the big task for tomorrow. Once that's done (which hopefully shouldn't take more than a day), it's onto the retopo phase at long last!
I'm feeling pretty good about her design so far, but I may also take tomorrow to take some input and make some small refinements. Luckily, since Riot models heavily rely on their textures, I can avoid worrying about most of the details until the texturing phase.
Tomorrow's quest: Sculpt the staff!
Side quest: Make edits based on feedback!
Main questline: Get everything sculpted and ready for retopo!
Been having a bit of difficulty finishing up this staff- we've gotten a lot of snow where I live lately and I was stuck without access to ZBrush for a few days. I've eventually gotten it done though and can finally call the sculpt complete!
I am sort of behind now I feel since my goal was to be getting started on the retopo yesterday, so it looks like I'm going to have to hurry with that aspect!
Tomorrow's assignment: Start retopo!
Extra credit: Get the WHOLE body retopologized (not including things like armor or fins)!
Onto the next task at hand- the retopology! I've been studying the way that Riot does the topology of their characters and notice that they have very relaxed, low poly edges and a lot of clipping geometry. I'll have to be very liberal it seems when it comes to this matter, but I'd like to ask- does anybody have any tips or hints on how I might be able to tackle the topology for this model? I was thinking about starting with the body and the things like the ribs to use as a single mesh, but leaving things like the rocky collar as separate meshes. Should I just make everything separate meshes? Let me know if you have any advice!
Semester has started back up for me again and has kicked off to be super busy, so I've been having difficulty finding time to post updates. Long story short is that retopo took WAAAAY longer than I wanted it to, but I'm FINALLY working on the textures at long last! Here are a few quick shots of the texture WIP (I'm not gonna bother showing the topology currently just because it's way past that point I feel d: )!
Mission objective: FINISH DEM TEXTURES!!!
On deck: Do a quick rig and pose!
The challenge is coming to a close, so I'm looking to finish this up ASAP! If you have any thoughts or suggestions, I'd love to hear them!
Good news- the body texture is pretty much complete!!
Would love to hear what you guys think of her!
Next up: Texture the staff!
Additionally: Bake AO maps, combine texture maps, make misc. last checks before finalizing
And after that: Start compositing final images for submission!
I'm going to qualify this as finished, but I'd also like to take a chance to perhaps touch up some of the texture work and maybe do another pose of her more similar to her in-game poses. Onto some final polishes and renders! Gotta remember to include things like poly count [heh]- almost exactly 7k polys to be exact!