Gorehowl - a hand painted personal take on the Hellscreams` fav toy (low poly weapon)

Zoltan

Latest update:

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Hey guys, I haven`t posted for years on Polycount so I thought I`ll start a smaller low poly hand painted project to kick things off.
I decided to do a personal iteration of the legendary weapon of the Hellscream boiz of the Warsong clan from Warcraft: the mighty two handed axe "Gorehowl"
I`ve seen numerous versions of this weapon trough the ages, since the Warcraft franchise launched, some are more different than the others but a few things almost always consistently present, features I decided to carry over to my version:
-mighty size, being a two-hander
-skull decor at the top of the head of the axe
-a row of "teeth" on the spine of the blade
-non-figurative shapes indented on the sides of the axe`s head
I don`t plan to reinvent the wheel just twist the design a bit, making the weapon a bit more dynamic, an maybe a bit more vicious looking My refs:

Zoltan

Here is a bunch of shots of the low poly mesh for the weapon, keeping it reasonably low poly but not going nuts about optimization, just having fun

Wendy de Boer

Looking forward to this one! You've got some nice handpainted stuff on your Artstation.

Zoltan

Thx u too have some excellent pieces too!

Zoltan

Some WF shots I forgot to add, will probably rip some stuff out once textured if I go nuts with optimization, will see. For now this will do

Zoltan

First shots of the texture. It`s past blockout, and I`m doing my usual thing of jumping in and out of areas lal but it`s getting there

Wendy de Boer

Looking nice so far!

The blade has an interesting look with the swirly texture. I'm not sure if it really sells the reflectivity of the metal though. It kind of looks more like worked flint.

Have you considered a more "mainstream" reflective look with straight highlight streaks, similar to this example by Gui Pu?

https://www.pinterest.com/pin/250020216789922873/

I think it would be cool to sell different reflectivity levels for the different materials on the axe; some more rustic, some more reflective.

Zoltan

I agree with you on both accounts. I was wondering about experimenting with something "off the wall" like I do when i design on the fly, but I had a slight worry about the need of killing my baby here haha relating to the swirly cappuccino texture lol, will give it a different paint see if i can retain anything of the look now if it doesnt work ill scrap it and go with something more "mainstream"
I was also planning to make the metal on the spine and top of the weapon more corrodedand darker, and the blade more polished to make things more easy to distinguish just as you said.
I should have an update later today on the progress, thanks a lot for the feedback its much appreciated!

Zoltan

second round of WIP shots of my Gorehowl, scrapped the way the blade looked as I wasn`t sure about the texture and some some friendly feedback from ppl (along Wendy de Boer) confirmed my feelings about it. Added some extra decor in form of the red wrappings and also started experimenting with some glowy effects. I`m also thinking about etching the blade with horde symbols... might make it a bit more crude than on these wip shots tho.

Wendy de Boer

Looking pretty sweet! I like the addition of the cloth.

Making the skull glow is a cool idea. I'm iffy on the glowing horde symbols along the blade edge. Maybe it would look better if you made the existing engravings on the gold part of the axe glow instead?

Zoltan

That`s a rly cool idea, I was actually having issues with the runes the way they are now, clashing with some other ideas I had in mind, making those areas glow instead would solve the problem! Thanks again Wendy!

Will be back after some edits and polish soon!

Zoltan

Finally managed to wrap this up here is the final shot and the sketchfab view. The idea Wendy, to make the indentations glow was brilliant, gave me space for some flame effects I already wanted to add along with some hot bounce lights but didn`t manage to figure how to incorporate them neatly hehe, thanks a lot!
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thanks a lot for the feedback, and thanks all for checking!

Wendy de Boer

Glad I could help! Great finish, the fire effect is awesome!

Zoltan

thanks a lot, was a fun project