(WIP) Game of Thrones Warrior Fan Art

Nick_Simmons

Hello Everyone. I thought I would take some time to post a project I am working on. I was very inspired by Nils Ruisch (https://www.artstation.com/nilsruisch) model of the witcher and the Witcher tutorial of William Pare Jobin (https://www.artstation.com/artwork/geRqx)

These two models really made me realize how important that that final polish is to a character, And II will be taking this model as far as I possibly can to create a truly finished piece for my portfolio. So I will be posting my work here in a kind of progress breakdown. I have a few questions as to how to take this model to that final polish level so please bare with me guys.

I'm hoping some of you Character Art gurus can help me out!

Here is the concept ( done by the amazingly talented Hunter Schulz artstaion: hunterschulz.artstation.com )

Nick_Simmons

This has been my progresson.

1) I started with a basemesh and blocked the shapes and focused on  the proportions
2) Then continued working with the proportion until i got near where I wanted to be.
3) with the primary proportions blocked in I began modeling all the hard surfaces/ belts with Zmodeler continuing to refine the underlying geometry

Nick_Simmons

My current question is how should i start on the layerd clothing: Clothing underneath all these belts/straps.
Other than just sculpting it, how should I go about taking this into marvelous designer and create a clean working mesh?
And  is that even an acceptable workflow? 

I would appreciate some hot tips cause I am feeling kind of stuck.

NinjaSocks

very promising start! i'm no expert but the way i would go about taking the layered clothing into marvelous designer is by first converting the cloth pieces into a single wall mesh via topology brush and then just import that into marvelous for simulating and tweaking... this video shows what i'm taking about for the second part

Nick_Simmons

@NinjaSocks

I will give that a try and pose some results. Last night I took the pants mesh off him and just left the belts and boots. then started bulding the skirt from scratch in marvelous. It took a little bit of tinkering but I was getting fairly solid results. I will try the way in the video as well though, one may be easier than the other for this. 

Thanks for the share!

NinjaSocks

yeah I'm currently finding my way around marvelous as well, took some getting used to but I'm getting some decent results now.. I've only been building stuff from scratch as you said however after reading your original post it got me thinking if it would be better to start with something made in zbrush since i feel like a can keep closer to concept art when i'm in zbrush then when i'm in marvelous... also I have found tutorials where they use clothing which was built in marvelous for one model and show how to use it on another, so it would be wise to build your own library of pieces you could use later by saving them out right before you really start adjusting them to your specific model.

Nick_Simmons

   @NinjaSocks I tried the method and got mixed results. but for other projects i think that could work wonders. It was a little weired just cause of how layered this guy is. here is my model post marvelous designer!

Do you think everything is reading correctly? I'm still kind of sculpting it up but wanted to share the results I got

NinjaSocks

I think it's looking pretty cool man, when i look at your latest post and the reference side by side i kind of feel like the clothing between the two belts should be puffier or folded outward since the two belts are creating pressure.. also the bottom of the "skirt" piece should be slightly less dense, what i mean by this is on the reference the cloth goes outward a bit towards the bottom but yours goes straight down and feels heavier or thicker.. I'm no expert but those are my thoughts. By the way If you lessen the particle distance and right click > strengthen your mesh and then in zbrush you clay polish the folds (not via brush) I found it gives a good looking sculpted look.. Obviously helping the folds out manually would help as well. I like to look at travis davids's portfolio before i open up marvelous designer. It would help me out if you could take a look at some clothing work i've been working on over here  

Nick_Simmons

It has been awhile since I've updated this thread, I got busy on some irl things as well as an anatomy study I've been doing through CGMA. But now I'm back on this project in my free time! I recently finished the "block in stage" and am now looking to move forward into full on secondary, tertiary detail sculpting. 

Is there anything that jumps as totally incorrect or unbelievable about this character? I'm aiming for this to look and feel as functional as possible.

@NinjaSocks I will fix the area between the two belts since it definitely is lacking weight and compression there in some ares, especially on the backside.

JustinT

Looks clean, nice job keep it up!

polygons

there is some clipping in the back of his left leg but thats the only thing that jumped out at me. its looking great so far

NinjaSocks

nice work man!

Nick_Simmons

Hello Everybody, I have been hard at work trying to get the high poly sculpt portion of this project completed before I get busy again with more CGMA studies. This whole project has been an incredibly educational experience for how to get more clean looking geometry within Zbrush, using a wide variety of insert brushes, curves, zmodeler, and nanomesh. Basically just having fun working within Zbrush

I've attached a fairly Hi res image which should allow ya'll to take a close look at the surface details. My main mission for this portion of work was to get all the various materials reading correctly before I take into substance and get to work on proper texturing. 

I'm nearly done with the modelling for this guy. Just need to work up his battle hatchets. Then its on to retopo and texturing. And of course the portrait and hair work. What are ya'lls thoughts? Whats working/ not working how can I improve it/ Thank you for your feedback!

PeterK

I'm anticipating the hair work. Modeling looks great overall, and if you're planning to go to game res, I'd love to see you document your work; I'm sure it will be a lot of fun to review.

What I like most is the clear differentiation of materials, even at the sculpt stage. The various fabrics are clearly defined, and the color work you choose will be enjoyable to see.

Nick_Simmons

@PeterK I will put some time in and show a breakdown of how I take it to game rez. While I was adding details and such I was constantly trying to think about ways I could cut time on retopo/ how I will tackle the individual parts. Just so I have a plan of attack going forward.

Thanks for the reply!

Nick_Simmons

 @PeterK Here is the process I am using for baking. I am curious if there is a faster way of doing this part of the character creation, if so I would love to hear about it. This is what I have done it in the past and is a product of me just figuring stuff out on my own.

Alex_J

Nick_Simmons said:

 @PeterK Here is the process I am using for baking. I am curious if there is a faster way of doing this part of the character creation, if so I would love to hear about it. This is what I have done it in the past and is a product of me just figuring stuff out on my own.

I keep the meshes separated by how I'd want to bake them, organizing them by groups in Maya, and only combining things for simplicity once all texturing/baking is done. The why is the same only the how is a little different. 

But I just wanted to say, thanks for this breakdown. So many tutorials exist for sculpting in zbrush, but nobody talks about the part of the work that is the least intuitive and can be the most frustrating -- the organization! 

PeterK

Nick, One quick cheat I use is to select my color values from this Image, it has 64 RGB's that you can just run across and use for ID maps; helps organize thoughts if you assign various materials to specific colors and re-use all the time. Since the colors are grouped, you can even use similar shades for "similar but not exact" material assignments:

Stanley3DArt

Awesome character work. Magnifique!

Nick_Simmons

@PeterK What a great idea! Definitely will help with staying organized, thanks for sharing. Ill begin implementing this moving forward.

PeterK

@Nick_Simmons Sounds good man. Excited to see this guy come together; I'll keep tabs on the thread.