[Finished] Zero Suit Samus Fanart

de_cbble

Hello polycounters. First post here.

I wanted to try my hand at pushing myself to make a high quality vidya game character. I've made a few characters before, but they were all really simple stuff- they can be seen on my Artstation. Anyway, despite having never played a Metroid game before (blasphemy!), I really like Samus as a character and all so I decided to create a version of her. Since her base concept of the Zero Suit is very simple (skintight suit) I'm combining some ideas from her various versions, concept art and adding a bit more to create a little more bulky, physically detailed version.

I'm inspired by the art in Arkham Knight and the works of @future-fiction . They have amazing, detailed characters, absolutely mindblowing. That's something I'm aiming for- don't know whether I'll reach that by a long shot but I hope I learn a lot along the way. In doing so, I'd like to practice clean ZBrush techniques, PBR materials (including skin/hair) and an appealing character/face.

Here's the work I have so far. I still feel like I'm missing defined detail and interesting shapes, but I don't know how to go about adding that to essentially a tight suit. Still much to be done, too.
Critique on any mistakes, and also how to take things further, would be much appreciated!
Thanks for reading my post.

de_cbble

Well, much has gone on in life, it's been draining but I've been trying to work on this little by little in spare time.

I don't think anyone still follows this thread at this point but I'll put up some stuff for posterity. 

I've managed to retopo the sculpt, unwrap the UVs, work on hair cards and begin texturing the model.



Hair cards were an area I wanted to improve in, I learned how to use splines to deform planes to make up the hair. It's time consuming but I think it can provide cleaner results than drawing out hair planes in zbrush- which I was doing previously. I also learned a bit about XGen hair with Adam Skutt's tutorials. Absolutely great content.



The screenshot above is from a slightly older version of the suit.
As for texturing I realized that I hadn't planned things out well enough- I was stuck at material breakdowns, color and variation, so I ended up messing with existing materials until it looked good to me. It definitely still isn't as complex/bespoke/quality as I'd like though, but I'll chalk that up to me not having a clear enough idea of what I wanted. That aside I also want to learn more about custom textures and try to move away from the default materials in substance painter.



For the face I fiddled with skin texturing in substance and combined it with projecting on a face texture scan and editing it in photoshop. It looks alright and I'm kind of happy with it- definitely better than my previous attempts at skin texturing but I'm sure there's still more to do and learn.

Work is still in progress, I still have the eyebrows and other things to work on but I'll try to take more screenshots too. 

de_cbble

Well, much has gone on in life, conscription has been really draining but I've been trying to work on this little by little in spare time. I don't think anyone still follows this thread at this point but I'll put up some stuff for posterity. 

I've managed to retopo the sculpt, unwrap the UVs, work on hair cards and begin texturing the model.

Retopo was a pain as usual, but I pushed through. Especially since this time, I was working with a whole lot more subtools than I had ever attempted before. I learned to rely what I could on subdivision levels from zbrush itself to minimize retopo work especially for hard surface objects. UVs are also painful haha, and realized that I sometimes wasted space- such as giving too much texture space for the back of the head covered by hair. It could have gone into giving more space for her actual face instead.

Hair cards were an area I wanted to improve in, I learned how to use splines to deform planes to make up the hair. It's time consuming but I think it can provide cleaner results than drawing out hair planes in zbrush- which I was doing previously. I also learned a bit about XGen hair with Adam Skutt's tutorials. Absolutely great content. Having struggled with rendering out hair in Zbrush with BPR (I had antialiasing issues and grooming was very frustrating), XGen proved to be an absolute lifesaver. I never expected to hit quality like this to begin with, so I'm actually quite happy with it.

Face texturing was also something I really needed to get right, because I wanted to make an appealing face. I bought a face scan and projected it onto the model, combining it with a base skin layer I painted/ worked on top off within substance painter itself to create a custom skin. The skin material that exists in substance really helps with this aspect. Also, because I didn't sculpt pores and microdetail into the face mesh itself in zbrush (I didn't really know how to), I painted on the detail with normal maps and masks in substance. It was very useful. Also gained some knowledge about transmission maps and SSS. Top that off with Marmoset and it's golden. I think.

As for the suit I realized that I hadn't planned things out well enough- I was stuck at material breakdowns, color and variation, so I ended up messing with existing materials and breaking things up until it looked good to me. It definitely still isn't as complex/bespoke/quality as I'd like though, but I'll chalk that up to me not having a clear enough idea of what I wanted. That aside I also want to learn more about custom textures in the future and try to move away from the default materials in substance painter. 





I'm left with working on her Paralyser pistol, her eyelashes, a bit more skin touchup and... tongue and teeth? haha
After that I intend to rig her up (maybe try facial rigging too?), pose her, and then really ham it up on the presentation. These last few steps are probably going to take a really long time... ahaha

Any comments are still appreciated if you're reading this! thanks!

de_cbble

Hey everyone, just a quick update. 
I've started on the Paralyser and textured it. It's a slightly different version that I came up with after some sketches based on the original design. Had a brief issue with the high poly model and baking the normal maps but thankfully I was able to solve it. Kind of glad with how it turned out! 

de_cbble

Hey everyone! Managed to push through to a point where I think I'm done with the project.
Rigged her up (gosh that was an absolute pain), put her in Marmoset and went about the lighting and stuff. That was fun! It's nice to see everything coming together. Glad to have worked on this.

Thanks for viewing,
More images are available on Artstation: https://www.artstation.com/artwork/8lE9Qq





And of course, something:

HarlequinWerewolf

Hey, grats on finishing, I always find that the hardest part of a project. The gun came out really nice. I'm still learning a lot about 3d character art but I've been looking into doing real time hair too. The thing that stands out to me in your hair is that it's too clean. Too neat. It's lacking any fly aways or depth in the layering. I think if you had some variation in the colouring of the hair, from root to tip, this might help. Also, I think it's just a bit too shiny for me, personally I'd tone down the anisotropic reflections. Just my 2 cents, I'm still a beginner so it's cool to see a project getting finished rather than filling a WIP folder like me :P

Brian "Panda" Choi

Hair specularity reading metallic.

Hair needs fly aways and smaller breakups to the silhouette.

Gj oveerall though

de_cbble

LeahM said:

Hey, grats on finishing, I always find that the hardest part of a project...The thing that stands out to me in your hair is that it's too clean....

Hey thanks for the comment, much appreciated! It was my first time messing around in xgen and I didn't know the types of hair textures to make. I think I have a slightly better understanding after this project and will try messing around with that next time!
Hope to see one of your projects soon, I think you could learn a lot that way (not that you couldn't bouncing around in WIPs). The retrogasm one you have going is a great opportunity- I might have submitted this if I hadn't begun working on it before the event began!

Brian "Panda" Choi said:

Hair specularity reading metallic.

Hair needs fly aways and smaller breakups to the silhouette.

Gj oveerall though

Ah yes, the shininess was definitely something I overlooked, and the breakups I'll have to work on.
Thanks!