Blizzard Student Contest - Character Art

ChiNguyen

Hello! I'm participating in the Blizzard Student Contest under character art. This year I want to try making a mount since I've never done one before and so far I have two grey scale concepts but final product will be a 3D model with hand painted textures. My mount main theme is "armored frog". I've made two mix breed mount; one is a bull and frog and the other is a lizard and frog. Right now I am unsure on which concept to use. I feel like the frog lizard's design is a bit stronger but not by a lot. I would like some feedback on the designs and which concept do you guys feel is stronger?

Brian "Panda" Choi

Bottom.  

ChiNguyen

I decided to go with the 2nd option and fixed up the feet so they are now flat on the grid. I also Included a 3/4 view.

Brian "Panda" Choi

really play with the frog head silhouette.  Almost give it weird toad qualities to make it pop.  

ChiNguyen

I changed the armor design and raised the frog's head to give it's back a better arc. I feel like this design gives it a better silhouette. I wanted the head to look more like a tree frog rather than a toad so I also enlarged the eyes and flattened the head a good bit. So far this model is about 5.4k polys out of 6k before deleting unnecessary faces in the armor.

akiratang

That looks pretty neat, Id love to see it coloured

Brian "Panda" Choi

I'd dab to this.  This is funny to look at; good job nailing the humor.

ChiNguyen

Update

Here's what I have in terms of colors and details so far. I haven't fully textured the skin yet because I'm having a bit of a hard time finding that balance between complexity and simplicity for the skin. I've been experimenting with bio-fluorescence themes skins and I want to keep the patterns simple so that it doesn't clutter but has enough complexity to be appealing. I'd like to get some feedback and suggestions on what I can do with the skin.

ChiNguyen

Here's what I have so far with the patterns. I'm liking these patterns a little better than my previous iterations but I feel like something is still missing. Any suggestions on how to push this even further?

Wendy de Boer

I think both the body patterns and the scales make it a bit hard too read, because they are both very contrasted. If you look at a real frog, you'll notice that most of the scales are very tiny. They appear more as a slightly speckled texture than anything.

I think this particular reference image is really cool, because it shows how different areas of the frog have a different skin texture:

https://www.deviantart.com/lifeofageek/art/Green-Tree-Frog-287584133

The armor is already pretty busy, so I would try and keep the frog more smooth and even. I would focus more on the overall lighting on the frog's body, and maybe only hint at the texture with a slight dotted pattern in areas of specularity.

ChiNguyen

@Wendy de Boer thanks for the advice! I'll go in and revise the skin and focus more on the frog's lighting. 

ChiNguyen

More Update

I went back and did another skin iteration. I gave the skin some bump patches and smaller stray bumps here and there.  I also refined the areas where the eyes meet the lids so that it doesn't look like I just slapped a sphere into the head.

Brian "Panda" Choi

Someone snipe me for this, but I'm not buying the silhouette.

it's the rear legs.  I'd prefer them proportionally hella larger, but if you can, I'd run an A| B test to see if what you have now still looks better than if the rear legs were hella larger.  Bigger rear legs would accentuate the hoppy frog idea to me.

tahakitan

2 things stick out for me.  the back legs blend into the tail because the colors are the same in a certain area.  I would def. fix that.  Another thing is some areas feel like they lack contact ao such as under the leg armors and such.  I haven't studied this specific art style though but I feel contact ao and values should be your focus right now if you are to keep going. It will help seperate things apart.  Working with a desaturation adjustment layer is also a good trick to see what stands out and what blends together in terms of value. Adjusting the values that way can help with the break up and adjust your focus on areas that are more important for the character.  For example, when i desaturated your character, the toes are super bright but the flag which should stand out blends together in terms of value, The toes end up being a focus due to contrast and the flag blends in out of focus because of the value contrast.  focus on things like that.

Overall it looks cool! keep it up.

mwallace

This is so damn cool. The frog-lizard hybrid is a very interesting idea.. kinda similar to a project I've been thinking about (armored newt).

^ Brian has a good point, although I think the hind legs are fine if this creature walks.. there are some species of frogs with smaller legs, that walk instead of hop. Could be useful reference -> Red and Black Walking Frog 

It may be too late for this kind of feedback, but IMO the bent back / elevated head gives it a very squishy, comical vibe.. Not sure if this is what you're going for, but in terms of believable anatomy (and giving him some integrity I would consider:
A. Lizard Posture -> lowering the head (position and angle)
B. Frog Posture -> raising the lower back / frog hump. 
C. Little of both

Last thing I want to mention is that frogs have moist skin.. so perhaps you could make those upper bumpy/smooth-curvy areas glisten a bit.

Keep it up!

ChiNguyen

This will probably be my last update for this project. Thank you all for commenting and critiquing my work. I did my best to touch up areas that needed attention and applied suggestions given to me but it is time to move on from this boy.