Rat Monster Game Art

Lou_

Hey guys I was hoping to get your feedback on one of my current high poly wips for my uni game project (unity). 
I am not really a creature modeler and have been struggling to make this dude really pop. 
Any feedback would be really appreciated!  

MorbidPandaUK

I think that's looking pretty impressive so far!

If I was going to change it, I would try to make certain parts of the body blend into each other more smoothly. I think I would reduce the amount of fat dangling beneath the rat's chin. At the moment it looks kind of unnatural to me. I would either give the rat a more pronounced jaw, or squash his head more into the body and give him a wider double chin.

The dents on the rat's pecs look a bit strange too. I think I'd make his chest a bit fuller, and try to make it blend in with the body more.

Maybe add some spots and scars to his body (since I presume he's furless), and sharpen up the detail on his belly? I think giving him a deeper navel and making the lumps more noticeable could help there.

Lou_

@MorbidPandaUK
Hey thanks for the crit! Definently can work on the transitions between his different body parts. The idea was to give the idea that he was fat but lost lots of weight very quickly, hence the saggy pouches. I'll try and work with those forms a bit better. Pronouncing the jaw is a good shout  lacks bones right now. 

Lou_

@MorbidPandaUK
 this kinda sag looking at it does need work! 

Lou_

Update to my sculpt I moved the silhouette around a lot shrinking the head and making the weighting feel a lot better. Then been making the transitions a bit smoother between the different forms. Also been trying to upscale the tertiary forms so they read nicely in game.

akiratang

Looks really cool so far Lou, I like the skin and folds.
I know its not finished yet but I think adding some more wrinkles to certain areas like the knee , and some pore detail if you really want to go that far. Maybe even a longer tail to look more rodent like as well?

Lou_

@akiratang
Hey thanks for the response! Oh totally will wrinkle up the knee area. My first sketch had wrinkles everywhere, but came back on it due to not really having any rest areas. 
As you can see its  a bit too much haha. 

I probably will not add a tail due to saving my animator quite a bit more work. But under stand it lacks that key elements of that rat anatomy 

Lou_

Update 

• Gave a double lip on the eyelid 
• connected fatty droopy skin to whole neck 
• Made legs thicker 
• straightened leg to have a foot 
• Added second layer of teeth and gums 

APiotrW

Looks really cool! Some of the little bumps seem a bit off to me though

akiratang

@Lou_ Looks better , the light polypaint really does bring it out more visually and gives him that rotten sorta look.
Also i think the hip bone looking area might be a little bit too thin and perhaps wavy looking? I think you can definitely add some wrinkle alpha effects on his skin folds to bring him out further too, keep it up!

Lou_

@APiotrW
Ah cheers! I will work them in a bit more then, meant to growths like moles or spots. I'll enhance with reference.

@akiratang
Yeah polypaint is something I have been doing much more in the highpoly stages just to test colour. 
I will get right on that hip bone I agree it looks a bit bit off. 
I'm not too sure if I should do wrinkles now, or in substance painter. I have been putting the big winkles in now as they add to the form. In painter you get a better representation of your texture map size and see if it is really working. 

Nuclear Angel

You could do the wrinkles on a layer and then you could try both Zbrush and Substance if it aint to much of a struggle to rebake for you.
Also the back seems to be very short right now, his lats are almost touching his pelvis, so i think you should move down the hip and make it smaller. 

Lou_

@Nuclear Angel
 thats a really good shout I am readjusting the legs right now anyway in order to get better edge loops around the leg muscles for animation. So will change that up, thanks for the feedback!

Lou_

did some big overall shape changes making the primary shapes more oval in nature. Needs a bit of cleaning but will move on to retop after 

Lou_

Lots of work done right now now into the bakes 
Low poly is 16 k tris 

Lou_

Here is the high poly

Lou_

texturing update  still lots to do 

dGreenberg

This guy is looking pretty gross in the best possible way, @Lou_! Awesome job with the fixes and updates to the recent high poly. It's always cool to see how the model looks with some color and materials on there, and I can't wait to see how he turns out. Keep up the great work!

Lou_

@dGreenberg
 Hey thanks man hope to have some nice final shots of him soon. Been super busy with uni deadlines :O 

@lukegallowaysmith
 
Annoying, I would say there is no one way of doing it. It depends on the required set up of model and what sort of optimization. Animators can skin multiple objects to the same rig so no worries with separate objects. Unless there is some required stretching where you really want to show the connection. These kind of technicalities will become more understandable as you experiment.  
You can see here the gaping dragon has teeth which are not connected to the main part of the mode but instead clip through the surface. 

Hope that helps.
These sort of things are much easier to show rather than to write about, at least personal. Best thing to do is try it both ways

Lou_

Spooky tests in marmoset still some texture refinement to do but overall colours are conveyed. 

Lou_

 Back shot 

Will be going back and forth from substance to refine the texture

Lou_

Working on poses today. Obvs fix the texture warp after pose is chosen


 

Lou_

My test thumbnail 

Lou_

Guess there is only one way of testing, by putting it up against the front page 

bkost

@Lou_ Woah nice work so far! The eyes are top notch. One big thing that I believe will 'sell' the skin better is SubSurface Scattering. Right now the skin (especially the ears) could use some. Oh and the spittle would look nice with SSS. Is this rendered in marmoset?

That and wiry hair cards could really level up your model.

Alex_J

Fuck me this is a foul creation. Be sure to burn your hard drive when your are finished. 

I second the SSS and some whiskers. Especially coming out from inside the ears. Also a little trick somebody here showed me is to put a light ring of AO darkening around the edges of the eye. Helps it feel more seated in there.

Lou_

@bkost
Thanks for the feedback! Yeah I bumped up the SSS, it was already on but not very visible, looking a little more fleshly now. I agree that hair cards would be sweet but not for the scale of this dude in game (third person game and creature is pretty small).

@BIGTIMEMASTER
 Aha foul as the night . I did the AO ring on the eye really payed off so cheers  

Lou_

FINSHED ! 
Wrapped this one up so Yay! 
https://www.artstation.com/artwork/rRlYkG Check him out on my artstation  
Thanks to everyone for their feeback 

Lou_

Other shots

Lou_

Texture Sheet

Lou_

Wires Highpoly