Super Cyber Sythe Critique?

Kainkun

A futuristic Scythe that I made to practice better design with dynamic shapes.
I tried incorporating interesting negative space, directionality, and contrast through shape
I'm also trying to further improve my weathering and modeling skills.

I still used the weathering generators but I also tried painting my own weathering. Its hard to see but I added fingerprints, dirt and, smudges.
I'm happy that I got baking to work, I'm still not sure exactly when it works for me but I'm getting better.
I also worked more on reducing polygons but I'm still not too sure if I could be doing better and if so, how.

Any critique and help is appreciated

model

PeterK

Hey there, thanks for posting.

It's an interesting design. I think you went too far on the weather, especially across flat surfaces. The blade also seem to thick/dull to cut anything. I'd take a look at your materials overall, and concentrate on logical wear points like edges/crevices.

thanks for sharing!

Brian "Panda" Choi

You should have spent some more time getting feedback on tthe concept before committing to 3D.  It's a possibly interesting idea, but you really need to finesse the silhouette to make it memorable.  I'm hoping you made more than one silhouette thumbnail for this, but if you didn't, you should have sat down to do 50+ and winnow down from there.

Right now I feel the execution is lackluster.

The big thing that stands out to me is the amperage meter at the bottom.  You haven't answered visually what it does, what it may be involved with, or how it works.  Why add something that doesn't do anything?  MAYBE it has something to do with your emissive near the blade, but those are just LED lights that you might find in a car mod undercarriage.

It's good you're getting used to putting in the work to weather materials.  Right now there's areas still that are too uniform, especially the length of the blade.

One of the cooler scythe designs I've seen is the one that Ruby uses in RWBY.  They did a good job incorporating the transformation and mechanical operations the device has into the look of the device.

About your baking issues, I have personally found Toolbag a better baking software, as well as single object renderer, than Substance Painter since Painter lacks a visualizier of the cages and these minute on-the-fly options for the baking.

If designing for 3D right now is too challenging for you, I really encourage choosing stronger existing concepts from other artists to give you really strong pieces to model from.  This hasn't been the only time where I've personally questioned the design strength of your concepts.

Kainkun

Thank you guys so much

Any idea how to get better at design? Obviously, practice but I feel kind of lost, I still don't know exactly what I want to focus on in the art world which is why I want to learn everything for now.

Brian "Panda" Choi

Make more than one thumbnail, to start.  Do 50 on the same idea.

How many sketches did you do this time?

Kainkun

Yeah, I'll do that.
just a couple, I didn't save it though because they were bad

Brian "Panda" Choi

You could also take foundational fine art classes, including an intro to design, to begin getting better at designing.

Or doing master studies of existing paintings, observational sketching of objects or scenes around you, etc.

Kainkun

Thanks, I'm taking art in college but maybe I should have went to an actual art school lol. Thanks for always pushing me and keep me motivated

Brian "Panda" Choi

Dare I say it'll be cheaper if you just put in the inordinate amounts of time to study art on your own instead of art school.

The "General Education" of art are fairly universal tools.  Learning how to observe, draw, design, etc.  Getting it at a rinky dink community college is usually enough.  It's what you do with it that matters more than where you're getting specific items like that.

I didn't go to art school.

For example, if you want to get better at concept art and you don't have a sketchbook, something is most likely wrong.