--FINISHED--Tiefling Rogue

SgtBabbit

The purpose of this project will be to refine my character art pipeline, practice sculpting, hand-painting and of course, fill my portfolio! Decided to do something in the realm that I love, Dungeons and Dragons, and who doesn't love a good tiefling. I thought rogue would be a good opportunity to explore layering without a bulky silhouette, balancing form and function. Man it must be hard being a rogue when you're bright pink though...


Early sculpting, face, hair and clothes blockout
She's looking a lot more like a tiefling librarian right now...maybe a hair change is in order. 

SgtBabbit

Want to get the outfit ideas down solid before I dive into the blockout. So I did some quick thumbnails. Wanted to keep it clean, sharp and refined. Sometimes slipped a little too assassin’s creed and I want to pull away from that. Think I’ve landed on a concept I like with a few backup ideas I can throw in 

SgtBabbit

Quick rough blockout followed by refining those shapes and starting in on individual pieces. Starting to worry how I'm going to hand paint the textures to be dark for a sneaky rogue but light enough to show detail and different textiles. But it's a challenge I'm excited for! Playing around with some different hair styles too. Can't decide if I want it all tucked away, or some hanging out of the hood, or absent when the hood is up and down when the hood is down maybe?

HarlequinWerewolf

I like the idea of the pigtails/braids, you'll get them coming out of the hood and breaking up some of the colours over the clothing. I'd love to see some of the asymetry pushed a bit more, like making the right paudrons a bit bigger to break up the shapes over her shoulders. Interested to see where this goes, I like her design so far  

SgtBabbit

LeahM said:

I like the idea of the pigtails/braids, you'll get them coming out of the hood and breaking up some of the colours over the clothing. I'd love to see some of the asymetry pushed a bit more, like making the right paudrons a bit bigger to break up the shapes over her shoulders. Interested to see where this goes, I like her design so far  

Yes absolutely agree with you on the asymmetry I think next I'll do a paint over and just see where I can push form and get a more interesting silhouette before I move on to more detailed sculpting. I feel like there's something in the concepts that I'm losing in the sculpt. The braids are definitely growing on me!! At first I was thinking she needed to be totally tucked away for functionality but...this is fantasy! And the peek of extra colour might be just what I need.

SgtBabbit

Still working on this lady! Pushing some shapes and silhouettes. Took me a few goes to figure out how I wanted to do the boots ( Shoes are always the part I struggle with, anyone else?) I think I'm happy with most of the pieces, next I'll hop over to making some/one reusable dagger and how I can attach that to her equipment.

SgtBabbit

Simple dagger asset. Didn't want to make it too detailed and fussy. Figuring out how to holster them on the outfit, playing with more asymmetry. Also made a little belt, think I like this "eye" motif for buckles and accents to evoke the whole rogue/spy/secrecy themes 

Crazy_pixel

Nice progress, I like the style of your character

SgtBabbit

Crazy_pixel said:

Nice progress, I like the style of your character

Thank-you so much! I'm having a lot of fun with it

SgtBabbit

Not a whole lot of time to work on this tonight, but I still managed to get started on stitches and studded leather! I want to get in details but not overload it with tiny intricate stuff (which I can definitely get sucked into). Trying to be mindful of Small, Medium, Large design theory and keep areas of rest as well as areas of noise
I've been making use of Jonas Ronnegard's seam brushes for Zbrush. Bought them from their Gumroad and they've been really fun to play with! 

akiratang

I dig this alot.
Cant wait to see it done.
You going for game character pipeline, got a tri count or platform you're aiming for?

SgtBabbit

akiratang said:

I dig this alot.
Cant wait to see it done.
You going for game character pipeline, got a tri count or platform you're aiming for?

Thanks! Glad you like it Yes, probably all platforms (Except mobile :P). I'm guessing she'll be 20k-40k, though I'm not too worried, it'll be hard to over do it if I keep the shapes nice and solid. As far as pipeline goes, all the pieces I'm making have good topology at the base subdivision level so retopo should be nice and quick, since it's coming along at the same pace as the high poly

Brain_Slave

Love these clean shapes. And the eye on the back is simply amazing! Great job!

SgtBabbit

Brain_Slave said:

Love these clean shapes. And the eye on the back is simply amazing! Great job!

Thank-you so much! I'm really trying to focus on a clean work flow in this project

SgtBabbit

Progress little by little! A little poly paint, the gauntlets and gloves, blocking out the hair more thoroughly. Last thing to detail is the boots, then I'll probably go back to the hair and add individual strands and then do the holster straps

HarlequinWerewolf

Looking awesome! Can't wait to see this come together

CybranM

Looking better and better

SgtBabbit

Calling the high poly sculpt DONE! Tomorrow start on the retopo and unwrap, everyone's favourite part!

HarlequinWerewolf said:

Looking awesome! Can't wait to see this come together

Thank-you! Slowly but surely :P 

CybranM said:

Looking better and better

Thanks! Now the challenge is not to lose it in the low poly hahaha


Plus an open mouthed version for baking from. Decided to give her fangs! Infernal heritage and all that. 

akiratang

Shes looking really nice !
Was this your own concept character? and only thing i would maybe change is to make her abit taller, but thats just my preference. 

SgtBabbit

akiratang said:

Shes looking really nice !
Was this your own concept character? and only thing i would maybe change is to make her abit taller, but thats just my preference. 

Thank-you! Glad you like her Yeah she's my own concept I made for this project, inspired by D&D 5e races and classes. There's a wealth of cool different character ideas and combos in that world

akiratang

SgtBabbit said:

Thank-you! Glad you like her Yeah she's my own concept I made for this project, inspired by D&D 5e races and classes. There's a wealth of cool different character ideas and combos in that world

Ah i see, Well shes looking pretty sweet.Cant wait to see her finished ^^

SgtBabbit

Retopo and unwrap complete! (Minus the dagger, because I got fed up of it at that point and they should be nice and quick to do on their own texture sheet)
Just playing around with a colour palette right now. Rather than blacks/greys I want to keep the colours dark without losing saturation in the blue/purple spectrum. Having trouble figuring out a nice stylised PBR method. I'm not sure how to build the material/render it in a way that doesn't wash out the character and lose the richness of the colours. I've seen some really nice stylised pbr pieces but I'm struggling to emulate it. Anyone have any advice? Currently working in substance painter and Marmoset

HarlequinWerewolf

Awesome! I really love the colour palette and the fact that you're avoiding huge areas of black

SgtBabbit

HarlequinWerewolf said:

Awesome! I really love the colour palette and the fact that you're avoiding huge areas of black

Thankyou!! Your words of encouragement mean a lot ^_^ Yes I want to avoid using black, I want it to be a fairly dark scene/ character anyway and I'll just lose all the detail otherwise. I guess that's what rogues are good at though I suppose  

Texturing still in progress!! Setting up a scene in Marmoset so I can see how they're coming along and if they're reading well in atmospheric moody light. I've been studying Philemon Belhomme's Darksburg art, it's just exactly the mood and style I want to evoke. Their blog breakdown is also SUPER helpful! I also made a little cobblestone floor to give her a little flavour, like she's a thief in the city. Some puddles to reflect the light back up so it's not TOO dark. 


Also put her in Mixamo to get a quick and (very) dirty little animation to make her feel alive. It helps to not run out of steam!
Next I'll hop back over to the daggers and get those textured nice and quick

SgtBabbit

Changed up the lighting, retopo'd and unwrapped the daggers. Second pass textures on the body. Next up is to go back and focus on the face, second pass the textures there and fix some baking errors. If anyone has some good beginner animation resources they like that would be a great help! I want to rig and animate this lady so she has a basic idle action for presentation.

HarlequinWerewolf

Looking great, the weapons are looking slick! 

Speaking of rigging, assuming you're using Maya, can I recommend Advanced Skeleton? It's an auto rig that takes a bit of setup but it's my personal fav. It provides IK/FK switches for arms, legs and the spine and there are lots of resources on their YouTube. The skinning tends to be pretty good, I guess similar to Mixamo, and it's really easily customised. It's what I'm using for my current project. It also has a face rig setup which I've used for previous projects with great results too, as long as you have solid facial topology, which you do And it's free!

https://www.animationstudios.com.au/advanced-skeleton

SgtBabbit

HarlequinWerewolf said:

Looking great, the weapons are looking slick! 

Speaking of rigging, assuming you're using Maya, can I recommend Advanced Skeleton? It's an auto rig that takes a bit of setup but it's my personal fav. It provides IK/FK switches for arms, legs and the spine and there are lots of resources on their YouTube. The skinning tends to be pretty good, I guess similar to Mixamo, and it's really easily customised. It's what I'm using for my current project. It also has a face rig setup which I've used for previous projects with great results too, as long as you have solid facial topology, which you do And it's free!

https://www.animationstudios.com.au/advanced-skeleton

Ah you're wonderful, thankyou! I'll definitely be picking that up! the face rig is super helpful

Refining textures, nearly done! I want to come back to the hair, Not very happy with that right now. If anyone has advice on how to approach the texture in this style that'd be great! I think I'm just going to take it into photoshop where I have a little more control. Then on to rigging, posing and animating.

SgtBabbit

All rigged! (I had some problems with the face set up, I have a thread here if you know how to help!) But in the sake of this EVER reaching my portfolio, I decided to just pose her in a static position for now, and keep the rig set up on standby and I can swap her out for a blinking breathing version when I figure it out. Going for one action pose with hood up and daggers out, and one standing pose with the hood down! 

SgtBabbit

I think this might be the penultimate post! Starting out a secondary pose, I like that it's full of character. Some tweaks i want to make to tighten up the textures, such as brightening up the teeth, maybe playing with the roughness in some parts of the body. Want to take a second pass on the smile and make it look a little more effortless. I'll also need to do a final pass on the lighting. But otherwise, nearly there! Think I'll manage to finish it off at the weekend  

Artswole

This is amazing, love it! 

UchiLT

I love how she turnt out and I think you chose awesome presentation shots. Nice personality!

SgtBabbit

--TIEFLING ROGUE COMPLETE--

I've named her Tatiana Castilloux. Tiefling rogue of noble birth.
A few final texture and geometry tweaks, final presentation shots and breakdowns.
Lots on my artstation!

tystnad

Very cool! Awesome artwork.

HarlequinWerewolf

She looks awesome! Wish I could've helped more with the face rig, but it's hard to say what the issues are without seeing Advanced Skeleton working But the facial expressions look awesome! Did you use blendshapes in the end?

LouisPhilippe

Looks nice, I like the color palette and the use of the different materials... and you even rigged and animated it! The absolute mad lad.
I'm curious, how many materials do you have?

SgtBabbit

LouisPhilippe said:

Looks nice, I like the color palette and the use of the different materials... and you even rigged and animated it! The absolute mad lad.
I'm curious, how many materials do you have?

Thanks! 4x2k. Body, Head, Dagger and the plinth.  

akiratang

Looks great!
Turned out well, the pose really gives her character!

Yuzach

She looks amazing!

fdfxd2

Boy am i glad I clicked on this thread, amazing work!