Traveling Robot Monk + Environment (Finished)

Mr_Nova

I have been working on a full character + plus environment (the base environment was given to me by my partner, Eden West, from her King Arthur challenge on artstation, I essentially built on top of that and then some) Original is here: https://www.artstation.com/artwork/k43KRn

Anyways, I'm getting close to finishing up this project because i've been working on it for a while now. I made the character from the ground up along with the concepting and outfit design. My main focus for this post is displaying my character w/ the environment I designed to display my traveling monk. I based the character as a mix of Journey and Ghost of Tsushima and trying to carry those elements into my environment as well. I'm no expert on stylized works, a lot of this project has been me diving into things I had no experience in prior but i'd say a lot of it has been a very rewarding experience for my skills. 

Let me know what you think of my test render, what could I improve on? what would make this displayed really well? should I reduce things? make things brighter? duller? etc... I appreciate the feedback a lot, just trying to not make all my efforts in vain in the final stretch. 

My concept art for the character:


Test Render (Character + Environment)



Been messing with volumetric lighting inside blender eevee, there is no post editing in this just a current render of what I got right now inside Blender, still in the works of coming up with a proper display, trying to not take focus away from my character.  

Steve0105

Hey, I did a paintover for ya that I hope will help.So your grass, overall look seems to be stylized while your textures like the ground are realistic. So if you replaced them with something more bright and chunky, the wood too, it would help. Also the ivy is way small compared to the gras, again, so chunky forms would work. Also some bright highlights on the stone "path" and the character's hat would draw your eyes to it. Overall more saturation and brigheness. And more paint work on the flowers, too, maybe some lighter pink highlights, etc. Hope that helps!

Mr_Nova

@Steve0105 wow, thank you for this! that is really helpful and I appreciate it a lot. I'll be sure to use this reference and thankfully I can bring this all into Substance painter and apply paint over top of the existing textures (or I could alter them too, either way I will be for sure painting over and making things much brighter.) 

Appreciate the feedback so much, and even more so you took the time to paint over the image which really helps me a lot to visualize it all. Thank you Steve!

Steve0105

@Mr_Nova I'd definitely recommend altering the textures. Look forward to how it turns out!

Mr_Nova

**Update 02:

Messed around with the lighting and volumetric lighting (still figuring out how to round out the fog, may have to make a different approach because I'm not very happy with the overall look of it).
Went back and repainted the nature platform in substance painter, brightened the colors and altered the textures for some. I ended up liking the idea of small hanging Ivy because I found that having over hanging Ivy was too distracting from my scene and it kind of makes no sense where it would be going....

I also made my character larger in the scene, my monk was far too small and looked like he wasn't the main focus. I also added point lights under the flowers for a gradient effect, plus one in the tip of the straw hat as if the light is traveling through it. I will be tweaking some more with the scene (slightly) adding loose flower petals but I'm also modeling one last prop for my character so it's all game ready.

No post editing, Blender, Eevee Render Engine

Updated Render:

Mr_Nova

**FInal Update - FInished




Stylized Monk Staff, Based off original concept by Brooke Druet