The Quarterly CHARACTER ART Challenge | April - June

Alemja

Welcome to the Quarterly Character Art Challenge!

New concepts will be chosen at the start of July
Previous Challenge Thread

How it works

• Every new challenge, 3 Character Concepts will be provided
  
• Pick one of the 3 concepts to work and post your progress here!
  
• Complete a 3D game res model of your chosen concept
  

Guidelines

• Help other artists grow! When you post an update, also leave a critique for someone else. Share knowledge you have learned
  
• There are no software restrictions; you're welcome to use as little, or as many different software packages as you like.
• There are no polygon or texture restrictions, it can be a 3,000 triangle hand painted model or a 100,000 triangle current gen model. Just make sure the final result is a game model, not a sculpt!
  
• You are welcome to cross post on different sites (Artstation, Facebook, Discord etc.) for additional feedback
  
• Before starting your character, break down the concept and plan your work accordingly. Being able to effectively estimate how long it will take to complete a project is an important skill, especially for freelance artists.
• Your final presentation should be posed and rendered in any real time engine. (Marmoset, UE4, Unity, etc.)
• Don't be afraid to ask questions, but don't hesitate to find the answer on your own - chances are, the answer to your problem has already been answered within these forums
• If you feel anything should be modified or added to these guidelines, please let me know!
  

Resources

• Polycount Character Wiki 
• Polycount Tutorial List
• Polycount Character Art Challenge Facebook Group

Concepts

Please credit and link to the artists when posting on other sites!

Angel by Julio Nicoletti

HIGH SERAPH by Jonas Grancha

FFXIV fanart sketches - Lightwarden Scions by Linda Lithén

How concepts are chosen:

• Trying to keep it consistently one masculine character, one feminine and one other non-human (robot, creature, humanoid, etc)
• Trying to keep the 3 concepts look like they are part of a theme or could fit in similar universe.
  
• Concepts must be full body and clearly drawn. There shouldn't be a lot of guesswork on what the details or proportions are. Turnarounds are a good thing to have, but not required
• Concepts shouldn't be too complex or too simple to allow people to get them done in the time-frame while also finding something interesting and giving a challenge.
• Must be able to link back to the original source artist to they can be properly credited, Pinterest as a source doesn't count. If I cannot find the source or original artist, the art will not be used
• If you are a concept artist and want your concept removed or want to create a concept for a future challenge please feel free to contact me.
  
• If you have any suggestions of themes you would like to see in the future, send me a message!
  

Swizzle

I don't have a ton to show at the moment, but I picked the third concept. The model is based on a mixture of scans and sculpts, so it's still a little chunky at the moment. I need to adjust his proportions a little so it feels more lithe and graceful.

I've also been doing some material tests, and I'm planning on rendering him in Unreal. The idea is that the skin will be a mixture of a translucent material similar to bone china, and the gold bits will be sculpted cracks and feathers.

Kapoff

Swizzle said:

I don't have a ton to show at the moment, but I picked the third concept. The model is based on a mixture of scans and sculpts, so it's still a little chunky at the moment. I need to adjust his proportions a little so it feels more lithe and graceful.

I've also been doing some material tests, and I'm planning on rendering him in Unreal. The idea is that the skin will be a mixture of a translucent material similar to bone china, and the gold bits will be sculpted cracks and feathers.

Jumping straight up into lookdev? I like it sir, bold power move.
That SSS radius might be  a little too big for now, it tends to eat up the volumes when too high. 
Also, I think it would be interesting to mark the gold  "paint" areas with some height definition. 
 As if it is  laid on top of the SSS/china mat, or like the china is chipping away to reveal the gold inside. 

klown

I saw Mr Swizzles tweet about this challenge and thought I'd join in, I used to enjoy them quite a bit, haven't done one for a few years now though.

I'm thinking more along the lines of inspired by the High Seraph rather than a direct 1 to 1. Absolutely nothing against the concept artist, I just took the idea and pushed it some more, wings 3x the size, body much longer etc, still thinking about it and have done a bit of a photobash on top of the original, keeping the same ideas, just punching them up a little, bit more epic, at least in my humble art brain.

Still chewing on it a little, looking forward to seeing other peoples work!

Ketka

Hi guys! I accidentally saw this topic, but can't just skip it.
I can't be planning my progress I will try to make something -)

I started with blockout. The wings are the most interesting thing in this concept I never did feathers before.

Sashamaz

Ketka said:

Hi guys! I accidentally saw this topic, but can't just skip it.
I can't be planning my progress I will try to make something -)

I started with blockout. The wings are the most interesting thing in this concept I never did feathers before.

I’ve been eying that same concept, really appealing design. 

I see that there is no tail in your sculpt. If you look closely at the art you should see it coming down and around the feet. 

2Rock

This is my first post on Polycount. I'm a hobbyist at 3D, using Blender. I decided to go for the third character. This how far I have got.

Built entirely in Blender from scratch, he's rigged and ready to go but way to highpoly for games, would work in animations.

As someone totally new to this forum I don't feel qualified to comment on others work yet.

Gohaeva

Hi guys. I'm trying to create character from the third concept. So far I made a sketch of the body and most armor elements. Wings are here just to mark where I want to place the feathers. I'm not sure yet what to do about the longer cloth thingy. 

@Ketka:  It seems like her neck could be thicker to support her horns's weight. Also to make her look more feminine you can make the part under the jaw a bit more rounder or fleshier.

@2Rock: Wow, you work fast. I think the feathers would look better shaped like spikes at the ends.

Sashamaz

Hi All, I'm a bit late to this but below is my progress so far, did a quick sculpt and photobash/paint over in photoshop. I took a lot of liberties on the design but tried to make sure not to deviate too far from the concept. This will likely be a more long-term project so I think I'll eventually start a thread to post updates.

Alemja

Super late, but here is the link for the New Character Art Challenge for July/August/September:

https://polycount.com/discussion/227341/the-quarterly-character-art-challenge-july-august/p1?new=1

As always you're encouraged to finish your piece from this challenge. You can continue to use this thread or make your own, this thread will no longer be stickied in favor of the new challenge.