[WIP] Anthro Tiger + Fantasy Armor (feedback welcome)

Fofuxo

Hello, I'm new to polycount and I hope I'm using the site correctly.

I'm currently working on an anthropomorphic tiger with overly detailed armor.

The character is my own and the armor is by the artist Woong Seok Kim

Armor Reference (https://www.artstation.com/artwork/RYKWDr)


My goal is to create a game ready character that I can put in my portfolio with a good presentation.

For the armor I made some small changes to the belt from the concept. The high poly mesh was made through conventional modeling and looked like this:

For the low poly version, I reduced the amount of subdivisions, but it still had 203,539 Tris & 108,953 Vertexs.

As this is a portfolio project, do you believe that the polycount needs to be reduced further, or is that fine?

I've also baked the low poly textures on Marmoset

For the tiger, I made two versions, one containing hair and one without.


I would like to know what I could improve on it and advice when setting up the post on artstation. I've never gotten a job in the 3D creation field, I'm looking into it and would like advice if possible.


Thanks for taking the time to read this and checking him out!

HarlequinWerewolf

First off, that armour looks awesome! But the tiger looks very cartoony in comparison and the two pieces just don't match. I would either pick a more stylised concept for the armour or go for a more realistic tiger head - with tiger like teeth - instead. I would find some references of anthro tigers and real tigers and pick the best bits from both to make your own. 

I'm also curious about how you're texturing this. Right now, it looks like you just have basic materials applied. You could lower your poly count and bake down your high poly to create a nice normal map and then get some cool grungey textures on the low poly. 

Fofuxo

@HarlequinWerewolf Thanks for the suggestions and answering your questions:

1. Your point about the tiger and the armor not being on the same page is very valid and absolutely right. My references to sculpting the tiger were more cartoony. The armor, being so detailed, really looks too realistic. I will try to improve the tiger to give it a more realistic look

2. The texture is exactly what you said, I just put some solid materials and bake it, I didn't do any paint treatment. Your suggestion to add dirt texture seems to fit the idea of ​​making the project more realistic, I'll try to do that.

Thank you very much, I will try to do my best to get a good result with your advice

Vertrucio

You've over simplified the armor and it's lost a lot of forms and details. Do you have zbrush? Because it looks like you've poly modeled everything, including the head, but poly modeling can only go so far. Sculpting gets more intricate results faster.

zetheros

bring everything into zbrush, remove the fancy metallic materials, use basic grey, start sculpting. Study tiger anatomy.

Fofuxo

update: I modeled more detais in torso and put a different texture in Substance Painter

Now i'm thinking to remove the tiger head and finish the concept with Helmet... I wanted the tiger, but I think for the moment it would be better to save it for a future project.

Alex_J

if you aren't quite ready to cut scope down and nix the tiger head, but you need some help with the anatomy, spend a few hours searching for cat models online. I've picked up entire jaguar / leopard ecorches completely for free in the past. There are quite a few hi quality models out there you can use as a basis to start from. This way you are jumping off from work of an expert which is much less daunting than starting from a blob.

You might easily spend as much time on the tigers face as the entire body so I don't think its a bad idea to cut down, but if you wanted to go for it, no reason not to get the work of some expert in their to help you learn and get over the initial hurdles.

pxgeek

Adding that bit of patina helped a lot with the textures, however I think you've strayed a little too far from the original design of the armor.

Regarding the low poly tri count: your wireframes have lots of room for optimization. For example some of the decorative plates that wouldn't deform at all

Fofuxo

Hey everyone, I got a little busy and couldn't work on the armor earlier.

As I said in my last post, I decided to remove the tiger from the scope and made the helmet.

A friend who works with 3D also gave me feedback that the shoulder pad wings were unrealistic and I decided to redo them.

I also ended up adding small props that they had on the concept and complemented the knee part and under the shoulder pad.

But now I don't know if this shoulder pad full of feathers fit the project...

For now this model is the one without textures, I still need to unwrap some parts
I still intend to make more changes to the helmet


@pxgeek
I'm really moving away from the concept a bit, but I don't think I'm going to waste too much time on polygon optimization as it's a portfolio-only project, I don't intend to use it in a real game.

Vertrucio

"My goal is to create a game ready character that I can put in my portfolio with a good presentation."

Art leads will check for your ability to create a functional low poly mesh that can be animated. You need to show your lowpoly when showing the model. They'll look for how easy the model is to be animated as well. So if you're breaking from the concept, it's important to make changes that turn this from just a concept to a model that's actually game ready.

zetheros

yea if you want to make a game ready char you'll need to think about animation. I think you'll find that there are a lot of places that will clip if you animate this.

red = spikes or areas that will definitely clip.
green = areas that need sculptural detail that indicates that it can articulate and move, or needs more space for animation.
blue = this is a common weak point of 3d artists. Metal trim on cloth doesn't work. Don't fall for the same mistake WoW does with their gold trimmed capes. This needs to be gold filament embroidery, not solid metal.

Besagews could be a lot bigger. sabatons need work. Tassets need connection points. Add more hinges, for instance there should be one between the first thumb lame and gauntlet. Gauntlet finger plates should be overlapping.

Use real references for armour. https://imgur.com/user/Zetheros