The Curse of Khan Noonien Singh (2024)

NikhilR

After being criticized and cursed since 2017, my Khan model is finally at a state where he can now curse the world and find a reason for living.
Currently rendered in character creator/unreal 5, the goal is to make him playable so he can unleash his wrath on Unreal 5's entire library of cursed fortnite characters.

Scroll for Bonus Khans.


When you wake up in the morning to the cold dish of sweet sweet revenge



Which tastes better with ketchup


Onward! We must feast!


Bloody Heart Burn!



He's fully animated, you can check out a walk cycle here with simulated clothing and hair,

https://youtu.be/VszB2prpC20
https://youtu.be/3mjMHDtgKMc

Show him some love on artstation where he is currently cursing AI submssions.
https://www.artstation.com/artwork/n0R6y1



Bonus Khans

NikhilR

If anyone is looking for insight into the workflow and tools, I'd be happy to provide guidance!

Ruz

yaay Luis montoya , columbo's arch enemy Not sure if you want crits, but hopefully you don't mind me being a bit critical on some aspects

overall i like it , some nice technique in there, but the face is letting it down a bit. not sure what it is, maybe just the expression makes him

look a bit too pleasant . His hair shape is quite nice, but needs to be a bit more straggly , otherwise it looks a bit too well kempt, like a middle aged woman

In this pic his eyebrows are not pointing down like yours,of they are raised more where they meet in the middle and a bit more defined, maybe chin 'slightly' less pointy

I think the thing that needs most attention is the mouth expression,just looks a bit off, teeth set looks way too small for the mouth
Move the teeth further up towards his top lip. if you need to show the teeth, just open his mouth more and in real life his teeth look more jumbled/wonky

Even if you change nothing , you can still tell it's him, but maybe that extra bit of refinement might be good

NikhilR

Ruz said:

yaay Luis montoya , columbo's arch enemy Not sure if you want crits, but hopefully you don't mind me being a bit critical on some aspects

overall i like it , some nice technique in there, but the face is letting it down a bit. not sure what it is, maybe just the expression makes him

look a bit too pleasant . His hair shape is quite nice, but needs to be a bit more straggly , otherwise it looks a bit too well kempt, like a middle aged woman

In this pic his eyebrows are not pointing down like yours,of they are raised more where they meet in the middle and a bit more defined, maybe chin 'slightly' less pointy

I think the thing that needs most attention is the mouth expression,just looks a bit off, teeth set looks way too small for the mouth
Move the teeth further up towards his top lip. if you need to show the teeth, just open his mouth more and in real life his teeth look more jumbled/wonky

Even if you change nothing , you can still tell it's him, but maybe that extra bit of refinement might be good

 Thanks Ruz! This is very helpful! Feedback is always welcome!
I've been trying to figure out a solution to make the hair more unkempt without altering the volume.
 The challenge I'm having is the hair cards clipping which causes shading artifacts. 
I will add a randomised twist to the upper layers and see if that helps, for the moment the cards were placed to give good depth layering it gradually to give fullness. 

When wind hits it, it becomes messy and looks more natural, maybe I can find away to export the cards in that simulated state instead of manually messing it up.

I'm thinking clumping the cards might help with this. I'm going to do some tests on a base model since I'm still fairly new at doing hair properly, but this is so much better than the hair solutions for 2018 - 2020 Khans.

For those models I used zbrush to create the splines which I converted to xgen curves and then turned the curves into cards. 
No manual placing like this time.
and I used a single hair texture across every card, just one strand, its why it looked like a feather duster lol.

Another solution I want to try is strand hair in unreal 5 once this model is integrated into that engine since I can simulate the messiness directly.

Good call about the eyebrows, I will rectify that, I had them spaced even further apart before.
For the teeth it seems I forgot about the sizing and arrangement (not a good look since I used to be a dentist and got annoyed at looking at teethsets )

Its a good thing that character creator makes the process to make these changes very efficient!

Another thing,
The model is a long term project so I plan to keep making iterations and improvements as I keep learning and getting feedback.

At the studio, every model I worked on was basically a perpetual work in progress. It was only considered finished in the shipped product subject to bug fixes and DLC's
So every bit of feedback helps and I'm wondering if I'm wondering if  mentioning feedback and showing progression as part of my presentation would help give a fuller picture.
Like a case study that showcases the work and changes that went into this model so any discrepancies don't work against me in the hiring process.

Luis montoya , columbo's arch enemy - lol I haven't watched that series, thanks for recommending! 
https://www.columbovillains.com/LuisMontoya.php
I know Ricardo Montalban as Khan, Mr. Roarke (fantasy island) and Grandfather Valentin Cortez from Spy Kids 2/3D
Good thing I can use his model to make those versions in time. Its great to work on prolific actors because of the many possible variations!

Ruz

yeah hair is a real pain, one of the reasons amongst other I stopped doing characters (for now) I don't envy that task

re feedback the problem is that if you ask specifically for feedback, then it will give the greenlight for all the lurkers to come out to play

and tear you a new one

That columbo episode was prety good, he was at level 10 in terms of pestering the murderer

there is a Ricardo montalban block in 'Mega City One'  too

Charlton Heston block was a citiblock in Mega-City One.

The Johnsons, resident of Enid Blyton block considered Charlton Heston block to be a better place to live[2].

The block made a pact with Ricardo Montalban Block in 2103 to deliver acid tankers to a chemical factory in order to wipe out thousands of other blocks[3].

zetheros

i think he needs saggier / more triangular boobs

NikhilR

Ruz said:

yeah hair is a real pain, one of the reasons amongst other I stopped doing characters (for now) I don't envy that task

re feedback the problem is that if you ask specifically for feedback, then it will give the greenlight for all the lurkers to come out to play

and tear you a new one

Lol I don't really mind as such, I want to be honest about what my skill level doing hair is. 
Atleast at the studio even with feather duster hair, it wasn't a problem, I just had to adapt to their workflow. 
The most important bit was being able to work with people and there does seem to be move towards more tech based solutions so artists don't spend too much time trying to get things to look perfect.

This hair issue is something I faced at EA too, having the hair made clean was considered technically more sound since it could then be modified by tech artists to style it dynamically. 
But for portfolio presentation, especially for some of his expressions, I should make more dynamic hair styles to increase the impact

Ruz said:

That columbo episode was prety good, he was at level 10 in terms of pestering the murderer

there is a Ricardo montalban block in 'Mega City One'  too

Charlton Heston block was a citiblock in Mega-City One.

The Johnsons, resident of Enid Blyton block considered Charlton Heston block to be a better place to live[2].

The block made a pact with Ricardo Montalban Block in 2103 to deliver acid tankers to a chemical factory in order to wipe out thousands of other blocks[3].

That's fascinating, I had no idea about the citiblocks being named after personalities!

Also I watch Columbo for the first time yesterday! What a great show and Ricardo was fantastic as the Matador, I will make this version one day.
I also revisited your model of Columbo, you really captured the detectives personality and look! 
Thank you for mentioning the series! Opened a whole world!

NikhilR

zetheros said:

i think he needs saggier / more triangular boobs

This is something I been debating. 
I did do a version of this in zbrush and the comment I received was why does he have boobs even though it was closer to some of the reference images.
They are more apparent when he arches forwards, again a matter of age.

for example here,


I'll push the lower part out a bit and triangulate it, last time it just put people off, maybe this time will be different.

Ruz

In that last pic that woman is looking at his boobs she also looks oddly like a female version of Elvis. maybe I need a holiday

NikhilR

Ruz said:

In that last pic that woman is looking at his boobs she also looks oddly like a female version of Elvis. maybe I need a holiday

lol! Khan has that effect on women.
Truly though that kind of critique is complicated, I do try to strive for authenticity, but with Khan's man boobs the feedback was along the lines of "It affects the overall appeal of the character"
Kinda like if I made an overweight character, I ought to make them fit since its more appealing. 

Sometimes I think its about choice of character, but this is more subjective and keeping with market trends. I haven't found Ricardo to have widespread appeal in this generation that is likely more familiar with tiktok streamers, but his wide range of character portrayals made him a good choice for learning.

Ruz

I think he is well known enough as 'Khan' to actually make it worthwhile modelling him. There are  n't many sci fi fans who won't know who he is.

re tweaks , you can go on forever doing them just a case of when to stop and move on to the next one. i had a habit of tweaking stuff too long and before you know 5 years have gone past.