(WIP) Crashed Spaceship and Dead Astronaut

DwiMont

Hello!!
I am currently working on a uni project where I make a hero asset in a scene. I'm making a crashed spaceship in a cave with a dead astronaut.

Here's my references so far:



Here's my current composition (green represents the astronauts location and purple represents the spaceships location):



Here's my astronaut so far:



Here's their communications box so far:



And here's some rocks:



I'll be posting updates as I go but as you can see I haven't done much yet so there's a lot you'll be seeing from me in the future.

kanga

Nice work so far.
The figure proportions are off. The best alien and monster work is based on real proportions with only the details changed. If you use a figure reference guide like daz3D while you sculpt it will make your work more convincing. 

There are plenty of reference images for alien space ships on google:

Hmm cant upload images. Anyhow try and find images of good compositions for your end render and take a look at every aspect of your work (composition, posing, lighting, materials etc.).

DwiMont

I'll have a go at that, thank you for the feedback!

DwiMont

Ive updated the anatomy to be a bit more realistic but I've decided to keep the big armoured boots to fit with my theme.

DwiMont

Ive also changed  my general composition to be more open

Unfortunately I've been busy with other projects so I havent been able to progress on this too much

Eric Chadwick

It could help to draw some thumbnails to explore composition ideas, before getting into the 3D blockout. Thumbnails are small quick sketches, kept small so you don't add too much detail, and can just work on multiple sketches, to test different composition ideas. More about that here: http://wiki.polycount.com/wiki/Concept_Fundamentals#Composition

okidoki

This is a tough one.. for any composition everyone will tell you: What's the story you want to tell/show. So when seeing this section of the cave i'm aksing myself:

• How does the spaceship comes into the cave ?
• Is this the entrance and is this by night ?
• Is this shortly after the crash (so the spacecraft light the scene) or later (so then maybe skeleton in suit or only skull in helmet  visible; also "easier"; but then: where does the light come from) ?
• Who did find this ? A human ? An alien on it's planet ? Or tis this atronaut an alien ?
• ..or: Because of th edesign of the helmet is this some "ancient astronout" ? ..so the finder is.. !?
• Is this some space fighter or some bigger ship (so the cave should be bigger) ?
• Did the ship crashed through the surface over the cave ?

When looking for some "big cave" i found this about the Sơn Đoòng Cave and used the image to make some very quick scene sketch.


 Properly some bad example because of the symmetry which might be nice for the natural view of the cave and also does not  lead the viewers eyes to the deas pilot so i was by far to fast  ..   and also because of my disastrous sketching method..  so i did a little more..

okidoki

..but it didn't upload ?? So..



..and that's a very very dead astonaut there..

DwiMont

Yes I see your points, the general composition I've decided on is that the spaceship crashed through the ceiling but not all the way so bits of it are hanging through a hole in the ceiling which is also where the lighting for the scene comes from.

As for story, I've decided that the astronaut survived for a little while after the crash and just recently died, to show this I've made a makeshift communications station made of salvaged ship parts. The communications station is also where some of the lighting in the scene will come from as there is a torch (flashlight) mounted on it like a desk lamp. The desk lamp light will be lest bright so the player will be drawn towards the light coming from the ceiling first and then their eye should travel to the dead astronaut near the communications apparatus.

I'm also considering making a slightly rotted version of the astronaut so they have a dead crewmember but I'll do that only if I finish everything else.

I'll send a picture of what I'm on about later today when I put it in my scene (Some of the models will be rough as I'm still finishing high res versions of them).
But thanks for the feedback, I'll consider it more as I continue with the project!!