Hey guys, ok, here is sketch
How do u think, guys, armor is needed?
That variant sucks, i know, especially his back.
Can u give me some good photos of armor u think will be
better?
Thank you all very much, hope it'll be good piece of art at end.=)
P.S:Gauss, can u do lil overpaint to show how better places
for straps on armor plz? ^_^
Replies
I'll do what I can, though: one of the best (and easiest) ways to refine a concept is to think it through logically. Ask yourself (Ask Askhat ) what this Minotaur is all about. Where did it come from? Is it a dumb beast, or intelligent in its own right? Does it have a master? If you give yourself an answer to a few of these questions, you can make your concept a whole lot more interesting. Form follows function, right?
Let's take an idea and then just run with it, see where it takes us.
Let's assume that this minotaur is a spin on the ancient Greek myth about the Minotaur, placed in the Labrynth. Now, without getting into the particulars of the mythology and turning this into a Greek style monster, we'll assume this: there's a Labrynth where victims/"the hero" are trapped and the Minotaur kills them/tries to kill them.
A Minotaur in a Labrynth killing stuff is cool, but it still doesn't give us anything interesting to go on. So we introduce a design constraint (often the best way to generate new ideas): in order to really make it difficult for whoever's trapped in the Labrynth to win, let's say the entire Labrynth is completely dark. Pitch black.
But the Minotaur has great hearing and sense of smell, so it still manages to catch people in the darkness.
We could also suppose, just for fun, that the Minotaur's hairs covering his body are very sensitive to heat--so if the hero or victim that's trapped in the Labrynth is foolhardy enough to carry a torch, the Minotaur will be able to find him even easier. Maybe this is just silly and we'll discard it later, but it's worthwhile to entertain different possibilities, especially in the beginning of this process.
So let's look at what we've got now:
1.) Labrynth where Minotaur hunts and kills people/hunts "the hero"
2.) Labrynth is completely dark.
3.) Minotaur has very good hearing, smell, and heat sense.
Okay, that should give us more than enough to design the minotaur in an interesting way.
One approach given the lightless environment would be to pull a "Gollum", and make the Minotaur like a slimey, albino cave creature with very little pigment. But that suggests a long time spent evolving in that environment, and frankly runs contrary to the strong suits and essential character of the Minotaur.
So let's just assume that while the Minotaur hunts people in the dark of the Labrynth, it does get some exposure to light intermittently. Or maybe they just turned out the lights because it was getting too easy for the Minotaur to kill people!
So the Minotaur isn't a cave dweller by nature.. the next natural choice would be for it to have a blindfold of some sort, or better yet, some blinders, like a horse. If you go with that, you can create a visually interesting sort of blinding-helmet, which functions to blind but also protect the Minotaur's eyes and skull. So that's an idea.
Going along with that, the armor should protect him well in this dark environment. He's got a great sense of hearing, but he can't echolocate like a bat (or Daredevil), so let's say he navigates the Labrynth because he's memorized the entire layout, from years of hunting people in it before they turned the lights out. But even though he knows the whole layout, he still needs armor not only to protect him from whoever he's fighting, but also to keep him from injuring himself too much if he would happen to charge into a wall or otherwise run into an obstacle.
So now you've got a helmet and an interesting possibility for armor. How about a weapon?
If he's trying to kill something in the dark, he's probably not going to use a particularly precise weapon, either. This suggests maybe a nice big club or warhammer, something really big, blunt, and suitable for a monster in a maze to use. Something big and capable of withstanding an accidental striking against stone, like the floor or a wall. And it's left all dirty and nasty in the dark of the Labrynth, so it's probably pretty nasty.
Or maybe it's ritualistically cleaned by cult retainers devoted to the care of the Minotaur, since a dirty weapon would interfere too much with the Minotaur's highly developed sense of smell!
And finally, just to spool out an idea related to the heat-sensitive business, you could give him a really long pelt on his back or around his neck or something, specialized sorts of hair tufts that react to heat. Like cat whiskers or something. That's a pretty bizarre idea so you may or may not be able to do anything with it visually, but it's still a potential feature.
So there you go: starting with just a few basic "how about" sort of scenarios, we've been able to come up with a potentially novel approach to a minotaur design. This methodology (one of many!) is also nice because it suggests a whole scene, complete with the Labrynth and the hero character, and possibly even a game mechanic. Maybe the hero has a torch, but has to throw it around in order to mislead the Minotaur? Maybe the hero uses the Minotaur's memorized knowledge of the Labrynth against him, and uses something to trip him unexpectedly?
Blinder'd creatures aren't particularly new in games (those wolverine guys in RE4 come to mind, for instance), but it could still make for something beyond just another well-made, but fundamentally uninteresting Minotaur character.
So I apologize for the lengthy posts, but it'll do in the place of my inability to give you a paintover. Maybe even better, since you're able to draw just fine yourself it looks like You can take or leave any of the ideas I suggest in this thread, but I hope this idea-generation technique proves useful for helping you flesh out this character and future ones.
http://pum.cgsociety.org/gallery/384062
http://media.movies.ign.com/media/382/382954/img_3231663.html
http://media.movies.ign.com/media/382/382954/img_3231765.html
http://media.movies.ign.com/media/382/382954/img_3231660.html
http://media.movies.ign.com/media/382/382954/img_3231664.html
http://media.movies.ign.com/media/382/382954/img_3155935.html
http://images.countingdown.com/images/countdowns/movies/1463/1011/3746992_main.jpg
I personally like the direction your going so far, but more refs never hurt.
Minotaurs are anthropomorphized bulls, or even just dudes with bull heads--try looking up ref pics of bulls, not other peoples' takes on minotaurs.
A character always looks better when people can get a sense of its history and background just by examining the details.
Nice start Askhat, keep it up
Yah, today did basemesh of that bull:
BUT after that i'd thought what that is just very banal thing.
I have idea to do Viking like dude, and his name is Minotaur=)
here is concept, how do u think, guys, armor looks out of design?
EricElwell, woah! cool concept dude! thx for it
Mop, LordScottish keep your eyes here, friends=)
cholden, thanks, looks inspirationful!
Thegodzero yes, Narnia=)))how could i forget about that film=)))
read gauss's post.
Japhir, thanks.
Hmm, i am really confused, guys, how do u think that human direction is nice or we should go with old way?
Keep it up. I'll be watching this thread.
Really nice concept