Jesus H Christo, finding my thread in this pile of awesome is a bitch.
so check it out, this is what im thinking for the bodytype of my dude. im making a scout character that lives his life off of the front line on the scraps of flesh that he so eagerly tears off of invading and retreating troops alike. this is an early version still, ive been through like, 3 of them already, i was up all night painting my ass off. then right as i laid down to go to sleep, this guy popped into my head, so i did another doodle and continued on him when i woke up.
crit away folks, this is a group effort, and im still trying to design cloths for something that looks like this, most bags and pouches get in the way of articulations.
You should post some of your early concepts as well. Someone might drop a crit on one of them and make you re-consider your idea.
I like where this character is heading, though I can't say I quite like the bot leg. Also the quad arms is a good touch but I think its sitting rather funny. The bottom chest area doesn't look like it belongs there. I'm really digging the face though, could an iteration of mean. Scars and the like. He's coming across as simple at the moment.
dont worry about repainting things, i am all about ripping shit apart if its gonna make it better. like right now, im moving the torso cause it is too far back over the first pelvis.
alright, you're going to get much the same spiel as many of the other polycounters at this stage in the competition...don't get married to your first girlfriend. as artists, the more we invest in a particular piece, the more kindly we're likely to regard it. while this may be alright for illustrations, it's a bad deal for concepts. you need to evaluate broadly at first, picking up only the best to further develop--and i know, from personal experience, how difficult that is to resist. we always want to get to the fun part, to painting and rendering and fleshing something out, but it's almost always too early.
in keeping with the girlfriend analogy, while you may think you're pretty casual with this girl, in reality you've been sharing an apartment for six months. that's how far you've gone, with this 4 leg, 4-arm guy. back to the drawing board, richkid!
he's not bad, but he's not winning material. predominantly because, despite your background description, this guy is giving off a majorly nonthreatening vibe for the most part; his head and mouth design, particularly, say herbivore. he looks like a camel, albeit with tusks. same with the legs, and same mostly with the arms, too--most of them look very nonthreatening.
here's a classic illustration of contrasting form language that relates exactly into what we're talking about here: think of the two races in The Dark Crystal. The Skeksis and the Mystics. they're very similar in basic physiognomy (since they used to be the same a long time ago), but the messages they send visually couldn't be more different: the Mystics get the rounded edges, soft, warm colors and texturing, etc. making you want to hug them like a grandparent, while the Skeksis look generally disgusting and vulture-ish, with sharp edges degenerate finery.
if there is a God, he's the best creature designer ever, because there never was a creature that looked the part better than the vulture. Look at a picture of a vulture and tell me that it doesn't say "hi, i eat dead things, or wait for things to weaken or die, and then eat them."
now i want to step back and say that your character is actually a pretty good design, definitely worth keeping around for some other application--i guarantee you'll find a use for this critter, no problem. but it won't be for this compo; you can spend a prohibitive amount of energy reworking him into something that he just isn't. he's nicely advanced, but he won't be making a contribution to the war effort.
so it's back to working out some thumbnails--keep it loose, keep it small. it takes a while to find your ideal thumbnailing size--too small and it's just meaningless, but too big and you find yourself detailing when you shouldn't. but thumbnail you should; and about when you think you've done enough thumbnailing, do twice the number you've already done. you'll grumble at yourself, but once you look back at them, after squeezing past your comfort zones, you'll find you've actually drilled past all the crap and managed to hit something worth refining.
here's another tip from art class, though it won't help mr. camel--when you like a design, but "something" seems to not be working or you're vaguely dissatisfied with it, take a piece of paper and start covering up the design on the screen. hide different portions, and judge what's visible: look at the body only, then only the limbs, then only the head, then only the left side, then only the right, etc. etc... it seems so simple, that you ought to be able to do it with your eyes, but you really can't. use the paper. tie that together with other venerable tricks like regularly flipping the canvas horizontally in photoshop, and you'll find a lot of your headaches when designing a character go away a lot faster than they would have otherwise.
hope this helps--and yes, please keep us updated
gauss, where have you been all my life. i totally dig what you are saying, check this out before we totally scrap the idea. Like i said, i have no problem starting over on shit, just gives me something to do. Dark crystal analogy... you are the man for that one buddy, i did a couple presentations on that in my myth and symbol class and a design club i run at school.
anywho, give this guy one more look over kids, and if he gets voted off of the team, then so be it. i think with a couple color modifications this guy could be pretty fuckin gnarly, but i am willing to let him go till another time.
keep in the vein of gauss here, dont be gentle just cause we didnt play hop scotch together as kids, rip into me like a drugged up hooker that didnt give you your moneys worth.
and once again, thank you gauss for answering im such a good way.
yes, very. you might convince me that this one will still work, i'm impressed. you're kinda getting to what looks like Stranger, as in the Oddworld Stranger, and that's a good thing... stay on that path but make him evil, and you'll be in good stead.
so yeah, if you -must- keep reworking the same image, something i don't always advise but should work out here, color-shift the entire picture to the cold spectrum, somewhere blue/green, and then desaturate it majorly. after that start painting color over the top of it. and again, think of the Skeksis: not that you have to make this guy dessicated like them, but nothing is better visual shorthand for evil than unhealthiness and assymetry. glad the crits don't fall on deaf ears, i'll stop by to post when i can. cheers.
holy shit, i saved it.
thats funny, cause oddworld is what got me into wanting to make games, then they closed the year before i got out of school. i ran into lorne lanning and called him an asshole for crushing my dreams, then we hung out for a while... good times
thank you gauss, i wont let you down, i have been just sitting staring at mu sketch book pissing myself since your last post. so im gonna go change and get back to work.
any changes to this one keep em coming, im keeping this whole first week dedicated to flushing this guy out into gnar.
starting to move toward the darker tones, im thinking of keeping the underside that tan color, like reptiles have the lighter underside. i think the dreads are gonna be some crazy color like red or something, maybe green to rep the home team.
hey man, good improvements on the design. If you are going to stick with this concept, try a few things. There are a few problem areas that I see right off the bat. The position and size of the upper eye is making him look friendlier, and also, less intelligent. Part of that is the positioning of the eyebrow, but I would recommend scrapping that eye all together. The lower eye is positioned well I think, but I would still suggest playing with the position. Copy the eye to a new layer in PS, and paint the skin where it was originally. Screw around with positioning that way, or better yet, thumbnail the head. Some of my projects at GG ended up with literally dozens of pages of different roughed out mouth/eye positioning on a given head shape. Another thing you should work on is the posture and head shape, particularly the forehead. The reason I lump those two together, is that these both translate to a non-threatening vibe. The gently rounded bald spot is not entirely threatening, also may not need to be changed if the posture/anatomy of the back is changed. I like to make a new layer filled with a neutral color, and set the opacity to somewhere around 80%. Just to drop the drawing back to sketch over. Draw over your concept with only a few primary lines, I would suggest not more than 2. You really want to nail down the aggressive posture on the back, I would draw a quick almost diagonal curve, but hack at it until you get exactly what you're going for. An arc for the legs is another thing to nail down. If you pull it off, you can get a very aggressive posture with a very weighted feeling character. Simplifying the design at that base level can be very effective, and I would recommend it. I would also recommend you stop refining this image, and start drawing the character in different poses/posture, with different weapons; but before you do that, I would recommend alot more thumbnailing. Good luck, I think he's pretty cool, but you don't want 'pretty cool' do you? You want perfect.
and if you have the slightest desire to draw completely different characters, do it. What's the worst that could happen? You spend an hour finding out what not to do?
here is the latest for this guy, ive got a bunch of action gestures and break downs sketched out that i will post tomorrow, but i dont have a scanner, so you will have to wait to see those.
wow... this guy went from fluffy and cuddly to "step back biatch" real nice!
just one problem u may have is the fact that the guy... thing... doesn't yell out "i am from the future! c me glow!"
apart from his gun, everything seems like it exists in todays date aswell
Very nice concept, richkid. I think the fact that he's a grungy alien works. Not everything needs techy bits all over it to look futuristic.
My problem with the design is the bottom arms are there for no reason. Maybe you've got it figured out with the other poses you've developed, but I'd think a creature with four arms would want to utilize all four arms (and even if not, I think you concept should). Give him something two people would need to operate or some complicated equipment that would require four arms. Maybe give him some kind of automatic sniper rifle or machine gun that has an ammunition belt he feeds into the gun with his lower arms. Or give them shields for when he charges the enemy. Something needs to be there to give them purpose without making the mid-section look too busy.
Does he like to be ridden?
He has a sadle lol.
His face looks something like a siamese twin.. maybe you can play with that?
And polycount can't use cybernetics stuff but we can use metal plates etc for armor!
I like him though, his face looks funny =D
Keep it up!
This guy is fun, and youve done a great job of making him a bit more rugged, i just think its time to start making him more edgy and scifi. aside from the 8 legged run cycle this guy screams fantasy not scifi (to me).
YES, YES YES YES.. this is awesome.. I'm glad you dropped the cyborgish leg. I really love the face man, this guy will really stand out in the crowd. I like the resistance fighter style vibe i'm getting from him with the straps and all.
I liked the split goatee thing in the first one. may be you could try that same shape but with the hair instead of flesh.
here are some head variations for those of you who are uncontent with the head design. Remember, always be open to change things at a whim, so, pick one of these and i will think about it for the final.
thanks for the love boys,
shady, i was thinking about a pet that would ride his back, so, i guess he doesnt mind being ridden. i just used the saddle cause i figured its like a backpack for quadrapeds.
arsh, thank you, that means mucho coming from a badass. i hope to see you on the battle field.
rollin, there are gonna be fur patterns, most likely in my next post, so stay tuned.
peace out...or... i guess out of peace in this time of war.
The concept is coming along really nicely dude. The middle torso section still sits kinda funny with me but I guess its there to stay and you can't please us all.
As for the head variations, I really like the bottom left one the most followed by the top left.
Great stuff dude!
i really am loving your alien creature designs here. the jack ball thing is silly, but i can tell it's something expressive and dare not suggest you remove it - only note it pushes the design in an unnatural direction.
Yeah i agree with casey on the heads. When you step back and look at it from about 6 feet, it has a good flow to it. Top left has an advantage with brightness values with the 6 ft rule.
I said it before... and Ill say it again.. this guy is gonna be sweet. Im really liking where your taking this character, and cant wait to see how you handle the textures. How are you going to handle the placement of his gun when he is in movement? Good luck man
thank you, this has been so damn fun to design.
OK, so, fighting aliens and people are easy enough. i don't care how ripped a dude is, a bullet or plasma blast will damage it. now robots on the other hand, they pose a problem for an organic character, not many weeknesses to take advantage of. On the other hand, they have many advantages to take on out weeknesses. The two main weapons 3d total should be using are gases and fire. Wont hurt them, kills us. So to help protect this little guys sorry ass, im giving him a gas mask with goggles to help with the use of gases. i know there are gases that can just attack the skin, but im not worrying that far into it, just getting a general cover and some cool looking features.
that aside, here is the new post.
now that ive got some tech elements incorporated, time to savage them up a bit so they dont look so new and fancy like.
Im thinking in the final pose he is gonna have the mask off, but hanging from his face so its still there. yeah, i like the face too much to cover it up.
this is looking like the end of the road for concepts, if you think that i should make some changes, hit me with them now, cause im gonna start modeling by sunday.
Sweet stuff bro... and I mean the character... If you have the gas mask hanging, and have his face exposed, it'll be pretty awesome. Once again good job man, talk to you soon.
Cool, I like the gloves and the polynades. This character actually reminds a lot of Sebulba from Ep1. I might suggest trying a vest on him or something.. anyway.. cool.. I like him better upright though. Interesting to see him walking in that posture, but it seem very flat, if you hunched him a little more like he's sniffing the ground, tracking someone/thing, that could be more effective. Just some thoughts.
Eric's photochop makes an excellent point, and gives him that extra bit of character and dynamicism. It also shifts paradigms and thinks outside the box. And is hardcore.
Seriously, though, I'd listen to him. But either way, this critter is kind of freaky in a good way. I can really picture him skittering around in air ducts and through crawl spaces. Or inside giant mechanical sentients.
You've got to lose that green hair, though. Unless that is carried out elsewhere on his body, it looks horribly out of place. He's got no other hair anywhere save for the end of his tail, and thats black and looks bristly. Don't tell me this dude conditions his curly locks up front?
i love the pose change eric, so expect to see a flushed out version of that later tonight.
sectaurs, i guess i could lose the green in the hair, i was just tossing it in there to rep the home team and bring more of a focal point to the face. I also was looking at many tribes of africa with the red clay in the hair and was barrowing from that. but if the peoples don't like it, i guess it could go.
thanks again, im workin on the orthos right now so i can start up with the modeling soon.
well it looks like you've pulled this off well after all but keep tweaking. i'd say keep the hair, but you need to keep things evil. whenever you've got an element and don't make it evil, it's a missed opportunity to further the expression of the character, however small.
in this case, keep the hair but make it evil. it might just be the way you're rendering it, but it looks so soft and pillowy, like he puts it in rollers before every mission. here's some anecdotal inspiration--in shibuya station in tokyo, i saw this homeless man with matted dreadlocks reaching nearly to his waist. it was so revolting it was almost majestic in character--like a funky, fungal lion's mane. so think about this guy with some dreads, but they should be blackened, dirty, kinked-up disgusting dreads; like all this guy does is sneak through sewers and dusty air ducts most of his life and so THAT has made his hair what it is. so make it a dirty, funky tangle (that might trail further down the back, as suggested), and keep it very dark except for greenish highlights. not greenish because the hair is green, but green because of whatever vile funk is growing in it. that's how you rep the home team. make it evil!
and i will also second Eric's suggestions. you belatedly fixed his coloration, but you still need to skew his form language and posture more to the evil side of the scale. you agreed with me about the whole Mystic/Skeksis example, so why have you been so damn slow about implementing the lessons from that example? in some elements he could still pass for cuddle-bear nice. i don't want to see soft and rounded edges. gasmask is okay since it has that sinister-streamlining thing going on, but even that you might push a little further. nice work though, even if you are a little slow on the uptake sometimes
No more tweaking the concepts. Its time to get building you have had the idea pretty much nailed down for over a week. Toward the end of the contest you will give your left nut for another week. Hair, no hair, tentacles or fungus instead of hair, it should not stop you from laying out a the majority of the character which is rock solid.
I would rather see the concept tweaked at the end after the model is done, to include all the cool things he thinks up while building than spending time putting more spank shine on an already kick ass idea.
I do not mean to poop on everything Gauss mentioned because they are awesome ideas but those can easily be rolled into the model during construction. Hopefully those ideas will not send you running back to tweak the concept at very new thing you dream up, if you finish in time and feel like doing a final concept then kudos to you, but lets keep things in perspective. The winning pose and final shots are what get you the win, a well polished concept is nice and all but is just icing on the cake.
boys, boys, no need to bicker over little old me.
Gauss-every time i see that you have posted i get both giggly and sick with anticipation. I guess you are right(again) right now he could play for either team, i will add some more crazy shit to him, i have not yet added the war paint or peircings that i was gonna use to make him a little bit crazier. As for the hair, they are dreads, maybe if i knock the green back to the shade sloth hair is with the fungus growing in it. And it isnt that i am slow, its that i am in my final term in school with a full schedule and last week was midterms. So with that in mind, i think that i got a bit done. Keep em coming gauss, you complete me.
Vig- Maybe this will help your needs.
Did this last night, still got some tweaking on the flow and count, so if you spot anything, point it out.
keep the love coming,
-g-
Here is a quick rig test just to see if it deforms right, looks like it is gonna work out pretty well.
Still not sure on what im gonna do for the feet, i think im gonna concept up some quick and change the model acordingly.
Replies
so check it out, this is what im thinking for the bodytype of my dude. im making a scout character that lives his life off of the front line on the scraps of flesh that he so eagerly tears off of invading and retreating troops alike. this is an early version still, ive been through like, 3 of them already, i was up all night painting my ass off. then right as i laid down to go to sleep, this guy popped into my head, so i did another doodle and continued on him when i woke up.
crit away folks, this is a group effort, and im still trying to design cloths for something that looks like this, most bags and pouches get in the way of articulations.
richkid out
I like where this character is heading, though I can't say I quite like the bot leg. Also the quad arms is a good touch but I think its sitting rather funny. The bottom chest area doesn't look like it belongs there. I'm really digging the face though, could an iteration of mean. Scars and the like. He's coming across as simple at the moment.
-caseyjones
thanks man, keep em coming.
alright, you're going to get much the same spiel as many of the other polycounters at this stage in the competition...don't get married to your first girlfriend. as artists, the more we invest in a particular piece, the more kindly we're likely to regard it. while this may be alright for illustrations, it's a bad deal for concepts. you need to evaluate broadly at first, picking up only the best to further develop--and i know, from personal experience, how difficult that is to resist. we always want to get to the fun part, to painting and rendering and fleshing something out, but it's almost always too early.
in keeping with the girlfriend analogy, while you may think you're pretty casual with this girl, in reality you've been sharing an apartment for six months. that's how far you've gone, with this 4 leg, 4-arm guy. back to the drawing board, richkid!
he's not bad, but he's not winning material. predominantly because, despite your background description, this guy is giving off a majorly nonthreatening vibe for the most part; his head and mouth design, particularly, say herbivore. he looks like a camel, albeit with tusks. same with the legs, and same mostly with the arms, too--most of them look very nonthreatening.
here's a classic illustration of contrasting form language that relates exactly into what we're talking about here: think of the two races in The Dark Crystal. The Skeksis and the Mystics. they're very similar in basic physiognomy (since they used to be the same a long time ago), but the messages they send visually couldn't be more different: the Mystics get the rounded edges, soft, warm colors and texturing, etc. making you want to hug them like a grandparent, while the Skeksis look generally disgusting and vulture-ish, with sharp edges degenerate finery.
if there is a God, he's the best creature designer ever, because there never was a creature that looked the part better than the vulture. Look at a picture of a vulture and tell me that it doesn't say "hi, i eat dead things, or wait for things to weaken or die, and then eat them."
now i want to step back and say that your character is actually a pretty good design, definitely worth keeping around for some other application--i guarantee you'll find a use for this critter, no problem. but it won't be for this compo; you can spend a prohibitive amount of energy reworking him into something that he just isn't. he's nicely advanced, but he won't be making a contribution to the war effort.
so it's back to working out some thumbnails--keep it loose, keep it small. it takes a while to find your ideal thumbnailing size--too small and it's just meaningless, but too big and you find yourself detailing when you shouldn't. but thumbnail you should; and about when you think you've done enough thumbnailing, do twice the number you've already done. you'll grumble at yourself, but once you look back at them, after squeezing past your comfort zones, you'll find you've actually drilled past all the crap and managed to hit something worth refining.
here's another tip from art class, though it won't help mr. camel--when you like a design, but "something" seems to not be working or you're vaguely dissatisfied with it, take a piece of paper and start covering up the design on the screen. hide different portions, and judge what's visible: look at the body only, then only the limbs, then only the head, then only the left side, then only the right, etc. etc... it seems so simple, that you ought to be able to do it with your eyes, but you really can't. use the paper. tie that together with other venerable tricks like regularly flipping the canvas horizontally in photoshop, and you'll find a lot of your headaches when designing a character go away a lot faster than they would have otherwise.
hope this helps--and yes, please keep us updated
anywho, give this guy one more look over kids, and if he gets voted off of the team, then so be it. i think with a couple color modifications this guy could be pretty fuckin gnarly, but i am willing to let him go till another time.
keep in the vein of gauss here, dont be gentle just cause we didnt play hop scotch together as kids, rip into me like a drugged up hooker that didnt give you your moneys worth.
and once again, thank you gauss for answering im such a good way.
so yeah, if you -must- keep reworking the same image, something i don't always advise but should work out here, color-shift the entire picture to the cold spectrum, somewhere blue/green, and then desaturate it majorly. after that start painting color over the top of it. and again, think of the Skeksis: not that you have to make this guy dessicated like them, but nothing is better visual shorthand for evil than unhealthiness and assymetry. glad the crits don't fall on deaf ears, i'll stop by to post when i can. cheers.
thats funny, cause oddworld is what got me into wanting to make games, then they closed the year before i got out of school. i ran into lorne lanning and called him an asshole for crushing my dreams, then we hung out for a while... good times
thank you gauss, i wont let you down, i have been just sitting staring at mu sketch book pissing myself since your last post. so im gonna go change and get back to work.
any changes to this one keep em coming, im keeping this whole first week dedicated to flushing this guy out into gnar.
you have no idea....
starting to move toward the darker tones, im thinking of keeping the underside that tan color, like reptiles have the lighter underside. i think the dreads are gonna be some crazy color like red or something, maybe green to rep the home team.
im goin to bed.
Just go your way and this thing will turn out awesome!
and if you have the slightest desire to draw completely different characters, do it. What's the worst that could happen? You spend an hour finding out what not to do?
here is the latest for this guy, ive got a bunch of action gestures and break downs sketched out that i will post tomorrow, but i dont have a scanner, so you will have to wait to see those.
enjoy
just one problem u may have is the fact that the guy... thing... doesn't yell out "i am from the future! c me glow!"
apart from his gun, everything seems like it exists in todays date aswell
My problem with the design is the bottom arms are there for no reason. Maybe you've got it figured out with the other poses you've developed, but I'd think a creature with four arms would want to utilize all four arms (and even if not, I think you concept should). Give him something two people would need to operate or some complicated equipment that would require four arms. Maybe give him some kind of automatic sniper rifle or machine gun that has an ammunition belt he feeds into the gun with his lower arms. Or give them shields for when he charges the enemy. Something needs to be there to give them purpose without making the mid-section look too busy.
He has a sadle lol.
His face looks something like a siamese twin.. maybe you can play with that?
And polycount can't use cybernetics stuff but we can use metal plates etc for armor!
I like him though, his face looks funny =D
Keep it up!
coffee shop tonight?
I liked the split goatee thing in the first one. may be you could try that same shape but with the hair instead of flesh.
A+++++ hiley recomendid
here are some head variations for those of you who are uncontent with the head design. Remember, always be open to change things at a whim, so, pick one of these and i will think about it for the final.
thanks for the love boys,
shady, i was thinking about a pet that would ride his back, so, i guess he doesnt mind being ridden. i just used the saddle cause i figured its like a backpack for quadrapeds.
arsh, thank you, that means mucho coming from a badass. i hope to see you on the battle field.
rollin, there are gonna be fur patterns, most likely in my next post, so stay tuned.
peace out...or... i guess out of peace in this time of war.
As for the head variations, I really like the bottom left one the most followed by the top left.
Great stuff dude!
-caseyjones
here is a side shot im working on, just flushing out some of the shapes and clothes.
OK, so, fighting aliens and people are easy enough. i don't care how ripped a dude is, a bullet or plasma blast will damage it. now robots on the other hand, they pose a problem for an organic character, not many weeknesses to take advantage of. On the other hand, they have many advantages to take on out weeknesses. The two main weapons 3d total should be using are gases and fire. Wont hurt them, kills us. So to help protect this little guys sorry ass, im giving him a gas mask with goggles to help with the use of gases. i know there are gases that can just attack the skin, but im not worrying that far into it, just getting a general cover and some cool looking features.
that aside, here is the new post.
now that ive got some tech elements incorporated, time to savage them up a bit so they dont look so new and fancy like.
thanks for the support.
g
this is looking like the end of the road for concepts, if you think that i should make some changes, hit me with them now, cause im gonna start modeling by sunday.
thanks again for all the help boys.
here is the new one
"know thyself, and know thy enemy, and u will never lose a hundred battles" - Sun Tzu, The Art of War
i luv sun tzu's quotes, i think i got this one close to right?
http://www.thetextureguy.com/screenies/richkidPO.jpg
I apologise for the hackery, I don't have my wacom on this machine.
Seriously, though, I'd listen to him. But either way, this critter is kind of freaky in a good way. I can really picture him skittering around in air ducts and through crawl spaces. Or inside giant mechanical sentients.
You've got to lose that green hair, though. Unless that is carried out elsewhere on his body, it looks horribly out of place. He's got no other hair anywhere save for the end of his tail, and thats black and looks bristly. Don't tell me this dude conditions his curly locks up front?
sectaurs, i guess i could lose the green in the hair, i was just tossing it in there to rep the home team and bring more of a focal point to the face. I also was looking at many tribes of africa with the red clay in the hair and was barrowing from that. but if the peoples don't like it, i guess it could go.
thanks again, im workin on the orthos right now so i can start up with the modeling soon.
peace...
Looking good sir. I like the paint over as well by Eric. Adds a lot more animalistic style to him.
in this case, keep the hair but make it evil. it might just be the way you're rendering it, but it looks so soft and pillowy, like he puts it in rollers before every mission. here's some anecdotal inspiration--in shibuya station in tokyo, i saw this homeless man with matted dreadlocks reaching nearly to his waist. it was so revolting it was almost majestic in character--like a funky, fungal lion's mane. so think about this guy with some dreads, but they should be blackened, dirty, kinked-up disgusting dreads; like all this guy does is sneak through sewers and dusty air ducts most of his life and so THAT has made his hair what it is. so make it a dirty, funky tangle (that might trail further down the back, as suggested), and keep it very dark except for greenish highlights. not greenish because the hair is green, but green because of whatever vile funk is growing in it. that's how you rep the home team. make it evil!
and i will also second Eric's suggestions. you belatedly fixed his coloration, but you still need to skew his form language and posture more to the evil side of the scale. you agreed with me about the whole Mystic/Skeksis example, so why have you been so damn slow about implementing the lessons from that example? in some elements he could still pass for cuddle-bear nice. i don't want to see soft and rounded edges. gasmask is okay since it has that sinister-streamlining thing going on, but even that you might push a little further. nice work though, even if you are a little slow on the uptake sometimes
I would rather see the concept tweaked at the end after the model is done, to include all the cool things he thinks up while building than spending time putting more spank shine on an already kick ass idea.
I do not mean to poop on everything Gauss mentioned because they are awesome ideas but those can easily be rolled into the model during construction. Hopefully those ideas will not send you running back to tweak the concept at very new thing you dream up, if you finish in time and feel like doing a final concept then kudos to you, but lets keep things in perspective. The winning pose and final shots are what get you the win, a well polished concept is nice and all but is just icing on the cake.
Gauss-every time i see that you have posted i get both giggly and sick with anticipation. I guess you are right(again) right now he could play for either team, i will add some more crazy shit to him, i have not yet added the war paint or peircings that i was gonna use to make him a little bit crazier. As for the hair, they are dreads, maybe if i knock the green back to the shade sloth hair is with the fungus growing in it. And it isnt that i am slow, its that i am in my final term in school with a full schedule and last week was midterms. So with that in mind, i think that i got a bit done. Keep em coming gauss, you complete me.
Vig- Maybe this will help your needs.
Did this last night, still got some tweaking on the flow and count, so if you spot anything, point it out.
keep the love coming,
-g-
Still not sure on what im gonna do for the feet, i think im gonna concept up some quick and change the model acordingly.
Peace