Dominance War II - Clint
polycounter lvl 18
Just making a spot. BTW anyone know if you can change your display name without creating a new account on here? I forgot how i typed mine lol..... that and its just.. inefficient
UPDATES AT BOTTOM
UPDATES AT BOTTOM
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The story behind this guy is he was a scientist researhing natural resources and their powers for use in special weaponry for the polycount militia. Digging through the scattered remains of the planet after the explosion, he uncovered two spherical relics of power unfathomable. Upon touching the relics he was overwhelmed by a demonic force. These two stones housed the spirits of two demons from within the planet which were awakened by the explosion. The demons accepted this mortal as a host through which they could channel their power. With a mind altered by the demon spirits, the man turned immortal is destined be a backbone of polycounts forces and lay bloodied ruin to whatever may cross his path
Alright enough lame backstory. Pretty much the guy is a badass who can control these indestructable spheres as he pleases. When not in use, they dock on his lower arms.
Ive got a helmet design that im still playing with but i like the shape. Its sort of influenced by spacemonkey's wow contest entry
tell me what ya think
..... Gauss im lonely. Come post on mine
anyhow, here are my thoughts: indestructible balls are a very nice weapon, and demon imagery is usually a shoe-in. a few concerns are to: (1) align the design with a more tech/futuristic look fitting a post year 3000 kind of deal, and (2) keeping a tech/demonic style from becoming another ken scott bite. arguably it won rockstar a first place last year, but to that i'd tell you that's because of the unimpeachable quality of Corum's execution. unless you can outdo him there, and most will not be able to, then forget it. you'll need to add some sort of special sauce of your own into the mix to make it work.
about the balls and the general demon styling: the idea of balls "docking" or otherwise embedding in flesh made me think immediately of Wayne Barlowe's Inferno. go pick it up, or at the very least google it, and then maybe go over and look through the book at Barns and Noble, you shiftless sponger.
i'm reminded because in Barlowe's depiction of Hell, the souls of the damned are given their sins as a physical weight, that intersects with their person in some painful, awkward way. it's a really powerful visual, as is just about everything in the book: most everything looks made of crumbling ash and bone, lit with glowing runes and fire. pretty standard hell stuff, i know what it sounds like, but Barlowe carries it off with tremendous sensitivity and a somewhat unsettling dedication of vision. might give you some ideas about how the balls dock into his flesh.
anyway, that's one, for the hell/demon stuff. you still need to manage to integrate more of a tech look... all i can say is to avoid the obvious avenues. in fact, if you really want to push the quality of your design, give yourself (seemingly) harsh restrictions. say, no spikes. no gigeresque crap, etc., no tubes. no tribal tats, no runes. now i would stop short of saying no skulls or horns, because that's a challenge i dont think even i'd be quite ready to take up right now, but you get my idea. they seem like brutal limitations, but believe me, limitations are freedom--freedom for you to finally explore alternative styling ideas and detailing that you said you'd always try out but never did, because you'd always go straight to the easy, comfortable, familiar at hand.
hope this helps some. again, the one that really cooks my goose right now is that upper lefthand thumbnail, with him smoking, because smoking is both cool and so, so dangerous, so of course this guy would be doing it. but it also helps to ground him as a more modern/futuristic type character, and not fantasy, which is something you need to watch for.
anyhow, i very much enjoy your pencil work and would like to see more. keep us updated!
Im racking my brain for ideas that arent cliche to everthing out there but its hard haha. After all we only learn from what we see and how we can bend it. I probably just need to look at some more work that could relate to this character idea.
Until then i threw down this sillouhete (i know, kind of going backwards
ill call him cupid for now. Its a bare sketch at the moment and im still trying to figure out how to give it some more character and origionality. Workin on ideas for the shoulder part, refining the helmet, and what to do with the legs and boots. Doh, and for got his quiver and pack of smokes
Im just wondering with concept to stick with. What do you guys think?
Other then that, I really like how its going.
I'm not too fond of the skulls placement either but, this might just be me.
I really can't spot any quiver in there, perhaps he doesn't need any but I think it would be cool with a quiver decorated with a spine from any of his prey and some skulls perhaps.
Cheers,
The base mesh looks really nice, great flow. Can't wait to see how it pans out.
-caseyjones
Cant wait to see your texturing.
Can't wait to see more!
lol
.. can hardly find some stuff to crit..
would give him more ass..
and kind of a belt for the pants itself
would kill the loose-look of them
or pull them more up at the front
hope this helps bit
good fight good night!
about the mudbox problem.. i drop the brush strength to some very low level.. this works best for me and i can use the wacom-pen-pressure sensitivity
but it´s not the golden way.. maybe you have the same problem roots and this helps
realy cool
all joking aside, that totally sucks man. must back up your stuff from now on.