I'm a big fan of the two in the bottom left corner. The one holding the big boulder above his head and the one with the spike/horn shoulder pads (this one the most though).
that would be the bottom right corner . I have to agree though. the one with the spiky shoulder pads is easily my favroite. id like to see you take that one further
hmm yeah... I am definitely aiming for something more of the slobbering/clobbering variety... Though I need to keep feeling around for something that doesn't feel completely unintelligent. Trying to find little tidbits that will help push the character.. skulls, chains, spikes.. I liked the idea of auxillery mouths with some kind of arms that could shovel peeps into them, but I don't want to force it too much. Though, the humanoid form seems to help the intelligence factor.
Anyway.. I am totally open for ideas, comments, suggests, or money
Eric!
great to have you along now... what a difference a year makes, eh? crazy to think about how much progress you've made, particularly. you usually get out only as much as you put in, and you have definitely been putting the time in, and it shows.
though you still have a predeliction for cartooning (not necessarily a bad thing), these thumbs have a good strong "snap" to them, which is great to see. i'd like to see you do more beasties, generally speaking, they seem to suit you well.
as for this compo: i ran up against much the same issues myself last year, with some of my designs--wanting to create some real clobbermonster but still making him count as a "general", which is to say it needed to seem intelligent. yes, general physiognomy goes a long way in indicating it, as does the various accoutrements you give the character, but i'll tell you one of the most deciding factors for the appearance of intelligence:
eyeglasses. no, just kidding. but it's related--it's all in the eyes. think of the scale of animals as they relate to humans, and how much or how little we tend to identify our own emotions with them accordingly. cats are generally, but dogs much more so--they have very expressive eyes that people read a lot of emotion into, a lot of human intelligence. and, of course, monkeys score the highest for non-humans, because they look so much like us, and so do their eyes, generally.
it's both the eye itself (pupil size and shape, presence of iris or the 'white' of the eye, etc.) and how it sits on the head that does it. the further apart you push the eyes, the closer to the sides of the head, generally, the less human/less intelligent they'll seem. horses are an obvious exception here again, because of their eyes themselves are very expressive and more human-friendly. so about the least expressive to humans, and therefore generally the least intelligent-seeming, are fish, snakes, and insects. it's a tough gamble, but there are ways of getting the otherworldly qualities of those kinds of species to seem endowed with intelligence, but you'll likely have to make some tradeoffs with reference to how hulking your character is, if you want to go that route.
whew... ok, so now that the dissertation is over, suggestions or crits. personally, i'd like to see you play with the multiple mouths thing, even the point of doing a character with multiple heads. like a very snakey looking lizard character, except with multiple heads with the secondary heads' mouths acting as hands.
you could further evolve them by making mouths that have certain hand-like abilities, which could be a very interesting possibility... just some ideas here. but i'm picturing a beast similar to some that you have drawn--long tail, kinda hulking body, but with a slew of heads that hang parallel to the ground... one main stalk, and a number (2?4?) of tertiary headstalks that function mainly as arms. then you could run with a very unusual looking set of tactical webbing/equipment slings for this creature, to accomodate its mouth-hands. most fighting, of course, it would do directly, via venom and bitey-time.
just some ideas, mang. just keep the burner on high and you'll have some cool stuff going in no time.
i like the concept, and the creature does have an aura of "evil" around him.. but i think the creature needs changes to make it seem more futuristic. right now it seems like a tamed creature (like a troll or something) who is lead into battle.
also, i think u (anybody in general) should keep away from small arms. They would mean that the shadow loses many capabilites that require small adjustments of dials/wires/switches etc. I mean... imagine a T-Rex trying to disconnect a wire in a computer... yes it could stomp the shit out of the computer (and make alot of noise). But it could never move its hands in and just pull the wire...
I know it's just a collection of small thumbnails, but...
by the way, Gauss, thanks a ton for the crits, I really appreciate it. Feel free to be harsher and tell the truth like it is, I want to keep refining until I nail something solid. Thanks
Nasty monster you got there
Agree with the "tips" you got for yourself. The thing has to look biologically-probable to function. Not just awesome, but "realistic".
I like the spiked forearms but they need to be bigger and more free to do damage IMO. Right now the center of balance is in a n odd place as well for this beast to really dig in with those.
The one thing I would say is in terms of color. Im not sure if its intentional or not, but the magenta form along its back opens my mind to the possibility of this thing being exotically colored. You're still hashing out the form, but surface properties are probably a good thing to let sit in the back of your mind and stew.
Bah, Duriel WISHES he were this cool. them maybe he wouldn't have been so righteously stomped by some random adventurers. I concur with Delish on my favorite, but the sketch you have so far is awesome. They seems so much like dinosaurs from hell or something. Very great progress dude.
cool stuff- looking forward to seeing this guy in 3d..
speaking or pior- where is he in our time of need! the nearest french polycounter has some pressganging to do..
cool stuff Eric, and i'm glad i've been of service... i gotta get going out the door right now, but here's a quick point to consider: like i told KP, i think you're getting caught up in rendering, which means you're commiting resources too early on... you need to be thinking about the forms, so try busting out pencil/line only (can be digital or trad) sketches at this point. all grayscale, no color. a good concept rocks ass at its bare essentials--lines with no shading. when you star adding too much to it early on (color, shading, etc.) it can blind you as to whether or not it's really worth developing. so keep coming up with ideas, but do it with lines and you should be in better shape.
Ooooh, nice heads! Definately stay with the more monstrous ones you have, the second and third one. The human feautres just don't seem to fit with the hulking dino body you have going.
hey Peter, haven't started 3d yet, I'm not satisfied with the design.
Gauss, definitely going to do some line work tonight to try to nail this guy down, I've just been busy with various things.. but hey! this is WAR! I'll get to it
hey man I really love this new concept angle, really brings life to the lower half. on that note I'd personally say the lower torso is definitely the way to go, but the top might need a few more revisions. it looks like you were trying to keep balance by having the smaller head which is good, but it looked like you shifted a bit away from the more menacing face of the top half (maybe because big eyes seem more gentle and lively). keep it churnin man, I'm gonna try to do the same this weekend as I have no plans yet.
little update... I'm fairly satisfied with the anatomy, definitely will get some tweaks on the model rendition, but I am more concerned about armor, tidbits, and various devices before I start the mesh... hum de dum...
I'm liking this alot, first had my doubts about the 'head nipples' but seeing how you are fleshimg things out, yeah I can imagine this to work all very nicely.
Now I must admit I haven't read every comment, but what immediately came to mind when I saw the later concepts that it might be nice to have one head show intelligence, and the other more bruteish. (sp?)
That way it kind of gets this 'rider and beast in one' feeling which might work really nicely here. (maybe even think a bit schizophrenic?).
Oh well, I seem to ramble, so far really digging this!
thanks guys, I agree with the head nips.. they're pretty gay, I was just fooling around with filler, and that was a poor biproduct.. I'm currently having some probs with importing meshes from Max, which would be ideal, but for now I will keep playing with MB.. another fiddle... kinda orcish :-\
Borrowing my brother's machine (more RAM, better video card) w/ the Mudbox trial. I ran the trial out on my own machine. :-\
screengrabbies, masking off some areas for (3d) texture effects, and decided to set the color and play around a little to get some inspiration for when I get to the (2d) texturing phase.
Replies
good work so far, but they all seem to have "beast" over intelligent killing machine
pop
-caseyjones
Anyway.. I am totally open for ideas, comments, suggests, or money
great to have you along now... what a difference a year makes, eh? crazy to think about how much progress you've made, particularly. you usually get out only as much as you put in, and you have definitely been putting the time in, and it shows.
though you still have a predeliction for cartooning (not necessarily a bad thing), these thumbs have a good strong "snap" to them, which is great to see. i'd like to see you do more beasties, generally speaking, they seem to suit you well.
as for this compo: i ran up against much the same issues myself last year, with some of my designs--wanting to create some real clobbermonster but still making him count as a "general", which is to say it needed to seem intelligent. yes, general physiognomy goes a long way in indicating it, as does the various accoutrements you give the character, but i'll tell you one of the most deciding factors for the appearance of intelligence:
eyeglasses. no, just kidding. but it's related--it's all in the eyes. think of the scale of animals as they relate to humans, and how much or how little we tend to identify our own emotions with them accordingly. cats are generally, but dogs much more so--they have very expressive eyes that people read a lot of emotion into, a lot of human intelligence. and, of course, monkeys score the highest for non-humans, because they look so much like us, and so do their eyes, generally.
it's both the eye itself (pupil size and shape, presence of iris or the 'white' of the eye, etc.) and how it sits on the head that does it. the further apart you push the eyes, the closer to the sides of the head, generally, the less human/less intelligent they'll seem. horses are an obvious exception here again, because of their eyes themselves are very expressive and more human-friendly. so about the least expressive to humans, and therefore generally the least intelligent-seeming, are fish, snakes, and insects. it's a tough gamble, but there are ways of getting the otherworldly qualities of those kinds of species to seem endowed with intelligence, but you'll likely have to make some tradeoffs with reference to how hulking your character is, if you want to go that route.
whew... ok, so now that the dissertation is over, suggestions or crits. personally, i'd like to see you play with the multiple mouths thing, even the point of doing a character with multiple heads. like a very snakey looking lizard character, except with multiple heads with the secondary heads' mouths acting as hands.
you could further evolve them by making mouths that have certain hand-like abilities, which could be a very interesting possibility... just some ideas here. but i'm picturing a beast similar to some that you have drawn--long tail, kinda hulking body, but with a slew of heads that hang parallel to the ground... one main stalk, and a number (2?4?) of tertiary headstalks that function mainly as arms. then you could run with a very unusual looking set of tactical webbing/equipment slings for this creature, to accomodate its mouth-hands. most fighting, of course, it would do directly, via venom and bitey-time.
just some ideas, mang. just keep the burner on high and you'll have some cool stuff going in no time.
also, i think u (anybody in general) should keep away from small arms. They would mean that the shadow loses many capabilites that require small adjustments of dials/wires/switches etc. I mean... imagine a T-Rex trying to disconnect a wire in a computer... yes it could stomp the shit out of the computer (and make alot of noise). But it could never move its hands in and just pull the wire...
I know it's just a collection of small thumbnails, but...
by the way, Gauss, thanks a ton for the crits, I really appreciate it. Feel free to be harsher and tell the truth like it is, I want to keep refining until I nail something solid. Thanks
Agree with the "tips" you got for yourself. The thing has to look biologically-probable to function. Not just awesome, but "realistic".
I like the spiked forearms but they need to be bigger and more free to do damage IMO. Right now the center of balance is in a n odd place as well for this beast to really dig in with those.
kinda reminds me of Duriel.
The one thing I would say is in terms of color. Im not sure if its intentional or not, but the magenta form along its back opens my mind to the possibility of this thing being exotically colored. You're still hashing out the form, but surface properties are probably a good thing to let sit in the back of your mind and stew.
Again, wicked nice work pal.
LOL Funky Monkey!
Keep up the good work, I really like your style!
-Dread_Reaper
thanks for the comments, I haven't given up on that sketch. I am just feeling around a lot.
speaking or pior- where is he in our time of need! the nearest french polycounter has some pressganging to do..
-Dread_Reaper
Gauss, definitely going to do some line work tonight to try to nail this guy down, I've just been busy with various things.. but hey! this is WAR! I'll get to it
not sure if i like him with or without the mid level arms.
little update... I'm fairly satisfied with the anatomy, definitely will get some tweaks on the model rendition, but I am more concerned about armor, tidbits, and various devices before I start the mesh... hum de dum...
Now I must admit I haven't read every comment, but what immediately came to mind when I saw the later concepts that it might be nice to have one head show intelligence, and the other more bruteish. (sp?)
That way it kind of gets this 'rider and beast in one' feeling which might work really nicely here. (maybe even think a bit schizophrenic?).
Oh well, I seem to ramble, so far really digging this!
-Dread_Reaper
.. and now speed up a BIT
enclosed the mesh tonight,
will start the highpoly later tonight or tomorrow morning before I go to work.
Still a ton of work to do, such as armor, maybe a weapon, tidbits, and of course the texture
Borrowing my brother's machine (more RAM, better video card) w/ the Mudbox trial. I ran the trial out on my own machine. :-\
screengrabbies, masking off some areas for (3d) texture effects, and decided to set the color and play around a little to get some inspiration for when I get to the (2d) texturing phase.
That's a pretty sweet half done UV map huh? :-\
been sick and trying to rest, trying to find time to finish
gonna be quite the weekend
Laid down some vertex colors, and played w/ the UVs, and R2T stuff.