how about today, eh? partly cloudy, chance of concepts... just spend 15 minutes and get some thumbnails up, man, if polycount really did help you get a job. it probably couldn't hurt to upload an avatar either, while you're at it
OK, here's some of my first thumbnails, after a lot of false starts. I've had the benefit of modeling from some really great concept artists at work so it's going to be educational trying to do something from scratch again. I'm currently planning on doing a fairly straightforward human marine-type, so I think I'm ready to move from thumbnails and start doing some research into the kinds of military clothing I want him to wear. I'd like him to be less of a head-to-toe armored sci-fi marine and more of trench soldier in a duster coat with small armored accents in critical locations. I recently got some great inspiration for his face, which I'll try to get some concepts up for tonight.
First pass at a face design, based on one of my co-workers. Right now I'm just trying to caricature and exaggerate him a little bit to give his features some of that Unreal/Gears of War broadness and heft, the side view being more along the lines of what I'm thinking right now. I'll be doing passes later where I try to integrate some minor scarring or disfigurement to help with that evil vibe. Doing the dreads will be interesting, but I think I can pull them off if I stylize them enough.
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One of the concept artists at worked wanted to get in on some Dominance War action, so I'm happy to say I'm now teamed up with new polycount forumite NeoFreak! He's introduced some new elements that are helping me break out of the space marine rut I was in and to make more of a ritualistic scifi assassin type, which really does feel more "shadowy" to me. This guy is becoming something like a brainwashed drone in ceremonial armor, featuring a writ of execution on rolled parchment signed by his General (we're planning on some kind of normal-mapped wax seal of the polycount logo at the bottom).
NeoFreak's first rough concepts are below. We're going to buff him up a little bit a de-feminize his legs and boots, and also design the blast shield on his armor to raise up so his face can be exposed in the render. We're still playing around with ornamentation to put on the bare areas of the armor and how to detail the fabric of the rest of his suit. NeoFreak'll post some of his thoughts on how he's developing the character and I'll start modeling hopefully Thursday.
I've been brainstorming on how to bring a more obvious sense of menace to this guy, as well as introduce more thematic elements to complement NeoFreak's idea of the assassination writ.
I started looking at images of temple guardian statues and thought it would be cool if the writ were to hang from an armor piece that resembled their collars, as a symbol of his subservience to the Polycount Emperor. The shape of the carapace lent itself becoming an angry foo dog face. I really like the idea of incorporating the very stylized shapes of the dog's sculpted fur into the armor, both on the back and on the arm and leg guards.
This sketch roughly demonstrates the direction I'm thinking, but I'm going to have NeoFreak do some more passes to tighten it up and make it more cohesive, as well as introduce some more tech in places to prevent him from looking too Jade Empire-ish. Still not sure what the weapon will be - currently pondering some kind of huge energy sword or some kind of scifi double sickle action.
We're pretty happy with the ideas for the head, so I'm going to go ahead and start modeling that while the body concept solidifies. I should be able to post the medium poly base tomorrow.
Excellent idea, it looks damn cool too, I really like the dog fur armour idea, although some of your original thumbnails were pretty kickass too.
Looking forward to more!
Here's some random shots of the medium poly base mesh for the head (about 3500 polys). Just started zbrushing, so hopefully I can have another update in a day or so.
good work!
The upper lip looks very thin and i dont like the curvature of the nose..i think it needs more of a nose tip...but thats only what i personally prefer.
[working out the upper torso armor and face mask; trying to block out a solid structure with interesting curves/bevels that will take advantage of a dynamic lighting situation.]
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NeoFreak's first rough concepts are below. We're going to buff him up a little bit a de-feminize his legs and boots, and also design the blast shield on his armor to raise up so his face can be exposed in the render. We're still playing around with ornamentation to put on the bare areas of the armor and how to detail the fabric of the rest of his suit. NeoFreak'll post some of his thoughts on how he's developing the character and I'll start modeling hopefully Thursday.
I started looking at images of temple guardian statues and thought it would be cool if the writ were to hang from an armor piece that resembled their collars, as a symbol of his subservience to the Polycount Emperor. The shape of the carapace lent itself becoming an angry foo dog face. I really like the idea of incorporating the very stylized shapes of the dog's sculpted fur into the armor, both on the back and on the arm and leg guards.
This sketch roughly demonstrates the direction I'm thinking, but I'm going to have NeoFreak do some more passes to tighten it up and make it more cohesive, as well as introduce some more tech in places to prevent him from looking too Jade Empire-ish. Still not sure what the weapon will be - currently pondering some kind of huge energy sword or some kind of scifi double sickle action.
We're pretty happy with the ideas for the head, so I'm going to go ahead and start modeling that while the body concept solidifies. I should be able to post the medium poly base tomorrow.
Looking forward to more!
The upper lip looks very thin and i dont like the curvature of the nose..i think it needs more of a nose tip...but thats only what i personally prefer.
[working out the upper torso armor and face mask; trying to block out a solid structure with interesting curves/bevels that will take advantage of a dynamic lighting situation.]