Dominance War 2 - Jackablade
polycounter lvl 18
Another thread without any pictures, but at least I've got the seed of an idea. It's going to take a load of experimentation before I can even get closer to a proper concept though.
My idea at this stage (and I may have gone off the whole thing by dinner time) is to have an insectoid soldier who mimics a human, or specifically, an attractive woman, in order to get close enough to enemy officers or the like to carry out an assassination. Kind of like the whole geisha assassin thing, but with bugs which makes it doubly cool as far as I'm concerned. She could be a companion for Rollin's entry.
How exactly this'll all work remains to be seen, but it should make for a nice, novel entry. I'll try and have something visual up in the next few hours, but don't count on it.
My idea at this stage (and I may have gone off the whole thing by dinner time) is to have an insectoid soldier who mimics a human, or specifically, an attractive woman, in order to get close enough to enemy officers or the like to carry out an assassination. Kind of like the whole geisha assassin thing, but with bugs which makes it doubly cool as far as I'm concerned. She could be a companion for Rollin's entry.
How exactly this'll all work remains to be seen, but it should make for a nice, novel entry. I'll try and have something visual up in the next few hours, but don't count on it.
Replies
Expect a visit from gauss sometime soon complaining about no thumbnails or concept art. He's just spamming to get his post count close to MoP's.
-caseyjones
looking forward to what you cook up, man. your mudbox noodling posted in the 'what are you working on' thread seems very promising for the future of your entry
This is obviously a long way from what I'm actually aiming for, but its a start. I'll probably be using the wings to mimic drapery, which should help the overall effect quite a bit.
EDIT: Oh and thanks for the encouragement, Casey and Gauss. Lord knows I'm going to need it.
EDIT:Cheers Gavku.
Bonus points for guessing the references
New concepts by the end of the day.
Heres some scribblings.
She might also hide her face with another wing, like someone holding a fan.
Not quite sure, but how about making the legs more crazy (two extra?) to really exaggerate the difference between human and insect?
I'm not too sure about obscuring the face. It'll be the focal point of the whole memetic effect so it'd probably be best to keep it clear. I will give it a try though.
The arms are a bit of a quandary. I'd like to use the upper grasping arms to mimic the torso region and have the actual body very thin like the silhouetted mantis on the left. That leaves me with no human typed arms if the legs are in a realisic position. Actually, an idea that just occured - I could put the feet of one pair of legs up the shoulders. With some careful design, that should look like a pair of arms with hands on hips.
I'll have a design of the mantis mode shortly.
I could use some more brains on this one. Mine's tired and soggy. I need some suggestions to make this thing pop a bit more. Or not suck - that'd be good enough.
As promised, the Angelinae Mimic in fighting stance
Some redesigning to be done next to make her more plausible as a human mimic.
Any suggestions on what needs to change and where I should take this would be appreciated.
anyhow, with a little bit more noodling i definitely think you're read to go to the modeling stage.
the only other suggestion would be to make the face mimic that much more alluring and seductive; maybe this creature has evolved an actual humanoid like face with eyes in it and not just a facade? keep on rockin'.
I thin kprobably if I hang the shorter wings over the shoulders and cast a bit of shadow onto the belly area it should have the desired effect. I'll have a crack at it tomorrow.
For this evening I got a little sick of the whole bug thing and made a brief foray in a more piscine direction, just for fun.
I'm not going to do anything with this so if anyone is short of a rather peculiar concept, this ones up for grabs.
I have to say that in general are concepts are a bit the same but yours has some really cool things going on. Judgeing-wise I think you may be right about it hurting our entries if they are too similar. This is one of the reasons I have continued to explore different ideas, and will continue to.
I think there is still enough difference between your design and mine at the moment, and maybe if you put on the sexy sauce you can make that difference even larger. I may have a go, at showing you what I mean if I get the time.
Worst case scenario is that we both end up putting in a bug and we lose points for novelty-- that won't put us any worse off than the dozens of people doing power armored space marines-- still, I would like to win and I need every advantage I can get with this crowd. We will see how it goes though. I am not planning on starting my model for a few days still.
Good luck on your entry. And thank you for the comment.
-Andrew B. Chason
Ninjas, I hadn't thought about the space marines thing but that is a good point. I guess theres room in this comp for two bugs. Or three or four depending on where Snowfly and whoever else it was doing the insecty guy end up.
Good luck with it, eh.
One suggestion I can think of might be to have a set of wings mounted on the upper back which roll up horizontally to give the impression of being sleeves, baggy ones like on kimono. I suppose you could also have a larger set of wings under those that drape down to form a sort of dress like you have in one of your earlier concepts.
Personally I think there's plenty of difference between your design and Ninjas', so I wouldn't worry about it if I were you.
Anyway good luck! If you keep at it you should end up with a kick ass concept.
For this evening, I nailed down the mimetic head detail. I think this is about as good as its going to get. Its certainly a long way from where I started.
I think I'll probably go for butterfly typed wings
Touched up the mimetic face: Added the simple eyes (the little dots on her forehead) that were on one of the earlier versions and gave her some wasp antennae to give the head a bit more of an interesting silhouette.
Finally drew up the mantid mouth parts. I'm rather pleased with how threatening the open mouth looks.
I've been mooting over how to make her a little more dangerous on the battlefield. I was toying with the idea of giving her a tail like a scorpion fly that she could slap little armour chewing larvae on to the enemy with, although that'll add another layer of complexity to a character thats already going to be pretty difficult to fully present in a single image. It would give me something to do with those extra thousand polys though.
Theres also the fact that theres nothing remotely futuristic going on here but I might have to rely on the base to illustrate that.
I thought I'd gotten her to quite an attractive level, but I guess I could have a bit more of a look at it.
I'll keep the pouty lips the way they are. Changing them will significantly alter the dynamics of the face. She does have rather a broad nose which could perhaps be thinned down a little bit. The eyes... I dunno.
I'll do some more research on attractive women (its a hard life, this art business) and see what I can come up with.
I dunno whether I should bother posting this, its pretty lousy. I suppose it proves that I haven't packed it all in.
Still quite a number of things that need changing to match the concept and to look halfway decent. Mouth needs shifting down for a start. I think I'm gradually getting the hang of the mudbox tools set though.
The biggest problem I can see are the bags under the eyes. They seem to start a little late. It's the eyeball that creates that bump (which I'm sure you're well aware of), so it's a little wrong.
I'd love to see a harder edge on the sides of the nose and the lips could use a bit more work. They look forcefully pouty rather than naturally pouty.
Great start all the same dude. Looking forward to see how this one pans out.
-caseyjones
As for missing the obvious stuff, it's always the case. That's why you pimp :P Someone is bound to spot something you've missed.
-caseyjones
i like your character concept by the way, been keeping my eyes on this entry for a while. gogogo!
Had a bit of a crunchy period at work ("ok, we need the art done for this level yesterday.") so I've been lagging on the personal art a bit. Sat down today and mocked up all the body parts really low poly and just started fiddling with shapes on the torso.
Trying to keep it mantisy thin without looking like she'll break in half under the weight of her arms and head.
the design is very original .
Spark