hehe, yeah Well my concept looks great.... In my head
Sadly I can draw faces but bodies are not my thing I'm still working on my concept drawing but I'm doing it alongside my model so I don't waste valuable modeling time.
I'm going for a kinda spider chick, think centaur but with a spiders body etc.
Character name - Arakkana
Anyways, I've made a start on the head. I have a feeling I have a few too many pollies in the head ATM, I'll have to optimize a bit to make sure I have enough budget left for the body...
Crit to your hearts content, don't be shy or worry about being harsh, I'm a noob at this so I may overlook the obvious...
Agreed with Rick_Stirling, a concept is a must, even if you think it looks like shit, putting your idea down on paper forces you to think about certain things that you tend to not think about if your concept is just in your head.
The model is looking good so far, but you are wasting many a poly, especially on the fangs. Remove some of the edges moving towards the end of the fangs. Remove some of the vertical polygons in the centre of the forehead as well.
I see your point... I have the head done on my drawing but if I change the head to suit the body better at a later stage in the drawing I will run into issues...
Heres my concept, its bad but it gives the general idea. I went with 6 limbs instead of 8 because it looked better when I drew it this way. [edit] looked better with 8 on the model... oh well.
I appologize for the bad quality, I have no scaner so I snaped a shot with my cam...
Wow, this is really flowing I havn't had a model move so smoothly ever. All the little tricks and things I've picked up lately have really helped me along. Its also nice to have a few models I've made before to reference from rather than hunt for reference pics.
Anyways, the body is coming along nicely, just the arms and hands left and then on to detailing etc.
Any suggestions for hands? I'm in two minds as to making them humanoid or doing them insectoid (if thats even a word..).
You might want to come up with something a little different. I believe there are now 5 of these spider people in developement on our side alone and lord only knows how many insect related ones.
If you do decide to go this way, the big chunky chelicerae are interesting but I'm not sure they're really working yet. You might also look into some different spider types. I think a daddy-long legs or harvestman hybrid could look pretty interesting with the huge long spindly legs
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no i meant add legs between the ones you already have and also make arm like things.. so he/she is like a centaur only with a spider.. but i agree with Jackablade too... i actually wanted to make something like this too.. but i changed my mind becouse it's not really original.
Thanks for the pointers I went with this because its been something I've wanted to try for a long time and I figured now would be a good time. Besides, I seriously doubt I could even place in this contest so I might as well have fun with my entry
Long legs eh.... I'll think about that. Death from above...
I've redone the legs, I thinking about longer ones but I'm not decided yet..
woow looks much better! i really like those small legs coming out of her hips! i'd just ad human hands on the normal place, becouse you already have a lot of insect stuff... and then add cool armour or something to her. great progress!
You improved greatly in half a year that I've been seeing your work, really nice to see how you progressed, keep it up!
As for the legs, I'd suggest adding some variety and looking up some references. If you look at insects, their legs don't all look the same. You can also give the upper legs some more volume and make the "feet" a bit different for each pair of legs, as right now they looked just copied around and don't add much interest to the silhouette. Look at this or this and note that the legs are of significantly different length and also differ in the way they bend, and for the most types of spiders they are placed a certain way.
OK, I couldn't resist a little tweaking before bed. I had a look at a few different spiders and came up with this.
The spider pose is classic baboon spider agressive stance. Thats Tarantula for those of you not familiar with the name I had a pet tarantula as a kid, damn nice looking arachnid.
The spider pose is classic baboon spider agressive stance. Thats Tarantula for those of you not familiar with the name I had a pet tarantula as a kid, damn nice looking arachnid.
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A nice looking arachnid? I'd hate to see your girlfriend
Looking good so far although I'd personally like to see some longer, sharper looking legs. Also you appear to be posting smoothed versions of the model (i could be wrong), i'd prefer to see the low poly at this stage until you're onto your proper highres model.
Perhpas you could give her some spider eyes. They usually have 6 or 8 in a geometric pattern. Maybe keep the human eyes and then have a cluster of simple eyes (little round black ones) on her forehead.
I do think worth considering redesign the chelicerae (the spider jaws, for those without a bug book sitting in front of them) or the head shape a little the two aren't quite working together at this stage.
Thanks for all the comments. Yeah, the head just isn't working well at this point. My wife has been at me to change it too. I was thinking about going with a more human face but with spider eyes. Any other good sugestions?
petrol - yeah, its meshsmoothed, I'll post up some unsmoothed pics for you all. I tend to work with meshsmooth on, it helps me keep tabs on pinching. I finally have an understanding of smoothing groups so its actually not looking bad without the meshsmoothing for a change.
Thanks again to all of you for taking the time to look
Ok, total redesign coming up. What the hey, I've only wasted a day and it taught me a fair bit. I'm also having trouble giving the model as much detail as I want due to the number of curves that need to be smooth. With a 6000 tri budget I'll be better off going for a smaller character that I can detail nicely.
Well, I have been knocking around ideas all day and this is what I came up with for the face. The rest of the body will remain as it is except I will be modeling some organic armor for the torso. Well, that is unless someone has a better idea
Drew this one on my PC so its a bit better than the last horrible one. I had no eraser for the last one and I suck at sketching without lots of eraseage.
maybe try to mix human and spider face a bit more.. atm you´v only put spider-mouth-tongs to a normal face.. thats not bad but maybe too easy to understand when you look at it..
[edit] Heres another variant. Any better? I will also be modeling something like 4 spider legs coming out the sides of her head and folding partialy over her face but I have no idea how to draw it.
the insect features could be integrated into head a bit better. remember that eyesockets are designed to hold exactly one eyeball each, so picture what kind of underlying forms you'd have that can hold two eyeballs. you could also suggest that the pincers wrap around where his cheekbones would be...push those forms man!
cool, will you be zbrush/mudboxing her? one thing I'd look at is all the bumps are fairly uniform with the exception of a few very tight changes of direction. Try working in a bit more variety in the change of angle from one area to another- hope that makes sense. you're making good headway though
Thanks Rooster, yeah, I downloaded the mudbox trial and spent most of today going through all the tutos google could find so I'm hoping to get her into mudbox. I own Zbrush but I just can't get the hang of it... Mudbox seems much easier so far and has some far cooler tools. If mudbox works out for me I'll register it and put this chick into it
Anyone got any links to good mudbox tutos? I've hit all the free ones I could find with google but I'm sure you all should know a few more
Oh and I'm a little annoyed with my models face as it is, I just can't seem to make it look mean, it looks all friendly.. Usualy I drop the brow, close the eyes a bit and then tilt them inwards a bit but well, kinda hard to do with big bug eyes...
xaltar i wasn't going to say anything, but seeing you go back and forth like this, i had to chime in.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v353/chrisdejoya/Dominandce/xaltar1.jpg
not a perfect drawing, but i figured out those shapes in like 10 minutes of sketching, and it's looking more evil than anything you've come up with so far.. it may be fun playing around in 3d but i'm a production junkie and haaate to see extra work done that could have been avoided.
i think that head model that you've been working with has been constraining you, so don't be so reluctant to open up photoshop and figure things out in 2d first. this might be a stretch, but build the model around the idea, not the other way around...
you had some interesting thoughts there on what makes a face look evil, i just took those ideas and extrapolated them into the bug head. there are some details i force fit, like orienting everything in a triangular layout to copy the effect of lowering the brow, and gave him eyelids that line up with the triangular layout, so he can still have buggy eyes, but look angry at the slightest squint.
Thats awesome, in fact its very similar to the direction I have been taking on the redesign. Your sketch is WAY cooler though. Thanks for taking the time to help me out bro, I REALY appreciate it I think I'll go with the over and under eye design you drew
Well, I've blocked out the idea. Now I need to clean the mesh up a bit to get rid of pinching and bad smoothing. I like this one. I think shes a keeper
I think I'm going to call the face done, its almost completely quads so I should'nt have any issues in mudbox. This is my first time attempting a lowpoly with a highpoly derived normal map. I'm going to need a lot of patience and hopefully some useful tips
If no one has any dire crits, I'm going to finish off the rest of the head and then open up paintshop pro and get to concepting my armor.
His mandibles aren't very threatening. Why not make them big and spiky like a stag beetle, seeing as you're not really sticking with the realistic spidery look any more. Giving him some palps (like little legs for feeding himself with) under his chin or beside his nose might look good too.
Heres a nice example of both.
Replies
Sadly I can draw faces but bodies are not my thing
I'm going for a kinda spider chick, think centaur but with a spiders body etc.
Character name - Arakkana
Anyways, I've made a start on the head. I have a feeling I have a few too many pollies in the head ATM, I'll have to optimize a bit to make sure I have enough budget left for the body...
Crit to your hearts content, don't be shy or worry about being harsh, I'm a noob at this so I may overlook the obvious...
The model is looking good so far, but you are wasting many a poly, especially on the fangs. Remove some of the edges moving towards the end of the fangs. Remove some of the vertical polygons in the centre of the forehead as well.
Thanks
I appologize for the bad quality, I have no scaner so I snaped a shot with my cam...
I also took out some polys on the head and tweaked the meshflow a bit.
Anyways, the body is coming along nicely, just the arms and hands left and then on to detailing etc.
Any suggestions for hands? I'm in two minds as to making them humanoid or doing them insectoid (if thats even a word..).
If you do decide to go this way, the big chunky chelicerae are interesting but I'm not sure they're really working yet. You might also look into some different spider types. I think a daddy-long legs or harvestman hybrid could look pretty interesting with the huge long spindly legs
you mean make the arms legs too?
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no i meant add legs between the ones you already have and also make arm like things.. so he/she is like a centaur only with a spider.. but i agree with Jackablade too... i actually wanted to make something like this too.. but i changed my mind becouse it's not really original.
Long legs eh.... I'll think about that. Death from above...
I've redone the legs, I thinking about longer ones but I'm not decided yet..
I'll finish up the arms and hands tomorow, unwrap it and get started on the high poly
As for the legs, I'd suggest adding some variety and looking up some references. If you look at insects, their legs don't all look the same. You can also give the upper legs some more volume and make the "feet" a bit different for each pair of legs, as right now they looked just copied around and don't add much interest to the silhouette. Look at this or this and note that the legs are of significantly different length and also differ in the way they bend, and for the most types of spiders they are placed a certain way.
The spider pose is classic baboon spider agressive stance. Thats Tarantula for those of you not familiar with the name
like it.. keep on
The spider pose is classic baboon spider agressive stance. Thats Tarantula for those of you not familiar with the name
[/ QUOTE ]
A nice looking arachnid? I'd hate to see your girlfriend
Looking good so far although I'd personally like to see some longer, sharper looking legs. Also you appear to be posting smoothed versions of the model (i could be wrong), i'd prefer to see the low poly at this stage until you're onto your proper highres model.
I do think worth considering redesign the chelicerae (the spider jaws, for those without a bug book sitting in front of them) or the head shape a little the two aren't quite working together at this stage.
petrol - yeah, its meshsmoothed, I'll post up some unsmoothed pics for you all. I tend to work with meshsmooth on, it helps me keep tabs on pinching. I finally have an understanding of smoothing groups so its actually not looking bad without the meshsmoothing for a change.
Thanks again to all of you for taking the time to look
Drew this one on my PC so its a bit better than the last horrible one. I had no eraser for the last one and I suck at sketching without lots of eraseage.
but i like her eyes
keep on!!
http://normlyon.homeip.net/photos/galler...04826_1_std.jpg
[edit] Heres another variant. Any better? I will also be modeling something like 4 spider legs coming out the sides of her head and folding partialy over her face but I have no idea how to draw it.
Click the image to see the smoothing group only version.
Some wires.
Heres a bit of an update, I tried to do what you said
Same as before, click the image for the smoothing group version
Another small update, messing with some ideas.
This is my last update for today...
Oh and I'm a little annoyed with my models face as it is, I just can't seem to make it look mean, it looks all friendly.. Usualy I drop the brow, close the eyes a bit and then tilt them inwards a bit but well, kinda hard to do with big bug eyes...
Update soon
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v353/chrisdejoya/Dominandce/xaltar1.jpg
not a perfect drawing, but i figured out those shapes in like 10 minutes of sketching, and it's looking more evil than anything you've come up with so far.. it may be fun playing around in 3d but i'm a production junkie and haaate to see extra work done that could have been avoided.
i think that head model that you've been working with has been constraining you, so don't be so reluctant to open up photoshop and figure things out in 2d first. this might be a stretch, but build the model around the idea, not the other way around...
you had some interesting thoughts there on what makes a face look evil, i just took those ideas and extrapolated them into the bug head. there are some details i force fit, like orienting everything in a triangular layout to copy the effect of lowering the brow, and gave him eyelids that line up with the triangular layout, so he can still have buggy eyes, but look angry at the slightest squint.
Thats awesome, in fact its very similar to the direction I have been taking on the redesign. Your sketch is WAY cooler though. Thanks for taking the time to help me out bro, I REALY appreciate it
I'll finsh off the head and get started on concepting the armor tomorow.
eyeshape
nose
claws
it´s comming
keep on
ps: do not render on black background a midtone grey works most time better
Sadly my concept drawing skills suck, I am doing the best I can but its not easy. At least I don't take days to actually model stuff anymore...
If no one has any dire crits, I'm going to finish off the rest of the head and then open up paintshop pro and get to concepting my armor.
oh and damn ur fast!
Heres a nice example of both.
Completed head
but i would recommend to change the nose shape to a sharper snowfly-concept like direction