DWIII - 3D - GED - Mint

Ged

Just reserving a place and showing who Im fighting with here . Im also on gameartisans but I was on polycount waaay before that. Got some ideas and I will sketch some concepts soon, Im thinking invoker or warrior for me.

Ged

haha better get some thumbs in here quickly. Heres a few ideas, there might be more. Got a story for my character playing through my head now .

MoP

nice silhouettes, looking forward to seeing more

diZzyWalnut

2,8 - like it

ironbearxl

Agree with diZzy, but leaning more towards 2.

Belltann

Yup, nr 2 for the go.

gauss

you're only getting started. more thumbs!

Joseph Silverman

2!

Ged

thanks for the support guys! Im leaning toward 2 myself and couldnt help but do little sketches of the kind of character Ive got developing in my head in between my work today.

Ged

heres more thumbnail silhouettes

naruSol

10 immediately jumps out at me. Everything else looks pretty standard by-the-book. Some neat shapes, but "Seen it" for the most part. You could always mix it up enough to make it original of course, but the unique silhouette certainly gives you a leg up.

Ged

I realised that 10 seemed too much like the little grunts in halo 1 to me and kept thinking of ways to better realise concept 2. So heres a little messing about for a half hour.

slosh

i definitely like the things on his arms but it seems like the rest of him is pretty standard despite the ornate detail. it seems like because all the detail is concentrated so close to the body, there isnt much else to pop his silhouette. maybe you could flare some of that shoulder armor? or flare his legs and feet? just suggestions but overall i like your style.

Valandar

It also looks too robotic, which is a bad thing in this contest...

Ged

yeah the last sketch didnt do much for me so I wacked up the volume on the wierd bits and created a more interesting silhouette, what do ya think?

in case people were wondering, hes an organic/foliage based lifeform so he would be kinda like young wood mixed with skin and branches/roots coming out of him and the blue crystal blades are grown directly from his body due to the artifact which is a stone that is inside him and protrudes from his back.

slosh

yea, that looks better! i likes. i would still maybe pop some of that armor off his shoulder. i think the spikey things on his right shoulder cold be bigger...give some assymmetry to him to give him a more unique sihouette. overall though he's lookin great!

Ged

May I introduce Mint. He was a lowly medic in the garrison of a small forest village when the first wormhole appeared. The garrison was completely destroyed by the machines when on a patrol through the region except for Mint who has extrordinary natural healing ability. The town needed a hero and Mint was the natural choice, he was the only choice! So Mint decided that he would do something dangerous that may just bring his village victory in the coming war, he decided to venture into the hills to a cave which crackles with the power of lighting. Other people had seen this place and many had perished trying to enter the cave and find its power source but Mint knew it was his time, he had the natural ability to heal himself from wounds, it was his profession, if anyone could find the lighting artifact it was him. After an hour of torturous journey he discovered the artifact, a glowing stone in the wall with foliage growing all around it. it seemed to call to him and as he put his hands on it it flowed into his body pulsing through his veins like poison...then came the power. He saw crystalline blades sprout from his arms and felt the stone rupture through his back, his body was distorted and he looked an alien to his own eyes. When he returned members of his own village were scared of him but he retained his goal and trained in the arts of his artifact. He found he could extend his blades reach huge distances using hardened air pressure during a swing and anything he hit was blasted with the power of a lightning bolt. Just about anything he hit with the blades exploded on contact. Now hes ready, for the Dominance war!

!picture further down thread!

jerry

Hey, i really like this alot, it a big improvement over the thumbnail which left me kinda cold, esp the head part.

The color version fixed that and then threw some extra juice on it. So things that you might want to look over:

The blades dont really pop like they did before, the color of his clothes is almost the same as his body, you might want to try something darker, i'm not sure. The clothes themselves look very contemporary which takes some of the "magic" away.

That's about it, can't wait to see this in 3d.
Jerry

rollin

colors are cool, but i would push the fabric-color a bit away from the body

Ged

[ QUOTE ]
colors are cool, but i would push the fabric-color a bit away from the body

[/ QUOTE ]

Thanks for the crits guys, yeah I was thinking the same thing myself Im gonna work on the leather/clothing colour. I may go back and do another pass on shadows too, theyre too flat and inconsistent in my opinion, I wanted them to look a bit frazzetta but at the moment it looks more like Joe Mad to me.

Ged

Ok Ive edited it, added more shadows and specular and adjusted the characters wood skin to be more green so that the leather clothing could remain the light leather safari colour I originally intended. I wanted it to look a mix of contemporary, sci fi humanistic alien craetures and magical/fantasy.

Ged

made a simple basemesh and did a quick head sculpt to get better prepared. I gotta make alot of basemeshes now :P.

BoBo_the_seal

very nice start!

jlewis

head looks awesome so far!!

oobersli

very cool. like him without hair tho.

Wells

cargo shorts are ruining it for me.

digging his boots

Ged

Thanks everyone, Ive updated the concept a bit cause the colours were looking weak, a chance to explore photoshops adjustment layers further hehe.

Thanks Bobo and others, I admire your works and its great that I get to have some fun with you people during dominance war.

Sectaurs - what exactly do you dislike about the cargo shorts? hehe, would you prefer more armour? or is it just a bad fashion statement :P. I kind of want this guy to seem like hes come from an army unit in an african forest. The khaki safari mixed with western idea came from that.

oobersil - I like him bald too but I feel I will like him even more with the wierd hair Ive got planned, if it goes as planned it will be like sharp tree roots/bark growing from his head in a grayish colour. Ill see when I get there I guess.

Jaco

Awesome!
Why not use polycount green for the blades and energy cells(?) on his chest?
Oh and the African influence is a nice touch, very unique.

auburenite

I'm liking the blades, they look really organic! The cargo shorts might be too clean. They look freshly washed compared to the other parts of his outfit. Shred them up, rip off a leg, or maybe try patching them up like the upper part of his armor. It could add more texture and continuity with his overall appearance. Other than that keep up the great work!

IronHawk

cool concept Ged.

Blades are sweet. Would be cool to see it with some other colors too.

Not liking the cargo shorts either.
It's like he has some cool armor thats connected to his underwear. He looks under dressed for battle.

Keep after it!

Ged

Thanks again and thanks even more for the crits. Thats a good idea jaco I might put some of that patch/harder leather armour on his leg so its not so vulnerable. As for the colour of the blades/energy its blue because his artifact has lightning/air power. So my logical choice was blue...can green lightning exist though? Heres a colour comparison what do you think?

Ged

any comments on the polycount green or electric blue?

rollin

atm blue fits better.. but maybe an overall color change would allow to use the green ones..

Ged

Ok Im sticking with blue for now. Heres my progress on the base so far. Just trying to block in the forms before I build them up properly using these simple meshes, I dont know if other people do this, I dont get the chance to make characters very often, do people just go straight into building finished peices of armour etc? Theres only one traingle on this dude and its on his bum I cant get rid of it easily.

Arix

Are triangles a huge deal? I actually have quite a few on my base mesh...Doesn't ZBrush take care of them in some way? I'm not a huge Zbrush guru. I think your topology is pretty solid, maybe add some more edgeloops in the head for detail and block out the basic shape of the facial features? Also there looks like some long stretched faces on the feet, you might consider adding an edge loop there as well to not only round out the toe area, but allow for more square polygons for sculpting in ZBrush...(thats assuming your sculpting in Zbrush)

Ged

I dont think triangles are a big problem but if I can avoid them I think its better, Ive heard of people having their whole mesh get triangulated just because of a few triangles but I dont know what caused that, Im sure it will be ok. I dont really intend to scupt the feet as they will be inside boots so I havent done much with them. Hopefully I can get the rest of the armour roughed out by the end of the week. Then I will work on the high poly in between max and mudbox.

Ged

this is quite alot of work for me, Im not used to doing characters like this, more progress:

Ged

update

ScoobyDoofus

Sweet concept. I like how you've rendered the transition of the flesh into the blades and the beginning sculpt on the head looks great!

Heart Murmer

Sweet concept dude, the model is turning out great, keep it up!

Ged

thanks for the encouragement, heres the start on the sculpt.



and I made some stamps to help with the wood like appearance of his muscles and the branches/roots growing from him.

Ged

more sculpting, tried out my new stamps too. Pity my computer isnt really up to going much higher than this, its at 1 million polys but when I subdivide up to 4 million it just gets really unusable.

I could still do much more on this sculpt, what do you think? should I try to match it to the concept more?

Ged

spent some time tightening the sculpt a bit. still needs more work to make it more like roots and branches.

Jaco

Looking good, but the texture isn't coming across as wood atm, more like stone.
I'd get rid of that noise, it's going against the grain of the wood. Just do some normal sculpting and try to define individual strains of muscle/tendon/root.
You've got a nice sense of flow in your concept though, so I'd just copy what's going on there.
Sorry if I don’t make sense, it’s late.
Keep it up!

Ged

thanks Jaco, yeah I was thinking the same thing, it means a lot more work but it should be worth it for the quality. Ive spent an hour on it already and I can see it will be better if its closer to the concept but in an hour all Ive managed to sculpt is the chest and a bit of the arms, lots of work!

Rick Stirling

Have a wee look at Man Thing:

JFletcher

the thumb is way too long, notice in your model how it ends where the fingers do.

looks nice.

edit:

no wait other way round, make the fingers longer.

Ged

thanks for the crits jfletcher and rick, I will edit the fingers...somehow, maybe only when its all done and I can adjust the low poly. I knew there was something wrong with them but couldnt figure out what it was.

Rick, yeah my character is starting to get a little bit of man-thing style branches and details now that Im sculpting all the details on and not using stamps. Im thinking a mix between man-thing and this jeff murchie concepts skin/bark details and texture.

http://bp2.blogger.com/_d-N1ING5g6M/RjE5dZg2M1I/AAAAAAAAAC8/7T2_BPCz4MM/s1600-h/Murchie_Jeff_Ent.jpg

Ged

ok almost there on the sculpt, the blades are still placeholders and I think I will make some geometry and stretch it over the blades and sculpt it to make them look more organic.

ironbearxl

I like where you're going with the detailing of the body, keep it up!

Ged

Thanks Ironbear

Working on the armour this weekend, its tough sticking to the concept with all these turbosmooth's but I want to be able to sculpt it later.


I think the over shoulder armour plate is gonna have to go! what do you think?