(Imagine him with a large crown of flames and fire crawling over both of his hands. Molten lava will stream from his eyes and mouth down the front of his body. His lower torso will be glowing from within by a white hot inner fire. He will be weilding a large molten sword and be standing upon a heaping mound of melting gold.
The pose is generic and the mesh is symmetrical for now, just so it is easier to sculpt.
I'll post some earlier progress shots and the concept when I get back from work.
great to see you round these parts again mrrogers and it goes without saying that your work has improved commensurate to the time you've been away. nice work.
Thanks for the feedback so far! I wanted his form to compliment the whole fire/flame thing, so I picked specific points on his mesh that would most likely be consumed in flame. Hopefully it will translate well once I get the alpha planes in there.
So he's going to be covered in scales? At least thats what I gathered from your reference, maybe you can have the areas on fire all peeled back with the charred flesh underneath. Are you going to sculpt any details to break up the symmetry?
Why did I model the arms in a pose? I don't know, to hold my interest I guess. Sometimes when I work on a character, I jump ahead a bit if I am excited with the progression. This pose was dynamic enough for me to stay away from wanting to rig him too early. Although I am itching to get his Uv's going so i can start texturing.
Made lots of changes...mainly proportions, like broader shoulders, thicker arms and legs, and a new face. I wasn't liking the skull thing, plus it kept looking like a rabbit from a distance. Need to start working on the artifact and weapons!
I mapped a low poly version added rendered out the normals and a dirt/ao map so that I could concept out some quick textures but man...that was a really bad bad experiment. Nearly lost my drive to work on him after that, but I am back and hope to pick up the pace.
Been listening to the new NIN album while working on this guy...great ambient album. I hardly know it is there most times but it helps set the mood.
Sweet sculpting, the broader shoulders are nice. Minor crits, it feels like there should be more tension in the pecs, and the torso could be a bit longer, could just be personal taste though.
Hey, you got some cool stuff going on here. The first thought that kind of jumped into my mind though was that maybe there is too much detail, and alot of the detail seems kind of arbitrary. As in, there was some empty space on the model, and you just kind of sculpted some stuff there to fill up the space. Alot of anatomy kind of doeasn't really make sense or seem necessary. Not that it has to look human, but it should look functional. I understand that he will be all aflame, so you definitely have a lot of room to take some liberties with his anatomy and go with some unique shapes and what not, but maybe try to get those shapes and ideas to look a bit more functional. I hope I don't sound too harsh or critical. Just sharing my first impression, for what it's worth. And I'm not exactly an awesome artist, so it might not be worth much. Either way, it's lookin cool and I look forward to seeing it finished in all it's fiery splendor.
fattkid, that is GREAT feedback and you are one of the only people I've talked to that has brought that up!
I will say that it definitely isn't detail for detail sake, but then again, I am the only one who has the complete "picture" in my mind, so I can see what the end result will be. If I can't translate that through the model then I am definitely not doing my job. The idea really isn't that he will be covered in flame...there will be fire in specific regions...but what I was trying to go for was more of an active lava flow feel. Lots of melting surface that has cooled and will be glowing hot in the crevices more than the larger surface area. I'll post some images that help illustrate the feel I am going for...maybe I just haven't exactly achieved it yet.
yeah....i think i can visualize what your going for, and if what I'm visualizing is along the lines of what your going for, I'd definitley say your on the right track....and you do have a lot of room for creative sculpting and more abstract lava/rock etc. shapes, and being anatomically correct or functional isn't a priority in alot of areas. At the same time, incorporating anatomical/funtional design into the model, and using anatomy and function to guide your design decisions, may help "sell" the character more effectively if you know what I mean. Like, say, a shoulder, doesn't have to look like an actual shoulder, but using a realistic shoulder as inspiration for whatever shape or design you come up with for the shoulder will make it more convincing, even in a subtle way that the viewer might not quite be aware of. (Human anatomy awareness is ingrained into our psyche so deeply that it is essentially subconscious, so a realistic shoulder based design that doesn't really look too "shoulderly" will say "shoulder" to the viewer, without them actually consciously even thinking "shoulder". Does that make sense? ) Despite my long winded reply, I'm definitely not saying anything needs to be changed. Really, it'll be a bit of a delicate balancing act I think.
Mostly I'm just taking the time to reply cuz I think this is a cool design and I think if it all comes together it will be pretty cool and I'm looking forward to it. Keep it up O.K. I'll stop typing now.
I loved the old abalone shell thing I had going on in the update earlier this morning, but the reflection map just wasn't reading in a static image. I have been playing with the contrast as well...the textures were turning out to be toohigh contrast and while I was digging the results, the style just wasn't drumming up a response. We'll see if this update does anything...it is so quiet in my thread...
the textureeffect is realy nice.. but i would love to see some more colorwork
there is a lot of skin detail, but if you remove the normalmap.. whats than?
just a color-fade is maybe not enough..
and you could split both of them a bit with (maybe) some different brightness values
so they are not such an uniform block
but i liked the strong colors!
this is some great entry.. it just needs some slight colorpushing imo
I'll post the diffuse and some other updates later this afternoon. I definitely have details in the diffuse map that aren't in the normal...
I've been messing with meta particles in max, using some of GLU3d's particle systems. I think I am going to use it to simulate lowing dripping from the guy's arms and legs onto the pedestal. I'll be taking a snapshot of the simulated lava flow to turn it into a poly mesh.
So, my tris count was ridiculously high, I was just looking at polies. Had to cut alot of tris, now his base mesh is all triangulated and messy. Dammit! Got him down though, thankfully.
Yeah. make them look to each other, that will give some finished look to this picture.
Models, textures, rendering, all are done very very well! Great job!
Replies
(Imagine him with a large crown of flames and fire crawling over both of his hands. Molten lava will stream from his eyes and mouth down the front of his body. His lower torso will be glowing from within by a white hot inner fire. He will be weilding a large molten sword and be standing upon a heaping mound of melting gold.
The pose is generic and the mesh is symmetrical for now, just so it is easier to sculpt.
I'll post some earlier progress shots and the concept when I get back from work.
No crits
Mood
Anatomy
Texture
Concept - Sketch
Some minor changes. Updated the "crown" a bit, wasn't digging the batman head. Played around with his shoulders a bit as well.
very nice overall.. but would like to see a concept to see where you are going
edit: my bad, I didn't see it ^^
btw, why did you model the arms like that?
Made lots of changes...mainly proportions, like broader shoulders, thicker arms and legs, and a new face. I wasn't liking the skull thing, plus it kept looking like a rabbit from a distance. Need to start working on the artifact and weapons!
I mapped a low poly version added rendered out the normals and a dirt/ao map so that I could concept out some quick textures but man...that was a really bad bad experiment. Nearly lost my drive to work on him after that, but I am back and hope to pick up the pace.
Been listening to the new NIN album while working on this guy...great ambient album. I hardly know it is there most times but it helps set the mood.
I will say that it definitely isn't detail for detail sake, but then again, I am the only one who has the complete "picture" in my mind, so I can see what the end result will be. If I can't translate that through the model then I am definitely not doing my job. The idea really isn't that he will be covered in flame...there will be fire in specific regions...but what I was trying to go for was more of an active lava flow feel. Lots of melting surface that has cooled and will be glowing hot in the crevices more than the larger surface area. I'll post some images that help illustrate the feel I am going for...maybe I just haven't exactly achieved it yet.
Mostly I'm just taking the time to reply cuz I think this is a cool design and I think if it all comes together it will be pretty cool and I'm looking forward to it. Keep it up O.K. I'll stop typing now.
I loved the old abalone shell thing I had going on in the update earlier this morning, but the reflection map just wasn't reading in a static image. I have been playing with the contrast as well...the textures were turning out to be toohigh contrast and while I was digging the results, the style just wasn't drumming up a response. We'll see if this update does anything...it is so quiet in my thread...
there is a lot of skin detail, but if you remove the normalmap.. whats than?
just a color-fade is maybe not enough..
and you could split both of them a bit with (maybe) some different brightness values
so they are not such an uniform block
but i liked the strong colors!
this is some great entry.. it just needs some slight colorpushing imo
and a logo
I've been messing with meta particles in max, using some of GLU3d's particle systems. I think I am going to use it to simulate lowing dripping from the guy's arms and legs onto the pedestal. I'll be taking a snapshot of the simulated lava flow to turn it into a poly mesh.
love how you used the smiley in the end
Does this work at all for the poster? I don't know if I should use my original pose or a new one just for the poster...gah!
Too mushy?
on that last pic the pose of the 'girl' looks a bit static though
Models, textures, rendering, all are done very very well! Great job!