DWIV - 3D - Liam Cullen

Liam Cullen

EDIT: Latest.



hey all, just reserving a spot in the comp. I'm still concepting my character but have a pretty good idea now of what I want to aim for. I fancied trying my hand at one of the Abominations and have settled on a kind of human-mimicking praying mantis creature. I haven't got much to show right now but wanted to get the thread going so here's a rough idea of the shape I'm going for.

....there's a reason I'm not a concept artist
Right, now I've start the thread I have no excuse to not get working and updating! Let's see how this goes folks.

AimBiZ

Needs more sihlouette! Push the forms, and sharper shapes would benefit the design more.

Imo, would also like to see some thumbnails for you to explore the possibilities.

Just my 2 cents. Good luck!

Abe_hokage

hehe, nice to see you joined! will have to get started as well!
gives me some motivation haha! good luck Liam, and it sounds like a great idea!
Abe

Belltann

Haha hey mate, you joined. Woho! Love the sketch man. Topnotch!

Abe_hokage

oops
double post

o well, another good luck then

Liam Cullen

@AimBiZ Thanks for the comments, I shall indeed do as you suggested and tidy up the design and sihlouette before starting proper. I really just wanted to get the rough idea up so I didn't put off starting any longer, and to make sure no one else got to post a similar idea before me!

@Belltann Yes! Finally made it here, now I just need to start some proper work, but the first step has been made.

@Abe_hokage Get a move on, if you leave it any longer to start someone might get your ideas before you *cough, cough*

Abe_hokage

lol
actually i made another concept (abomination this time) so might tidy them up and post...even i f i dont go for this one
need to move my **** a bit...

Abe_hokage

pressure pressure
post post! lol

Liam Cullen

good point, been sketching I'll get something scanned in tonight.
Been thinking about different ideas too, I want to make sure I'm 100% happy with the idea I go for which I think is making me hesitate from doing work. :S

Liam Cullen

Still haven't really started on this yet, I've got all of next week off work so I'll get cracking properly then. In the mean time I thought I'd stick up a couple of sketches so you can at least see where I might be headed.

I haven't drawn for ages, a while I'm enjoying the experience it is extremely depressing to realise that I really can no longer draw. It comes back to you over time, right? .... right?

Abe_hokage

hey liam! good progress so far!the head reminds me of alien, but the rest is very nice...
you started on the modeling already?
A

Liam Cullen

I wasn't expecting to start today but found some time to give myself a head start tomorrow. I'm going to make a simple base mesh, trying to keep it loose so I can play around with scale and features till I'm happy with the general shape, then make it beautiful in ZBrush.



I'll finish off the torso and legs tomorrow and see how I'm feeling before I start adding any more detail to the head as I may find I want to change it. :S

coldkodiak

reminds me of the vore from quake.

could be really cool, let's see some more!

Liam Cullen

Cheers coldkodiak I'll get some more up tomorrow.
I played Quake years ago but didn't recall that monster, after a paniced google search I'm glad to see that thing only has three limbs!

Abe_hokage

looking cool, although prefered his position on the sketches

Liam Cullen

Ooook, so haven't updated for a few days.
I did a little more work on my original idea and realised it wasn't 100% what I wanted to do. I think I'll return to it in the future, but don't think it's something I could get up to the standard Dominance War demands given the time left.

I had a think about the sort of thing I'd like to do and decided to try something that would fit in a Lovecraft story, moving away from insect to tentacle. I started thinking of something along the scale of Dagon or Cthulhu but couldn't really come up with anything that didn't look a bit like other peoples' visions of such creatures:

As a result I decided to scale it back a little and came up with the thought of having a Lovecraftian creature that acted as a parasite, taking over it's host in an obvious way. From this I came up with the notion of having a corpse with pertruding tentacles on the front and other visible sections of the crature on the back, or another entry point to its victim:

I did a quick mockup of a head to try and get an indication of whether or no I'd be able to do many tentacles without it completely killing my poly count and I think I should be ok:

I'm off on holiday for the Easter weekend to a little cottage, so I'll take my scetch book with me and work out exactly how this is going to turn out there. Wish me luck (I'll need it!).

SuicideCrotchShot

now were talking, excessive oral tenticles!....More Oral tenticles! ha keep it coming man its starting to get fun

gavinneil

Great sketches mate. I don't like the multiple tentacles, but that top left sketch you've done with the four chunky tounge like things is awesome. aim for that in my opinion.

Liam Cullen

@SuicideCrothchShot - it's so hard to know at what point they become excessive. I fear the only way to know is to show them to an animated Japanese school girl and judge it on just how fast she runs away.

@gavinneil - Cheers for the input, I think I'm with you on sticking with the chunky tounge-like-things. Let's see where it goes. Just spent 4 days in the hills with Abe, oddly, not so much work was going on. :S

Liam Cullen

Long time, no update!
I did some more work on the tentacle style guy and started to take the low res mesh into ZBrush to play about with some with more. I thought he was way less ambitious than the original idea but I was confident I could get him done in time. After a few days away from him and coming back to it, he just seemed really generic and un-inspired...



I'd forgotten that it was a bank holiday this weekend, so decided that rather than pressing on with him I'd bit the bullet and go back to the original idea and just see how far I could get with that. And I'm glad I did. I actually managed to get most of the base mesh done yesterday and will spend today tidying up bits and pieces before taking it into ZBrush.



The legs are the first thing I need to work on, they need to be fattened up a fair bit, and I'll possibly put some joint detail in at this stage too.

Abe_hokage

i like the spider model...would be nice to ahve some mechanical bits on it..btu time is runnign out
keep it up!

Liam Cullen

@ Abe_hokage - Thanks man, yeah that would be nice but as you say I think the time just isn't there anymore.

Got to do a bit more today and started adding some detail in ZBrush.

Abe_hokage

hey Liam! good progress! one think you shoudl look at is its internal structure: he looks in some part like he has bo bones (especially teh spine part with th eribs going insde, if you are going for a "snake type body, maybe using this type of ref:
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2088/2148435433_5fd4d637cc.jpg?v=0

in general, i'd try to imagine what would be the bone/muscle structure of my character to work out the flesh.
just my 2 cents
keep it up

Liam Cullen

hey! Yeah that's a very good idea, I hadn't really given it much thought to be honest. I tend to just think about the exterior, I think that just goes to show both why I'm not a character artist, and just how shallow I am

Liam Cullen

Well it looks like I'm not going to get to finish this in time
Work and other complications have meant I haven't had as much time as I was expecting to texture. I will finish it off as it'll be nice to complete it. I guess the lesson is to start earlier next year!

I've got the low res mesh down to about 6,500 tris and unwrapped it all: