Character model redux (Focused Crits Please)

Jeremy-S

I've gone through some of my older models, and I think the textures needed some work, so I did that. What do you guys think? Thoughts, suggestions, ideas, whatever. I'll take anything you got to say, good or bad.

First two:

Abscess: The big fat guy with the armor. A demon, pretty much dead, and very evil.

The Seer: Other-world mystic guy, the kind that sees into the future.




Last Two:

Butterball: Designed by Simon "spiderzero" Lee (www.bigbluetree.com). When talking to Simon about him, he said he's really a creature that lives in swampy-like areas, and is a scavenger. Never kills things itself, just eats what others have already killed. This guy is probably my favorite design in ages.





So again, any thoughts, ideas, and focused crits would be great. Thanks all.

woogity

positive points!!! the head design on your mystic is very interesting, sort of del toro's critter from hellboy 2 meets hammer head shark idea and i think it was executed pretty well. the design of the sash pierced into his hands is a cool idea< play with it more, some more piercings that attach it to his back wouls be sweet!> also he could have fun dangley bits from the flanks of that head of his. lots of possibilites. i realy like the caged mouth area on the fat one, like somebody is putting him on a forced diet. he has a nice toony style to him as well. also some areas of the sculpting on the mystic's chest are quite lovely, others are kinda hard to read.


CC: your mystic's legs are quite short if your aiming for human style proportions. same with the fat fella, but thats not usually a big problem for heavier characters as it tends to give them some style. you could also add some color to the shadows on the mystic at least his texture screams ao with multiply, this is very noticeable in the neck, and also in the little divets in his forehead area. on the big guy i think his armor around his waist could use some texture and remodeling work, its just very grey right now and its hard to read any forms to it the concept that went into this in general while certainly strong i feel could be worked on a bit, these guys dont really have any story to them from what we can get by looking at them.

good luck man hope the crits are helpful!!

-Woog

Jeremy-S

Thanks, woogity. I'll try and address each of your comments here.

On the positive points: Thanks for the comments on the mystic guy. I'm glad he reminds you of a del toro creature, I love that guys work. About the piercings on his back suggestion, they're already there I'll post a back shot of him in a bit. The dangly bits are a great idea, and I'll be looking into those for sure.

And the crits: I'm not sure about the legs looking too short, it might be from the angle in the marmoset engine, but then again, they might just be too short . I'm not sure what you mean by "color shadows". I always figured those were done with lighting, not textures, but if I'm wrong, please lemme know. I will try and tone down the AO/multiply look, though. And I'll also work on the armor for the fat guy.

One thing I noticed a little bit ago, was the almost total lack of detail in the fat guy's (Abscess's) spec map. I'm fixing that right now. I guess I accidentally deleted the map I had before, and I'm stuck with an older version now. I'm hoping that'll add some life to him when I'm finished with it.

anyway, keep them crits and comments coming. I'm interested in anyone's thoughts. Thanks for looking.

Art-Machine

First of all they're technically solid and interesting designs. But my immediate thought when opening this thread was "All these characters look like kids.". Maybe it's the size of the props on their outfits, or the size of the hands, or shortness of limbs. All i can tell you for sure is, something's making them look like mutated kids.

Pope Adam

I felt the same way as Art-Machine. The top 2 guys have short legs compared to the rest of their body. It would be an easy fix to lengthen their limbs. Perhaps it's just the perspective camera?

Textures look solid man. I suck at characters but these are super cool designs.!

Jeremy-S

Thanks for the comments guys, and I can see what you're talking about now that it's been pointed out. I kinda think it's something to do with marmoset, so I'm rendering out some max versions, just to see if there's a perspective angle thing that's needing changed in my marmoset settings. I'll post when they're done.

Jeremy-S

Alright, got some renders from max, and I think they look quite different, but then again, I've been staring at these things all day, and have probably lost some perspective on them. So please, lemme know what you think. thanks.

renderhjs

they don't look like humans or living being but rather made out of plastic or wood and just painted slightly.
I first had the impression of nurbs models because everything was to perfectly smoothed into curves just like casual NURBS models.

I think what the models are missing are detail textures that show the pores, show the specular properties, maybe some veins and skin details - like now they have this airbrush on plastic model feeling.

maybe try them on backgrounds - to see if they blend well as living characters or rather statues.

Jeremy-S

thanks for the comments, renderhjs. I'm not quite getting what you mean with the nurbs comment, could you explain that one again?

And I'll see what I can do about some detail textures. Thanks for the suggestion

Jeremy-S

Alright, made some changes to the Seer's textures, and lighting and stuff. And for the proportion issue, I made a side by side comparison, the left in Marmoset, the right in 3DS Max. Still not sure what's giving that "kids" look....





Any thoughts, or suggestions, or whatever, are welcome. Thanks for looking

Pope Adam

Hey Jeremy

I've cut out your dude and overlaid him on vitruvian man (supposedly is man's perfect proportion)

When I match Seer's torso to the same size as Vitruvian man's torso (top of shoulders down to waist) his legs fall drastically short, and his neck is exceptionally long (the neck is not what I see as what is making him look child like though).

As children our torsos and bodies are approximately the same length but as we age, our legs become marginally longer than the length of our torso, hence his childlike proportions at this stage, his length from waist to top of head is almost exactly equal from the length of waist to bottom of feet, making him look stumpy like a dwarf or kid.

Hope this helps.



these proportions would make him look taller, more imposing and even creepier... less childlike



me thinks

Jeremy-S

Yeah I think I see what you mean now. I have no idea how that happened, but whatever, it happened. I will fix it. I do still kinda think the marmoset FOV might be off, and kind of messing with the proportions, seeing how different they are in the comparison I posted.

Anyway, I'll get on those changes right now. Thanks for taking the time, man, it's much appreciated.

renderhjs

having a black cape and a black background is not so smart- maybe add a light gradient in it or make it dark gray?

anyway a mock up test

tried to give the skin some color and pigments. The thing on his head attached looks to me different design wise as the rest of the body so I gave it a different colors (like a chicken comb). I disliked the cape since it looked like a plastic (garbage bag type) thing (stiff and not textile alike at all).
his hands and feet are about 80% of what they were before (they are to big in yours). Thats it - but I am not sure if everything is really better -

just some suggestions

Jeremy-S

Think I got it this time. At least I hope it's looking better anyway.




I'll keep chugging away at his textures for a while. His, and the fatty-fat-fat's textures. I think I might start all over with the fat guys textures, and see what I can come up with then. Anyway, thanks for the suggestions and comments. Keep 'em coming.


[EDIT] renderhjs, looks like we posted almost at the same time, so I didn't get to see your comments. As a side note, when I hit post reply, and the image I thought I posted suddenly had a weird orange halo thing on his head, freaked me out.

Anyway, thanks for the paintover. I think the hand and feet sizes are something else that's contributing to the kid-like look as well. About the color variations, and pigment in the skin, yeah, you're totally right on that too. I really think the cape is something he needs to have, but you're right again with the garbage bag comment. I'll try some other ideas with the textures, and see if anything else works.

Thanks a TON for the comments and paintovers, that's really the type of info I've been looking for. I'll get to work on those changes right away.

Jeremy-S

Texture update time! Lot's of changes in this one, but most of them are subtle. I changed the skin a lot, as well as the spec.





I gotta figure out why marmoset wants to show that big fat ugly normal map seam in his chin, but it doesn't show up on max.

Pope Adam

read this thread... don Ott had some insightful things. might help you out a bit:

http://boards.polycount.net/showthread.php?p=937891

Jeremy-S

Finally got some time to work on him again, and the reset x-form thing didn't work. Still trying to figure out what's going on, and how to fix it. But thanks for the link, I'll remember to reset everytime now.

Pope Adam

I'm not sure but it looks like the left side's UV's might not be completely straight. It appears that the texture is showing almost correctly, but it slightly stretched downward on the left. It's hard to tell and I could be wrong but go back in your UV editor and see if those tris on the lower part of his left side mouth and chin are correctly aligned to the right side.

I could be looking at it wrong though.