Minotaur for portfolio

Gabriel Fors

Hi guys!

I'm currently working on a portfolio for when I head out on my internships(I'm studying at Playground Squad, Falun, Sweden) and I'm looking for some tips and feedback.

This is a minotaur I made based on Paul Bonner's "The minotaur" sort of as a way to work from a difficult (and awsome) concept picture. It's not perfect, but I'm kind of pleased with it.

Minotaur





Axe closeup




I'm gonna remove some of the grunge from the axehead "shaft". It's a bit cluttered.

Lay it on me.

conte

hah man, that's awesome!!

Tumerboy

HA HA! Dude, that's the greatest minotaur I've seen in a very long time. Tons of character. nice job man.

jocose

I like it, good job.

Mark Dygert

Thats awesome nice work!

Crits:
- The nostrils kind of bug me, too much build up around the rim and they don't really look like they go anywhere, they're like big moon craters.
The hair on the back could be blended a wee bit better, probably just darkening the diffuse underneath or painting some subtle hair on the diffuse of the body. Also lightening up the hair the farther away from the body will help soften it up and help recreate how light effects fur.
- The horns are a little weird, they have a sunken depression. Horns do have that depression but its normally under the surface of the skin, you only see it when you strip off the flesh.
- His pose is a bit off balance, looks like he might fall forward.

Other than those minor things is awesome really nice work!

Minos

Thanks for the tribute, I love it!

TheWinterLord

Sweet man! It got a pretty cool style thanks to the texturing :P you pretty much nailed it!

I love Paul Bonners work. :P

Gabriel Fors

Thank you for all the comments! I put a lot of time and effort into this guy, so I'm glad It's appreciated.

And yes, Paul Bonner is the greatest. But a painter of easy-to-model characters he ain't.

Vig wrote: »

- The nostrils kind of bug me, too much build up around the rim and they don't really look like they go anywhere, they're like big moon craters.
[snippety]
- The horns are a little weird, they have a sunken depression. Horns do have that depression but its normally under the surface of the skin, you only see it when you strip off the flesh.

Both of these could arguably be "blamed" on the concept but that wouldn't be entirely fair. I can see your point on the nostrils not going anywhere, though, I'll try to fix a bit in the texture to lessen that impression.

Vig wrote: »

The hair on the back could be blended a wee bit better, probably just darkening the diffuse underneath or painting some subtle hair on the diffuse of the body. Also lightening up the hair the farther away from the body will help soften it up and help recreate how light effects fur.
[der schnippen]
- His pose is a bit off balance, looks like he might fall forward.!

That's a great idea, and you're totally correct, respectively. I'll toy with the hair a bit and look into making him look a bit more stable. I'll probably just lean him back a bit, I plan on making a base for the model anyhow. I'm tired of people telling me that he seems to be standing on a biscuit.

Mark Dygert

wow yea that would be tough to model from wow kudos for getting it as close as you did.

I think if you pinch the back of the nostrils so they're more of a paisley (half yin/yang shape) and maybe tuck the lower part under the upper a bit you could pull it together pretty well, but that probably means rebaking and some texture clean up, I wouldn't hold it against you if you didn't ha =D

I really like your spec on the axe.

Kind of odd that your normal maps have a black background around the UV islands, it looks like you padded things well so it might not be an issue at this res. If it was a game asset you might want to further guard against the void creeping into your seams.

Gabriel Fors

Thanks. I'll see what I can do with the nose, that area has a realatively high almount of geometry so I can probably grab and drag around a bit without getting any noticable stretching, if I'm careful.

The black background on the normalmaps come from baking them with xNormal.

mLink

That's a good looking minotaur

Kovac

Amazing work man! The beauty shot has tons of style. Thanks for linking Paul Bonner's work as well, I had never heard of him and his stuff just rocks.

Belltann

Aw man, ive been thinking off doing the paul bonner minotaur to. Darn it Great job mate. Really captured the face and horns. The only thing that i think would make it pop a bit more is to beef up the rings, that the runes hang from, and beef up the edges of the armours.

poopinmymouth

Loving this. I'd say the only weak spot I can see, is the back fur is really kind of bland. I'd put in some stylized chunks of fur were it do over time.

Also the base is kind of holding back the final presentation. It's a bit too plain and the lack of shadows to anchor him down is kind of lame.

Harry

http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z264/gabrielforsen/breakdown.jpg
I like how these bottom two pictures are secular, wouldnt want to offend any religious communities.

Aw man im a douche. But someone had to point it out

hobodactyl

I love it! There are some valid crits that others have already brought up, but it's very well done and captures Bonner's style, which is impressive Really looking forward to what else you create

StJoris

Ah yes, good 'ol secular lighted, no fuzzy religious parameters.

Joking aside, this looks really good. Maybe darken the diffuse so your spec comes out a bit more popping.

edit: oh crap, jokes already been made, damnit.

Max

Snyggotaur!!! I was only wondering, since I've seen this beast from his cradle. What is a 'secular' map? Something I missed?