Frazetta style Conan armour

Ged

Just a bit of fun, Ive got the Frank Frazetta ICON art book and was inspired to try and make some of the armour seen on the cover or at least emulate the colour scheme and style. Might also make a male warrior to go with this, not sure.

the reference


and heres the armour so far

MetKiller Joe

Your UV template needs a bit more work. There is a lot of space you could be using that is just being wasted at the moment. With that extra space you could give it more detail.

Ged

MetKiller Joe wrote: »

Your UV template needs a bit more work. There is a lot of space you could be using that is just being wasted at the moment. With that extra space you could give it more detail.

I agree. any specific tips on how to achieve this?

Im really not using the 2048x2048 as much as I could and it would probably look similar at 1024x1024, so there is still room for alot more detail even with the not so great uv map.

d00kie

nice! :thumbup:

A few things:
It looks like clay to me at this stage. Everything is so soft. Sharpen up the normal map maybe and it could possibly fix that.
Add some noisiness to the spec map maybe to break it up some.
I'd say go back and use a harder brush on the diffuse map. I can clearly see your brush strokes on the axe and it stands out ever so gently. You could break that up as well.

either way, very good start i'd say.

3DK.P.

Well first you could definitely scale up that one piece in the top right corner. And that black blob could definitely be scaled down if it's going to be just that flat color. It's almost like a game of tetris really. You try and rotate and scale up wherever you can to get the most out of your UV space.

Ged

3DK.P. wrote: »

Well first you could definitely scale up that one piece in the top right corner. And that black blob could definitely be scared down if it's going to be just that flat color. It's almost like a game of tetris really. You try and rotate and scale up wherever you can to get the most out of your UV space.

yeah I think I got a bit obsessed with giving things equal texture space using the checker texture and forgot to just cram it all in more.

Thanks dookie, Ill look into that, I did turn sharpen right down on marmoset to get everything to look more soft and painterly so that might be adding to the soft clay look you speak of. Im wondering wether to use some subtle overlay photo textures but Im a little scared that would ruin the effect as all textures are hand painted at the moment

here it is with sharpen on in the mighty marmoset

Mark Dygert

That looks great! I love that helmet.

But I agree about the UV layout. The axe blade might have benefited from a few more pixels.

Ged

Vig wrote: »

But I agree about the UV layout.

thanks! sweet layout vig! I never thought of rotating the helmet like that, I have to admit uvmapping is probably my weakest and most disliked part of the game art process :P

Ged

just about done now trying rendering light and post effect setups I kinda like the colour in xnormal but marmoset has better rendering and post effects, heres xnormal


and heres marmoset
pics taken out due to bandwidth

achmedthesnake

by CROM! ah its all right - i'd like to see more accurate ornamentation on the helmut as pictured - meh but im a frazetta/rob.e.howard purist....


can i haz lamenation of teh wimenz?

Vrav

Pretty sweet, Ged. For future reference, an' maybe this is just my opinion, but a lot of the wear on the axehead looks a bit lumpy to me. Sculpted detail can get that way pretty easily, dookie already mentioned a clay appearance but basically dents, chips and scratches on a solid blade or haft would be a bit sharper, as in chiseled, whereas soft dents would be more accurate on something like the shield or helmet that is just a formed, possibly thin sheet of metal, like a car body would be dented.

Other'n'at, diffuse looks loads better, love the straightforward geometry. Also, the horns and wood on the axe looked a lot better back in the first picture... less gloss/spec. Specular maps are great for implying material variety, but too much can make it look pretty plastic IMO. Oh, and nice subject/style to replicate. I dig it. :}

Ged

Vrav wrote: »

Pretty sweet, Ged. For future reference, an' maybe this is just my opinion, but a lot of the wear on the axehead looks a bit lumpy to me. Sculpted detail can get that way pretty easily, dookie already mentioned a clay appearance but basically dents, chips and scratches on a solid blade or haft would be a bit sharper, as in chiseled, whereas soft dents would be more accurate on something like the shield or helmet that is just a formed, possibly thin sheet of metal, like a car body would be dented.

Other'n'at, diffuse looks loads better, love the straightforward geometry. Also, the horns and wood on the axe looked a lot better back in the first picture... less gloss/spec. Specular maps are great for implying material variety, but too much can make it look pretty plastic IMO. Oh, and nice subject/style to replicate. I dig it. :}

thanks vrav

I drew some lumps on the axehead and then used the flatten brush on them hoping it would look hard/chiselled but I guess that isnt the effect it come out with at the end, Ill have to work on my texture sculpting more. Will show the highpolys soon.

The axe, horns, wood specular isnt majorly different to in that first pic just added more grit and colouration, might just be the angle of the light and the rendering making it look different.

Achmedthesnake, thanks haha I tried to see whats going on in that painting but I only have that book cover to go from so it wasnt easy. Got lots of respect for frazetta and his elite painting skills

Ged

done, thanks for all the tips, got some good ideas for next time.



highpoly

Ged

decided to do conan using this frazetta pic as a loose reference
http://frankfrazetta.org/images/frank_frazetta_warrior.jpg

nrek

Looks like your off to a good start with him Ged. Once you get the hair on him im sure it will really help with the likeness. I think his body is too big right now, in the painting conan has a pretty big head. His shoulders are also on the wide side, in the painting he seems to be more of a compact/stocky type of buff guy, not just a hulkish strong man.

Ged

nrek wrote: »

I think his body is too big right now, in the painting conan has a pretty big head. His shoulders are also on the wide side, in the painting he seems to be more of a compact/stocky type of buff guy, not just a hulkish strong man.

agree with that nrek, Im fighting against my urges to just make him a typical superhero/spacemarine build, I think it will make a more unique piece if I can get closer to the original style so Ill work on the things you mentioned soon.

Fang

Keep going the way you are, this is good stuff.

skylebones

Ged, this is looking awesome. Keep it up!

Ged

thanks for the encouragement guys.
I changed his proportions, mostly the head and features there to look more like the frazetta painting I referenced earlier.
havent had any time to refine the forms more and add detail.

Ged

sculpt pretty much done might go on to retopo now

John Warner

hah. love the wide face.

butt_sahib

OO yeah, loving those proportions!

Ged

thanks butt and john, done the lowpoly on to textureing

Ged

I started texturing and then noticed some really bad flaws in his head shape and eyes and tried to go back and fix it but now he looks like some kind of crazy man.

* edit - well I kind of fixed it with texture painting, it will never be quite what I wanted but I guess Ill treat it as a lesson.

Ged

textures very wip

Ged

its getting there

dejawolf

its looking good.
maybe tone down the lines going to the eye and by the mouth.
quick paintover after the frazetta painting:

also reduce the height of the eye and mouth.

ThatDon

I like your last wip image and dejawolf's paintover on the face is spot on, good luck!

achmedthesnake

By Crom's hairy orbs!

vvvery nice work mann, now give him sum pantene shiny locks and he's good to go.....

Ged

thanks for the comments guys
dejawolf the paintover really helped, Ive been looking at him too long and it was hard to see what was wrong. That said I couldnt implement all the changes because the normal map started to get screwed up if I contorted his face too far but I did try to make him more like your paintover.
heres some playing around in marmoset, could be final Im not sure about the hair though.

kodiak

I know it's probably too late, but those horns look really dinky. I wish you had gone with the other helmet.

Ged

kodiak wrote: »

I know it's probably too late, but those horns look really dinky. I wish you had gone with the other helmet.

yeah I wasnt even planning on making this character, when it started I was just going to do the armour.

dejawolf

the last shot with the frazetta lighting is looking really cool.

Ged

final pics, hope you like it tried to get a variety of frazetta mood in there.

Ged

this went off the front page without any comment or crit, anyone have anything to say before this thread disappears into the great obscurity of polycount?

nrek

I really like the painted look you managed to get with the image, and overall he looks pretty cool but there are a number of little things that kinda take away from him. It looks like there is a normal error on his elbow/forearm area. The hair is too dark and blocky, like a low res alpha mask and not an opacity map. And I know you were going for a lower tricount but the silhouette of the fingers bugs me. Would be cool to see a wire shot .

Ged

nrek wrote: »

I really like the painted look you managed to get with the image, and overall he looks pretty cool but there are a number of little things that kinda take away from him. It looks like there is a normal error on his elbow/forearm area. The hair is too dark and blocky, like a low res alpha mask and not an opacity map. And I know you were going for a lower tricount but the silhouette of the fingers bugs me. Would be cool to see a wire shot .

thanks, good idea I will post wires when I can. I agree with all your comments, I didnt realise quite how low poly he was until I tried to pose him and the elbow looked a bit wierd and the fingers look to chunky. The hair only looks nasty because of marmosets alpha settings otherwise I would have used an opacity mask. It is only 7206 tris for the whole scene

achmedthesnake

now all you need is some nubile scantily clad wimen surrounding him.....nice work

- pity the low poly shows up when you pose - maybe 'slighty' edit the mesh in max w/ preserve uv's on (or off i'm not sure witch) and get those vertices in the right spots for deformation (especially the fingers) - - unleessss he's a Cimmerian piano player...then he needs the delicate long fingers....