Hero and sidekick project. Texture critique and improvements

Doctorandrogyne

I'm working a project for a class. the basis is a Hero character and his sidekick. Its based on me and a friends D&D characters, the big guy is a Human barbarian, the lil' guy is a albino gnome. Off the top of my head I made a list of the stings that stand out, I need to really push this, but could use a push myself in the right direction.

LIST SO FAR:
*I know i need to fix the hair on Halek, Matt's hair isn't looking bad , but could use some work.
*Cloth textures are ...well...shitty.
*Reflections and shadows need to be pushed hardcore
*Fix Haleks face, he looks so angry he's about to go cross eyed.
* fix textures that look photosourc'd, (hal's belt, rope on the planks, etc.)
*yank hal's beard braids off and reconnect them as a separate simplified piece.

Any comments and critiques would help. Thanks again.(More screen grabs can be added if needed.)

Errata, seems that I cant make attachments as my first post. Pics coming when I can.

Ghostscape

host them on imageshack.us or something

Doctorandrogyne

http://img301.imageshack.us/img301/897/halekpresentation2.jpg

and http://img230.imageshack.us/img230/9963/halekpresentation1.jpg

done and done...

Valandar

Use the [ img] type typical message board tags, actually.

And the single biggest thing hitting me about both these characters (but especially the "hero" is proportion - not just bone length proportions but the proportions of given muscles to themselves.

killingpeople

haha, you made your d&d characters! dork!
your models do not displaying proper smoothing groups. that stuff is rather important for game art. that model would look like crap in most game engines. the fact you hadn't done them, shows you don't have experience in this area. i'd recommend you try to import this model into one and begin troubleshooting the problems you'll run into. this is something you'll be doing as a game artist, everyday.

or, you can cheat. rather than displaying your model in shaded view, use a faceted material and attempt to avoid the problem all together

achillesian

achillesian

not enough contrast on the muscle lines and gradients,

i like the gnome for the most part but, whats with the oversized armor? doesnt seem very functional

also some of the armor i feel on the big guy is weird, the wood hip protectors and the chestplate that covers a very small portion of his body

killingpeople

you can add more contrast and better define the form by painting in a light source. universal approach for this is to define the light as if above the character.

BeserK

MAN that belly button is CRAZY! Scares the crap out of me
I'm liking the chainmail though, nice texturing!

Doctorandrogyne

Thanks for the input all. making some modifications to the models.
I'm using Maya's so there's no smoothing groups in there like it is in 3DS max, so Ive been selectively going through in Geo and smoothing the needed edges. Geo's looking a lot better. I'm also going in and tweaking the proportions of the big guy. he's meant to be stocky and unnaturally strong but the arms were just overdoing it a bit. He may be a barbarian but hes not Brick from Borderlands.

Thanks again for the pointers.

Xaltar

Quick paintover on the big guy for proportions.