Space Marshall - concept to model wip

El Junk

Hi. I've been reading some of the threads in PnP and they are filled with good advice and suggestions. Thanks.

I want to take a character from concept to a real-time asset. My trouble/inexperience areas are 2D concept work and texturing. Maybe there are things wrong with my modeling/sculpting skills that I'm not aware of. IDK. That's kinda what this thread is about.

Here is a rough concept I'm starting out with. I want to pick one of the four and I'm looking for suggestions (and/or advice on the sketch itself). I just found a primary form that I liked and then added several secondary forms to suggest style. (Hopefully I'm using this language correctly :P). Some things that haven't come through in these rough sketches is that the character has a disproportionately longer robotic left arm (I want to concept several after I have a clothing style) and that there is some backpack gear on 2 and 3.

Amadreaus

I like how you have a bit of an old west flair to him, considering he's a marshall. Also it seems like the armor ranges are pretty cool. If I were you I'd stray from the star-trek look of the shirt in 1 and 2. My personal favorite is 3 because it looks like he's got some interesting thigh-holsters for pistols and he just looks more geared up to fight.

A lot of the look is going to depend on what you imagine his day to day to be. Military guys and Law Enforcement are all about being prepared in the field... what does he need on his person at all times? Does he need to readily show identification? Is his uniform something government issued, or did he piece together sections after being disenfranchised?

The robotic arm idea is really cool, you can do a lot of fine detail work in there to show juxtaposition between things like cloth and metal.

Cool start, can't wait to see more!

wake

Just some general notes on this-- one way to help compensate for a lack of experience with concepting is to really crank out some reference. Look at stuff like old west photos, different kinds of weapons and holsters. Look at other people's takes on futuristic marshals, like the character Mal Reynolds from Firefly. A favorite resource of mine is to look at what people in the past thought the future would look like.

More importantly, where do you want to go with this character? Are you going for a more campy/Flash Gordon approach or a more gritty/Battlestar Galactica? And what's with the robo-arm? Why does he have it? Why is it longer than a regular arm? You don't have to have exact answers to all of these questions but keeping them in mind will help to make a stronger character.

Also, I'd want to see about 5x as many concept studies of a much broader variety before you really hone in on a specific idea. Think of it as letting your concepts compete with each other for the best position.

Good luck on this, and I look forward to seeing what you come out with.

The more work you do now with the concept the less trouble you'll have when it comes to the actual model.

achillesian

also tracing stuff helps

El Junk

Thanks for the comments.

@Amadreaus: Good stuff to think about. I like 3, too. I have some ideas of the character's day to day, but nothing very concrete. I'll try to let the concept I select feedback into that.

@wake: More good advice. I added a couple more concepts. I've been imagining various answers to those questions as I've been creating. As for the general appearance (flash gordon to battlestar galactica), I am leaning a little more towards BSG. But I definitely want to go the stylized, rather than realistic route. Maybe something inbetween Bionic Commando: Rearmed and Shadow Complex.

@achillesian: Thanks. I'll keep that in mind when I start to do more detailed skethces. I might try to do something similar for painting, like filtering a reference to see more discrete blotches of color.

I'm liking 3, 5, 8. Maybe I'll do them as a clothing set, but I'm thinking of picking either 3 or 5 as a start. Right now I'm going to collect some references and do a little work with the robot arm concept.

tyl3r

I'm liking #5 myself, think it would be a good starting point. Look forward to seeing this progress!

El Junk

@tyl3r: Yea, I think so too.

I attached some concepts of the robot arm with #5. I looked at a few references from concept robot. It looked like the 'signal-to-noise ratio' (s2nr) was the defining feature, so I varied it in my concepts. I didn't go too much into detail, though.

Unfortunately, I kinda like them all (for form and s2nr) and so I didn't really figure too much out :P. I like 1, 2, 3 a little more than 4, though.

I want to go a kinda Captain Hook route with the arm, so either some alien beast ate it or a robot ripped it off and ran away with it or something like that. I want to also give the character a bit of a Mega Man feel, so that the hand can be replaced with different power weapons.

StolenPants

nice ideas, i think proportion wise his legs need to be twice as long or at least scaled up cuz his hand is down by his knees like a gorilla. also some ideas of the back and side views will really benefit you to help visualize this character

El Junk

@StolenPants: Yea, I couldn't fit some of the info in my first concepts with just the forward view, but I think there was enough there to be suggestive. The concept is rough, but the boots are like a boot/shin-guard combo, so they go all the way to the knees (roughly). The robotic arm is supposed to be longer than the organic arm, too.

El Junk

I'm probably jumping the gun, IDK. I took an older model I made and used it to create a base for the clothing. I want to try and use Sculptris for the bust.

El Junk

I've been doing some math stuff, but I did a painting of the concept today after collecting some references these past couple of days. There are some areas I haven't worked out the details for on the robot arm.

The character is kinda evolving from space marshall to a more general authority figure/combatant/rebel in space. Kinda standard stuff. The hand is detachable and can be replaced with a "weapon hand" of some kind, which is powered by the cartridge cell/tube that's attached to the forearm. I went with the civil war attire for aesthetics, but it then implies a military background for the character also.

I made a couple of changes before painting. I kinda merged robot arms 2 and 3 and tweaked it a little. I also took StolenPants' advice and adjusted the proportions some.

This is my first painting, so any CnC or references to good books about painting is welcome. edit: I just started to look through the polycount wiki and found a lot of good learning material to keep me busy.

El Junk

Blocked more stuff out. Need to block out the holster, then moving on to sculpting.

PixelMasher

I would maybe go back and check out the overall proportions, his arms look too long, legs too short, and his torso is pretty big in comparison to the rest. your eyes are usually pretty much in the center of your head too, they look a bit high up right now.

Thats applies mostly if you are wanting to make a realistic character but right now the proportions are in the uncanny valley between attempted realism and stylization. needs more refinement in either direction, especially before you start sculpting.

El Junk

Much appreciated, the eyes were off. I was going to redo the bust in sculptris, but decided to use this old head instead and my eye was just skipping it.

I'm not feeling the Marshall/Admiral thing at all. I scratched it and am going for the Marshall/Willis-DieHard/Bowie-Labyrinth thing. I think he looks better. Fixed eyes and torso.

El Junk

Decided to go with #8.

Just some basic sculpting on the hand and face and added the misc pieces.

I want to re-concept the mecharm-to-shoulder piece. A lot of the mecharm is going to be reworked, as I move through and solve all the different pieces.

rollin

like the idea where its going, but your proportions are off

the lower arms are too long and the arms in general to thin