Colt's stuff

Colt Seavers

Hi guys, I'm new here and as I found no "Introduce yourself" thread or similar, I thought I might post some of my work in here, so you can see what I've been woring on lately.

I began modding a PC game called Elderscrolls III about 2.5 years ago and that way I first came in contact with 3D modeling. Since then I've been learning Blender, ZBrush and Photoshop. As I was almost vonly doing models for that old game, my skills kind of stayed a bit limited all the time and I hope you guys can help me to get a bit better.

My main interest lies in creating creatures and characters, but I do environmental models as well if I need too.

Here are some of my creations:






Greets, Colt!!!

Colt Seavers

Another creature, I began with yesterday. Texture is a bit crappy, couldn't find high res fur textures!:poly141:




Colt:poly121:

keres

These are looking pretty good The elbow on that rhino looking creature has a seam to it, though. I'd expect to see some of these in a game I just bought on Steam or something. I don't know why nobody has replied to this topic :x Are you working on any new projects with newer technology?

Rockley Bonner

The thing w/ modeling creatures, is that well... there easy. sculpting a creature dosnt come with rules like suclpting a human or (somthing I find difficult) an apealing female human. What Im saying is that you can break as many rules in anatomy and porportions as you want and then call the sculpt a creature.

I suggest trying to model some good looking humans in you want to push your skills.

Cap Hotkill

You have a style that is quite yours, and yes, your models seems to be stuck in Elderscrolls III modding, you have a good idea of basic proportions and you make your textures mostly from photo sources and PS basic tools, its not bad but it looks dated on today standards, now try to get closer to next gen modelling, find tutorials about normal maps, specular maps, high poly meshes, subdivision levels and shaders.

Colt Seavers

@keres: Haha, yeah the seam on the elbow is just a result of me exiting the modding team, the creature was supposed for. Cba to finish it. In november next year the fifth part of the game series will be released. It will have a complete new engine and possibilities of character design will be much wider than now.

Ppl couldn't reply to my thread cause it was my first one and it got blocked for 3 days until being approved as "no spam". When it was unlocked, it showed up on page 3 and maybe nobody checked that page anymore.

@RJBonner: I don't think so. If we're speaking of fantasy creatures you may be right, you're free to modify the anatomy as you like. You just have to make sure it's balanced well and looks believable. Making realistic creatures is far more difficult than making humans. The reason why you see failures in models of human faces or antomy easier than with creatures is only because you see humans every single day and have developed a feel for what is right and wrong. Plus there are some genetic determins, which support that.

I don't model humans, because everyone in my gaming community does that and I found it pretty boring to go with the mainstream.

@Cap Hotkill: Yap, I got stuck, that describes it pretty well. The game does not support normal maps, bump maps and all that fancy stuff. The reason why I use foto textures as a base is, cause all the environment has been textured that way. It would look odd having a handpainted character running arround in a world made of fotorealistic textures.


Colt

Colt Seavers

Just began with a new WIP. I will model a siberian tiger and texture it. Maybe I will take it into ZBrush later for adding some more details.

I had to use an anatomical image of a domestic cat, best I could find on the internet. If someone knows of a better one, plz let me know.

I modeled the body from a box, all quads sofar. The head will be made seperate from the body, cause I hate boxmodeling, when it comes to more detailed objects. So I'll model it poly by poly and connect it with the body lateron.



EDIT: This is how the head looks at the current stage. I kept it very simple, so that it will be asier to connect it with the body lateron. I will just model a socket for the inner mouth and later make a quick rig for the head to pose it wide open to be able to work on all the interiors.

As I don't have a suitable shot of this tiger from sideview, I will tweak the proportions lateron with help from other ref pics. I don't like working with image planes so much, cause I think freehand modeling is better training.



PS: I have a few triangles now, may fix it later, but does no harm sofar. :poly122:

EDIT: Body is almost complete now, but I got to get rid of some unnecessary edge loops. I want to keep the option to use the tiger as a game creature, so I don't want to add further edgeloops now to get an even spread of polygons across the whole model.

How would you guys improve this base model?






Feel free to give crits, that's what I'm here for!!!


Colt:poly121:

Rockley Bonner

I don't think so. If we're speaking of fantasy creatures you may be right, you're free to modify the anatomy as you like. You just have to make sure it's balanced well and looks believable. Making realistic creatures is far more difficult than making humans. The reason why you see failures in models of human faces or antomy easier than with creatures is only because you see humans every single day and have developed a feel for what is right and wrong. Plus there are some genetic determins, which support that.

I don't model humans, because everyone in my gaming community does that and I found it pretty boring to go with the mainstream.

Ok...im going to respect what you think instead of argue but I seriously doubt an employer would hire a character artists that onely makes monsters/creatures.

Colt Seavers

I'm doing this all just as a hobby, so I'm free to be a bit picky. You're right that it is a completely different thing when doing this as a profession. When your boss says you have to model some mushrooms, you even have to do that, no matter if you like it or not, lol.

How difficult it is to model good creatures you can see here, cause this one has turned out to be a real pain in the ass. I'm already thinking of starting all over. Well, this is how close I can get to it, without remodeling the wjole thing.



Just projected the picture onto the model to see how it looks.




Colt

feanix

That tiger head is pretty nice! You do seem to have a lot of polygons for a relatively flat surface under the eyes there, though.

Colt Seavers

@feanix: Yeah, I see what you mean. I still add many unnecessary geometry to my models, which later get lost under the texture, kind of a bad habit, lol! :poly124:

I will clean it up as good as I can now.


Colt:poly121:

Colt Seavers

Here's a small update. Had to sample texture together in photoshop. Teeth comming soon...




TDW:poly121:

Colt Seavers

I'm back! I've decided to put my game modding activities on hold for a longer time now and try to get used to next gen character modeling. I have basic knowledge of ZBrush already, but got kinda dusty since I never had to use it for the old game I was working on all the time.

As I already had began to model a tiger, I though I might aswell turn this into a biped character. I'm still working with Blender, but I'm learning Maya now too, which will take me a while though.

I will try to get as much detail out of the model with normal modeling techniques now and lateron finish it in ZBrush or even try out Blender 2.5's new sculpt tools. Here's what I came up with sofar. Fell free to give crits, so I can learn from you guys and get better in time!!!











Colt

Colt Seavers

So, I'm almost done with the base model now and want to take it into ZBrush next.

1. I have given the single pieces of armor some thickness, meaning they all have inside geometry. What would you guys suggest, keeping it that way or deleting all the inside geometry which isn't seen?

2. Also, can I import the whole model at once, so that all the single parts will be subtools automatically?

3. Should I make the UVs in Blender or in ZBrush?









Greets, Colt!!! :poly121:

Colt Seavers

Well, I decided to dump that stupid armor and work on the body of the tiger first, cause it looked like crap. I will lateron extract some armor from the body and add some further clutter to it.

I just began adding some loose clay brush strokes. Doing this from mind without any reference, cause I thought it didn't need to be hyperrealistic when it is covered with fur lateron anyway. So I'm mainly concentrating on getting the proportions right now. Haven't worked with ZBrush in a long time, kinda relearning now while character is in progress!

Current polycount is about 330.000






Colt:poly121:

Colt Seavers

Small update...







Colt:poly121: