[WIP] - Deity

Dogg

Hi everybody!

I haven't posted a lot here yet, mostly lurking, but that's about to change. I've started an experiment to manage my time on game art better. I really want to improve, so I decided I'm going to wake up early and work on game art before work, instead of in the night. I heard this can be a major difference. The focus is on characters and I'm starting with finishing a piece that once started as my Dominance War entry. It started as a nature god. He's supposed to be calm, balanced, just, druidic and divine. His posture and his neck are meant to be slightly elongated but I want his anatomy to still make sense (i.e. I don't want use the stylisation as an anatomy-get-out-of-jail-free-card) .
So I woke up this morning at 6am, and I would like to show what I got so far. I'm going to be starting a bit earlier tomorrow and hopefully we're going to see some progress over time.


This is where I'm at now. I'd love to hear crits and comments. I also have some questions I hope someone can answer.

I'm using a lot of subtools. Head, torso + arms, legs+tail, antlers and basically every piece of clothing/ornament is an individual subtool. Is this the way to go?

What kind of images do people need to comment? Closeups, wires, exploded shots, naked ones? Help me to help you to help me

There are many more questions probably, but all in due time. Thanks in advance for any info/critique/comments!

Dogg

I kept up the early morning routine and have been working on this quite a bit. The visual changes are minimal though. I have some trouble with ZBrush as a medium. I find it somewhat hard to interpret how much 'Z' I paint, often I sculpt a bit, it looks alright and when I rotate it's really misshaped from a different angle. I think I went back and forth reworking the same areas a lot, wasting a lot of time. This especially happened on the hands and feet. Rotating around these extremities has been quite a pain in the behind too.

As you might have seen my first WIP shot I left the armor alone, because I wasn't really comfortable with sculpting this yet. I gave it a shot but it turned out terrible and this made me realise I need to be more comfortable with ZBrush before I can design stuff on the fly. I decided on a quick photoshop paintover, it's miles away from my original concept, but I kind of like where it's going. I'd love to hear what you think.


I took some inspiration from Masai and Aboriginal culture for the paintover. I'm thinking of doing the armor/leather/wood parts mostly in Max and maybe import it in ZBrush for some wear and tear. I hope this is an acceptable workflow until I feel a bit more confident in ZBrush.

Edit: Also, I think the eyes are a little small?

Mattaphylactic

Cool design, I did a really similar character not long ago, http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?t=80587&highlight=faun&page=2 . Love the aboriginal influence, I know you said it's a quick paintover, but you might want to consider an accent colour to contrast the earthy colours, maybe extend that yellow to the arms? Plus, that arm guard thing isn't instantly noticeable atm. Good luck!

Dogg

Thanks for the reply Mattaphylactic. You're right about the colors and the arm guard not being very noticeable. I'll work on that in the final design, also I think I want the left arm to have an arm guard as well. Thanks for your suggestions .

I've been working on the anatomy and I'm at a point where I think it looks okay, but I would love to hear some thoughts. After this I'm going to go over them in a higher subdivision and go in for the details. I want to finish the organic parts first and then move onto the clothing/armor. And I think I want to give him longer nails (on the hands at least).

So here are some shots of body parts I've been working on lately. Crits and comments are very much welcome . The upper legs are not as important because they are covered with clothing so I tried to save some time there. They're probably not very anatomically accurate. Although I like hearing what could've been done better I want to avoid reworking the legs a lot because it's not going to be seen really.

Dogg

Wow, two weeks since my last update. I realize now I've spend too much time tinkering the armor, going back and forth, and in the end returning to my paintover concept. I learned it helps me a lot to do designing in 2D. Designing by pulling vertices around doesn't work for me. I guess it can work in ZBrush but I need a bit more experience in that case.
Here's the progress so far on the armor. I'm looking forward to start sculpting again. Any crits or comments still very much welcome .