Space Cowboy alien dude

DietCoke

Hey guys, I made this character for a contest on another forum (which I did not win . The idea was to make a character that fit into the Mass Effect universe. I think I failed at that, but succeeded otherwise! I am really happy with how he turned out. My idea was to make a sheriff type guy who the player would meet at some "rural" colony world.

I made him in about 10 days, and he is a little over 14k triangles. The head maps are 1k and the body are 2k.
I really like him and want to keep working on him, so any suggestions would be great! His outfit is SO simple as is, and I'm thinking of stuff to add.

Also, I just downloaded Marmoset Toolbag last night and have been having a blast with it. Here are some screens:

Caldria

Wow this looks great, I particularly love the last shot.
and awesome character ^^

MainManiac

If this is the texturing style you're going for this looks great, but if you pushed the textures to be more detailed and realistic this would look sick :P

Piesandbombs

The modeling is great, but you know what really made it? The texturing. It just pushed this piece into a level of just... Unremarkable win.

It's great, I love the style, that kind of great hand-painted cartoon-seriuosness has always been my favourite.

Rhinokey

this looks nice, but the clothing is boring compared with the coolness of the character, maybe a belt and buckle, pockets or something.

DietCoke

Thanks guys!

I'm torn now between texturing styles. One of you likes the current textures a lot (thanks so much man, reading your comment really made my day!), while the other thinks I should go more realistic... And Rhinokey, I completely agree. His outfit is so plain jane right now. I think it's a good BASE for more details, but as is it is pretty boring.

thatanimator

love the head wire! pure sex.

skinned up and ready to go I assume? not just moved vertices to make a pose for polycount?!

edit: may be just moved vertices huh?.. the distance from the left brow to the nose vertices is kinda short! either smooth dat shit or prove me wrong! ;D

Xaltar

It looks unfinished to me, like maybe you are 50% or so done with textures. Its looking very promising and the model/style is awesome it just needs a few detail passes, some seams/details on the clothing, maybe a belt as suggested. Add some tears and wear on the clothing to make things pop and try to tie the head in with the rest of the body a little better, right now the head looks great but the bodly looks underdone. The eyes in particular throw it off for me, they look too cartoonish compaired to the rest of the piece, try and tie them in a little better. The first thing that sprung to mind for me with this was "Small Soldiers", awesome style. Just try and unify it all nicely and you will have a lovely piece

BrontoThunder

He has a lot of character but at 14k triangles and 3k+ textures there is a LOT of room for optimization. I would agree with Xaltar that the textures seem unfinished, they're a great start but look a bit muddy in places.


He's a cool character and I'd love to see him in some more poses.

seth.

At the moment the spec that you have is making him look like an action figure, I'm not seeing much variation in the shine of the materials...if this was the aim then you nailed it, but I would work into the textures a lot more as mentioned by these two folks up here ^^

Also for future reference you can probably throw les geo into the fingers and toe region of the foot and still get good deformation, what you have their isnt currently helping define the form as much as that number of tris should.....does that make sense?

Tidy up the intersections at the back of the leg strap too

I think that the base model is solid, and that with a little texture love it could look ace before you even add extra stuff to him.

DietCoke

Ah, thanks guys! This is exciting getting feedback!

@thatanimator: I am sorry to say that it IS just moved verts! I was having fun making a few expressions for him, and I liked this one a lot. The only thing that is skinned is the torso/arms, which is skinned very poorly. I plan on giving him a full rig as soon as I learn how to do it!

@Xaltar Bronto and Seth: Thanks for the suggestions, and I will definitely spend more time on the texture work. I was sort of "designing" his outfit when I realized I only had a few more days to finish it for the contest so I decided to drop everything and just crank out the low poly with what I had. I agree that the specular is too much, I will definitely make a spec map!

Thanks so much for the feedback guys, I now feel like he is definitely worth putting more effort into!

PaulP

Really nice work there, his head/face is very well done and full of character . However the clothes and some of the torso could use a little more detail to help show what kind of person he is. Maybe some scuffing or ware on the shirt, maybe some evidence of scarring or partially hidden tattoo on the front of his torso.

Its always the small details that bring a character to life. Looking forward to seeing more from you!

Neolight

Pretty cool. Definitely swings more cartoony than the hyper realistic mass effect. It reminds me of that wildstar mmo trailer that popped up last week http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EDaao0gExZU

SaarlemSanders

In my opinion I'd say that the character only needs a bit more realism - I think that the slight cartoon style really works, and it seems to be a common theme in your character work.

I agree that his outfit needs more detail, maybe a couple of bullet holes/laser burns on his jacket? Several buckles are required as well. I also agree that his torso needs more work, if not for muscle definition then scars like SCB said, and maybe a bit more shape to his pecs (they look quite straight, though that may be intentional - he is an alien after all).

Anyway I really like the character - "Cowboys and Aliens" is all well and good, but you combined the two. Great work.

As a sidenote, and this is very much something that I just thought would be interesting, he looks like quite a solemn character, and maybe one that has a high sense of honour, kills only when necessary. I thought it may be nice if he had a tally on his body, kept in scars, to remind him of how many people he's had to kill and not let him forget it. Obviously whether you take that suggestion is totally up to you, I just liked the idea. Keep up the great work!

DietCoke

@SCB - Thanks a lot! I love the scarring idea, I've got to put SOMETHING on his abdomen. I didn't want him to have a six pack or anything so I didn't put any detail in there, but it is just sooo blank.

@Saarlem - I agree, I am going to just add some subtle touches of realism here and there to give him a more finished look. My original concept for him was that he was a good-natured, Crocodile Dundee type of dude. I actually modeled his face with a soft smile. Then I was messing around with his face for fun, and landed on this expression that I liked. Though he definitely is not a man who enjoys killing! He's supposed to be a law man of some sort.

Ok guys, I did a bit of work on the pants.
Does this help? Look better? I also made a quick and dirty specular map, so now the pants don't have any specularity, and the only thing that is REALLY shiny is the vest.

SaarlemSanders

Well I was implying that he looked like someone who really didn't enjoy killing, I was suggesting the tally as a solemn reminder of his mistakes. Either way the stains on the pants do improve it a lot. I look forward to seeing what you do with the rest of him.