[WIP] Kobold Bandit

JamesWarren

Hi everyone,

I'm currently working on a kobold bandit type character. I'm imagining a creature that lives and sleeps in the wilderness on the outskirts of towns, robbing townspeople and travelers. I also imagine they would work in small packs. Although they can forage for food and essentially survive from nature, they have an obsession for gold and objects that appear shiny which brings them closer to towns.


I want the kobolds to look quite dirty, covered with dirt/grime since they live outside 24/7. In the sketch I added some fur under the leather armor to try and make the kobold look more rugged. Any other suggestions for some items or objects that I could add would be appreciated.


There is still a lot in 3d modeling that I haven't done yet (like retopologizing), but hopefully I will be able to learn that stuff when the time comes with this kobold.

Saman

Interesting design you've got there. Could you provide us with some more shots please?
From what I can tell right now his muzzle looks a bit large, not sure if it's supposed to be like that. The proportions look fine though.
What source material are you using? Maybe a concept of some sort?

KyleJensen

If he's supposed to be a predatory creature, I think the eyes should be more facing forward rather than on the side.

JamesWarren

Goraaz: Thanks. I suppose it does have a pretty large nose, I am basing the model mostly from a sketch I made. I would post the picture but I would have to scan it and it doesn't look too good honestly.

Shad0wForce: Thanks for the suggestion, I will experiment with moving the position of the eyes around sometime.

JamesWarren

I worked on my Kobold a little more this week. I blocked out some shapes in max and took them into zbrush.

tonysladky

Those feet are uh... well, it doesn't look like he would have an easy time maintaining his balance. I think, at the very least, they could stand to be a bit bigger, though I think it could also benefit from longer toes, and maybe even moving the "thumb" (the inner toe, that is) to the back.

Might even be better to crank the ankles a bit higher and have him balance on the balls of his feet.

http://academic.reed.edu/biology/professors/srenn/pages/teaching/web_2006/jampbipedallizards/index.html

Of course, this is all for him being bipedal. If you were thinking of something more like a knuckle-walker, like a chimp, I'd still say his feet should be longer, based on chimp reference, but I can't think of any examples of a knuckle-walking lizard in real life or fantasy/sci-fi illustration/games that could be good reference. I think I've seen some, but I can't remember what they were called or what I should even begin searching for to point you in that direction.

Also, ALL HAIL KING TORG! (major props to anyone who catches the reference)

JamesWarren

Thanks for pointing out the legs, they definitely needed some adjustments. I worked on my kobold a little more today and I decided to go with having most of the weight on the balls of the feet. I feel like he looks a lot faster now.

I'm actually going to be going with a more mammalian kind of kobold even though most kobolds are depicted as being reptilian.

JamesWarren

[Q]uik

pretty sure he will fall backwards with the new feel, I would make the feet a bit bigger,in the axis as provided in this picture:
[IMG][/img]

now i dont know if he will actually fall with the new feet, iam just saying that thats how I feel

JamesWarren

I definitely agree that the feet in the image you circled had a problem. I tweaked the feet a little more while keeping balance and proportion in mind.

JamesWarren

JamesWarren

JamesWarren

JamesWarren

I just finished retopologizing the model. Although this model ins't nearly as good as a lot of the stuff on this site, I still learned a lot during the process.

One thing that I don't really like about the model are the seams. I mirrored the UVs for the face as well as a lot of the other elements and now I can see a line running down the characters face. Are seams caused purely by the edges of the UV island in the texture or does it also have to do with how it is rendered?

Any crits are welcome, I would like to learn as much as I can from whatever mistakes I may be making.

ScoobyDoofus

Heya James!

This is Ryan from work.

Glad to see you posting stuff here on Polycount. It really is the best resource out there for this kind of thing. Regarding your problem with seams...there is a technique when you bake to avoid this, which should work, depending on your target engine.

When you baked, did you have both halves of your model in the scene, welded together as one game-ready mesh? You need to be certain you do and that the mirrored halves UV's are moved outside the 0-1 UV space or translated as "Move em outta the box where the others are".

There are a million tutorials out there that show stuff like this, but don't be shy if you need a hand. Drop by and feel free to ask questions or have me pull up your model to look at a fix.

JamesWarren

Hey whats up man!

When I baked the model I had both halves welded together. I had both halves of the UVs directly on top of each other when I baked however.

I'll experiment some more with moving the UVs over a unit before baking. I remember I tried doing that at one point but I didn't like the result. Most likely I did something wrong though.

Thanks for offering to help dude, I'll definitely stop by sometime if I can't figure something out.

JamesWarren

Are there any techniques in photoshop for making the textures match on opposite sides of a seam? I'm assuming programs like BodyPaint3d would probably be the fastest way to do this but I'm curious if there is a way to just use Photoshop.

Here is what I have so far. After I figure out how to blend the seams I'm probably going to call this done.