Retro Astronaut/ modern psychonaut

ysalex

Editing this so people don't get confused: instead I will direct you to post #12.

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Decided to take a huge step back on this one. In straying to far from the original concept I enjoyed - http://i.imgur.com/PwkIv.jpg - I ended up adding too much stuff, getting overwhelmed in the process. So I'm back to working on the original image, plus my own bit of style, but no huge changes to the character.

I took the original model, stretched her out a bit, new face, used hair to double check everything, and I'm off. Thankfully the concept is fairly simple, so I just have to convert the body to a suit, and add the glass head bubble.

Now I'm looking forward to this one again.

hitmanrebel

Wow, I really Like this concept!
Nice work so far.
I'm looking forward to seeing more!

ysalex

Thank you hitmanrebel.

I should say that right now, the concept in my head is a girl standing alone on a mars like planet, holding a joint and a watching a meteor fly past.

Do you guys think a game company would look down on this in a portfolio? I don't do drugs myself, but I know they are associated with immaturity etc, and I wouldn't want to give someone the wrong impression.

Sebeuroc

Nice work so far, I think this is going to turn out really cool.

Personally I think you could push the exaggerated elongated anatomy even further for a slightly more stylized feel, but it is looking good as is.

Hayden Zammit

Hell yeah. I'm obsessed with this sort of retro space stuff. Can't wait to see how this turns out.

Might seem weird to be holding a joint while wearing a space helmet if she's on mars.

ysalex

Hi Hayden,

See that's the part of the psychonaut/astronaut mash up that I'm worried about. She's not really going to be on mars, it's allegorical to mind exploration. I'm worried that people aren't going to "get" the concept and all I'll get is a bunch of people saying "that suit isn't airtight, joints don't burn in space, you can't see a meteor from the surface of mars" etc.

But I really like the concept, so I'm looking for ways to make it more obvious what is being done with the idea of space as a metaphor for mind/body exploration and drug induced psychonautics.

So ... Any suggestion?

erroldynamic

Cool! I like where this is headed.

ysalex

Still just messing around. I might give up on this. Can't really find a decent medium to the concept I want, and I don't really think that the concept of a cosmonaut/psychonaut is going to be understood/acceptable for a portfolio. Not sure.


If anyone has any really great concept art they've seen, post it. I'd love some inspiration or direction or just a fresh concept.

Updates:

P442

love the work and love that image. maybe i'll try my hand at the little spaceship.
right now, her 'suit' is super skin tight. perhaps, simplifying the shapes a bit will sell that she is wearing a tight suit because she looks naked.


p.s. stuff in games don't need to make sense, they just need to look cool, especially sci-fi. example: spaceships have gravity, but there is no gravity in space. where does the gravity come from? no one cares.

jmt

Excellent start to this model. I've been working on a similar design, but male.

Most people probably won't understand the psychonaut concept, but I doubt they will be bothered by unrealistic aspects unless they're very obvious. I personally wouldn't feature any drug use into my portfolio (except juice head muscles, but I wouldn't show someone shooting up). A joint wouldn't bother me, but you could just make it look sort of cigarette-like.

You should remove some of the protruding mass in her groin area, unless she's wearing a space diaper

gauss

love your choice of references, i am keen to see you follow through on them! keep going.

ysalex

Decided to take a huge step back on this one. In straying to far from the original concept I enjoyed - http://i.imgur.com/PwkIv.jpg - I ended up adding too much stuff, getting overwhelmed in the process. So I'm back to working on the original image, plus my own bit of style, but no huge changes to the character.

I took the original model, stretched her out a bit, new face, used hair to double check everything, and I'm off. Thankfully the concept is fairly simple, so I just have to convert the body to a suit, and add the glass head bubble.

Now I'm looking forward to this one again.

ysalex

Got the helmet started and merged.

Rhinokey

the big problem in the first one to me is the super streamline body suit into the giant bulky clumsy helment, you seem to be trying 2 different styles. in the first drawing you posted, she's wearing a skin suit, but the helmet is also much more sleek and flowing and matches, the helmet you modeled obviously belongs to a big bulky suit, and looks way out of place.

not far along in the new one to give much crit, but i do like the helment more bubbly like in the concept.

PLing

I like the contrast, but I feel the lower part of the body would need a few bulky objects/whatever to create some continuity.

ysalex

Thanks guys. Just to be clear, I gave up on the first concept and am going to pursue the newer ones.

Rhinokey

just to be clear! we dont read!! but still any critique on previous works can also be applied to future works

ysalex

Thanks Rhinokey, just wanted to be sure, it's already alot asking people to look at my work and give me advice, but it's worse that since the thread is split, they'd have to dig through all the text to figure out what the hell I'm doing. Anyways, sorry if I wasted your time.

Alberto Rdrgz

the suit has no structure at all and it's really throwing this off man. Give some evidence that this is something that was manufactured. seams, patches, patting, patterns or different types of designs, a bra , anything that makes it look like a suit.

on the concept side you HAVE to watch some space odyssey!! this reminds me so much of that movie. here's some ref:



and some of this:

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=twuScTcDP_Q"]"Moon" - Official Trailer [HQ] - YouTube[/ame]

ysalex

Hi alberto, thanks for stopping in and giving some advice. I wrote it in there somewhere, but I actually gave up on my original try and put this away for awhile. Now that i've returned to it, my goal is to recreate this specific concept art: http://i.imgur.com/PwkIv.jpg

So I'm doing away with the bulky helmet and the realistically sized girl, and going for the concept the way I first saw it.

I sculpted out the anatomy and basic helmet, and now I'm going to sculpt in seams, wrinkles, etc. over the anatomy to make it look skin-tight and (fairly) unrealistic. I'm going to try to retain some of the 50's charm that is present in the concept, if I can.

I'm really sorry to confuse everyone.

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EDIT: I updated the original post to deflect some of the confusion.

ysalex

Update. I think I will do something with the helmet, but otherwise I'm going to keep it very, very simple.

ysalex

Update.

Did a preliminary test on the game-res face in marmoset. I liked how it turned out. A few too many tri's at 2000 but this was just a test so I have not optimized it yet.

Also continued work on the helmet design. Once I'm done with the helmet and a couple of body details it will be off to texturing.

In Marmoset:


In ZBrush:

ysalex

Still busy with other projects, but found time to update this. I modified the helmet for the final time to fit, it's based on the concept art I posted, and the shape specifically on a concept piece by pior oberson -- http://www.pioroberson.com/ -- concept is about halfway down the page. His work is so amazing, and I loved the curves on this. Full credit to him.

Here's where I'm at:

ysalex

New image of the helmet bust. Only had another 2 hours or so to bake out the maps, did nothing with the spec or diffuse except the easy blue. I more wanted to test how the glass was going to work, and learned about the marmoset complex refraction shader. Did alright.

These are from inside Marmoset. Tips for dealing with these kind of sci-fi materials appreciated, and also if anyone has any resources for dealing with the skin shader I'd love it. Can't find anything on google.

poopinmymouth

Damn, love how that transparent helmet looks.

I understand the vacuum pumped skin-tight skinsuit is for sex appeal, but it is hugging so ridiculously tight as to be kind of unbelievable. I'd thicken it up just a bit so it doesn't hug every single crevace so tight (like those back dimples, it would literally have to be vacuum sealed to show those, ass crack too)

Wesley

Really digging the helmet.

Donavonyoung

Like the redesign on the helmet man. Looks pretty sweet.

ysalex

Thank you guys.

@mymouth -- I see your point. I will make sure I do something a bit more substantial for her body.

A new image, some fixes for some of the materials plus the HUD.

Does anyone know how to do grayscale tranparency in marmoset? There's not very much documentation for any aspect of marmoset. There is a translucency input in the phongshader, but I think I am using it wrong. What I would like to do is use it to set the HUD elements to 50% opaque/transparent, so that it isn't so forefront.

If anyone has the answer to that it would be much appreciated.

ae.

that looks so nice has alot of sci-fi style!

keep up the great work!

ysalex

Some new updates.

I really tried to work out the skin shader with this one. I think I did alright with it. Still, tips and tricks appreciated -- I know I've seen some very nice marmoset skin work around here. Any advice in general also appreciated.

Didn't do too much with the suit this time, that's next.

ysalex

Some minor shader and diffuse changes that make a bit of a difference. After a certain point sometimes I have a hard time telling if I am moving forward or backwards, or just chasing my tail.

Ace-Angel

Showing us a shot of your material parameters would be nice to help you out, I mean I never used Marmoset, but the variables should clue me in what needs to be done.

As for the suit, here are some references to aid you:

http://coolvibe.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/bot.jpg

http://i236.photobucket.com/albums/ff148/bentley002/spacesuitcoloura.jpg

http://th08.deviantart.net/fs70/PRE/i/2012/081/d/5/ivana_blastoff_by_smolin-d4tku4v.jpg

http://th04.deviantart.net/fs71/PRE/f/2011/011/5/3/grid_girl_by_omen2501-d36xdda.jpg

http://media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lg7ejm9Y1F1qbujox.jpg

The one thing your models clothing is lacking, regardless of your design, is the 'stretch' wear and tear marks, that all tight clothes get in their first wear. Her breasts have that effect under her rib, but they look kinda out of place actually, especially with a flat chest like that.

Her suit currently is too 'fitting' to say the least, this may not sound such a big issue (especially for guys), but she literally looks naked as of now, especially with her butt crack, it's simple not possible to having clothing like that naturally.

The only way she could be wearing something like that is she (I'm not kidding, this really exists) she applies on her body Liquid Latex, essentially spray on rubber that hardens on your body becomes clothing after a while.

So yeah, mileage may vary, but around her breast/rib area, elbows, knees, shoulders, etc, you need to give her some sort of 'baggy', worn effect to help the look. The last images I linked of Catwoman should be a nice example of what I'm referring to (although even then, it doesn't look too great on her legs and arms, but her upper body is good).

ysalex

@ace-angel

Thanks sir. I appreciated the references too. I haven't really started to resolve the basemesh for the suit beyond what I did for her proportions, which is why all the divits etc. are there. I would be lying though to say I hadn't been proceeding under the assumption that I will do something ... 'unrealistically' is a good word -- tight for her suit. Something matte -- not shiny, nor latex. I will smooth out the stuff that would be ridiculous, like the divits in her arms around her elbows, and the divits on her lower back -- but I still want it to look something like nylon.

The only thing I have really decided about the material is: A space-age future fabric from the 50's: the kind of thing a minimalist designer and a pulp sci-fi author would come up with over drinks.

If you missed it, here is the very general concept from which her suit comes. Even though I wanted to update the helmet I will do something similar to this, only with different colors, probably white with some of the blue from her helmet pad.

At any rate, ace-angel, thanks for your time, and the references, and your advice. Much appreciated.

AlanSMitchell

I don't mean to add to this but the blue around the sides of the helmate but lights around the outside that fade
http://www.smh.com.au/ffxImage/urlpicture_id_1045638420482_2003/02/20/solaris.jpg
Kinda like this but maybe a light cone or a plane

ysalex

Hi dudealan2001 -- Thanks for stopping. I'm not really sure that I understand your feedback though. Are you suggesting adding more reflections to the outside of the helmet?

AlanSMitchell

@ysalex : inside the helmet
pls excuse the paintover I'm so visual

kinda like this so I guess lights on the inside of the hemet.

almighty_gir

her shoulders are a tad broad right now, if you want to keep the slender girl look, then bring them in a bit to match the hips. if you want a more curvy girl, then widen her hips a bit to match the shoulders.

but don't touch the ribcage in either case.