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Armadillo Barbarian

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Hey everyone

So the college I graduated from has this group going on Facebook where we have a weekly art jam. Someone states a game/style and gives specifications and you have a week to do it. This last week I chose Allods and to make a character that could fit in the universe and match the style. I didn't have time to finish it, but I'm going to continue working on it and make him badass.

I chose to go with a Armadillo race, and more specifically a barbarian style class. Not sure if he would *really* fit in the universe, but doing my best to match the style. Here's the current progress

Armadillo.png
Armadillo2.png
Armor design
5.png
6.png

weighs in at 2400 tris without armor, and 3900 with armor

I tried doing a lot of research on different caricatures of Armadillos, and as you would expect I didn't find much. This is mainly the reason I wanted to do an armadillo character, simply because you don't find many armadillo's in video games, let alone as an actual character. I started him last Wednesday, and have put about 15-20 hours into him so far from concepting the idea and getting to this point.

I'll be updating this as I progress along, would like to finish him in the next day or two (armor maybe by Friday, not really sure how I want that to look just yet). Feel free to leave some C&C :)

Replies

  • Mmachado
    Looking pretty cool!
  • David Wakelin
    I like the style of the armour, but I think the concept is a little "too heavy" so to speak.

    Look at some concept art of armoured characters and you may see my point.

    Cheers
  • [SF]Three9
    the overly bloated / heavy appearance was intended, however I don't think in any of my ref I even tried to looking for heavily armored characters, so I'll be sure to do that, thanks David
  • Saman
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    Saman polycounter lvl 13
    Very nice, I'll be following this :)
  • [SF]Three9
    Sort of an update. Didn't get as much done tonight as I wanted...Just have his feet left, then I can do a bit more shading and move onto his armor

    Armadillo3.png
    Armadillo4.png
  • Orangeknight
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    Orangeknight polycounter lvl 5
    I like it but in the Armidollo's I have seen the armor/skin is more scaley and less dark.
  • chrisradsby
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    chrisradsby polycounter lvl 14
    That's looking cool! :D If you're going for a completely handpainted look without any lighting information from a game engine then I'd suggest painting in the highlights as well.
  • [SF]Three9
    I tried making him with a more scaley look orange, and it just turned out noisy as all hell...i still have tought of trying it again, but i didnt like the initial result it first achieved....then again i havent really been good at painting scales...i was initially going to make him brighter too, but once again didnt like the result...still tweaking colors though, so we will see :)...an there are darker armored armadillos...i think the nine banded armadillos can achieve pretty dark scales about the same shade as this guys...of course its also fades into a lighter scale too

    Thanks everyone! More highlights will come too :)
  • [SF]Three9
    couldn't resist. Set the rig up during lunch today. NO weighting has been done, just really loved how he turned out :D

    Armadillo5.png
  • Tigerfeet
    Rigs make everything awesome :D

    Have you given any thought to putting in some kind of bright accent color on the armor?
  • [SF]Three9
    It's true Tigerfeet :D

    I have thought about a bright accent color and definitely plan on it...I'm really not sure what direction I want to go...armor is currently unwrapped and messing around with base color ideas for a color scheme

    Armadillo7.png

    I really like the middle one; I think the Copper Brown look works well for him :). I originally intended to go with yellow as an accent color, and I think this might work well...not sure what kind of accent I want to use now, but I like this a lot better than my initial colors on the armor
  • Tigerfeet
    I like the teal personally. The base armadillo is so brown to begin with, I like seeing color in the armor :) A bright yellow/gold would look nice with the teal as well.

    One of my favorite places is colourlovers.com
  • [SF]Three9
    ok, how bout a combination?

    Armadillo8.png
  • Orangeknight
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    Orangeknight polycounter lvl 5
    Emphasize his armor/scales more, its completly covered with the new armor. Also to carry that much armor he would probably have to be a bit bulkier/have more muscle.
  • [SF]Three9
    That's a good point Orange. I currently love his proportions, but it couldn't hurt to reevaluate them. I'll try and mess with that tonight and see if I can get him looking better

    Armadillo10.png

    Progress of actual texture so far

    currently tweaking the color variation between the armor and the skin, so don't worry I know to address it :)
  • [SF]Three9
    Armadillo11.png
    Armadillo12.png

    Totally have to stop here for the night, exhausted from a long day
  • [SF]Three9
    http://threenineart.com/WIP/ArmadilloWalkCycle.mov

    and just in case that doesn't link

    http://youtu.be/Ik-L2FL9Yik
    bleh wish it would load up as an embedded video...oh well
  • BelgianBoolean
    Man, I've kept on looking at this thread again and again. I really dig this a ton and love the color palette. Could you talk about your process a bit for hand painting?
  • STRIKER
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    STRIKER polycounter lvl 13
    loving this so far!
  • Darkleopard
    This is fantastic, love watching the progress!
  • Tigerfeet
    You've got some really nice motion in that walk cycle, I like it. It reminds me a little of a guy I saw in college, he was extremely overweight but he moved so fluidly and gracefully. I always imagined that's what a heavily armored fighter would look like :) My only critique is I wish he were leaning forward a bit more. He looks like he's leading with his feet, he should be leading with his hips. Of course, that could just be the angle it's viewed at :)
  • [SF]Three9
    Tigerfeet you raise a good point. His legs are generally leading ahead of him. I tried messing with the graphs and pulling him back, but now it looks like he's trudging and barely moving forward lol, so i'll have to continue working on it. I'm not really a good animator, I can just do key poses (i suck at the inbetween process). I lucked out with this cycle :)

    Starting up on his buddy the Lizard. It's a previous guy I've worked on before, but i decided to stylized him in the same manner as the Armadillo. I'm going to use him as a bit of practice to figure out how to do proper shine and highlighting/shadowing. What do you think so far?

    L.png
  • [SF]Three9
    L4.png
    L5.png

    update!...should be able to finish him before the weekend...just depends if I want to go out and be social tomorrow or not :\....ugh, I HATE making those kind of decisions...every thursday me and some friends go to the same bar...and I want to...but I want to finish this guy too :D


    Also, since this thread is about the Barbadillo (as a coworker dubbed him lol), here's a very small update on him. Added some shine to his armor and some studs that I'll add a bit more detail to

    Armadillo16.png

    I'm also going to add a metal ring to his chest and some leather straps that connect to it and go underneath his shell
  • clockchrome
  • [SF]Three9
    thanks guys :D
    Going to try and finish him tonight. I'm sick though and I doubt the wife is going to let me stay up late ;)

    AL3.png
  • artquest
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    artquest polycounter lvl 13
    Everytime you update this it just gets more awesome :) Can't wait to see it finished! Are you going to hand paint some top down lighting in at the end to complete the diffuse only look or will you be letting the shader take over?
  • [SF]Three9
    Thanks man, I really appreciate that :)

    So I plan on these guys being 100% hand painted, so I guess the top down lighting idea?
    I'm a total noob to that short of thing, so im trying the best I can :). I only started doing handpainted stuff since around November, and it's only been in my spare time. While I'm sure I can nail the lighting, I fight with myself constantly about blowing out textures or making them too dark. I'm really trying to achieve a specific style, so it's just going to be a lot of trial and error :)
  • artquest
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    artquest polycounter lvl 13
    [SF]Three9 wrote: »
    Thanks man, I really appreciate that :)

    So I plan on these guys being 100% hand painted, so I guess the top down lighting idea?
    I'm a total noob to that short of thing, so im trying the best I can :). I only started doing handpainted stuff since around November, and it's only been in my spare time. While I'm sure I can nail the lighting, I fight with myself constantly about blowing out textures or making them too dark. I'm really trying to achieve a specific style, so it's just going to be a lot of trial and error :)

    In that case I'd suggest doing some research into color theory and how light works. (light shifts in hue AND saturation as it's intensity goes up, dark blue to teal/green dark red to yellow, and the "brighter" it gets, also the less saturated it gets.) The gnomon video from Jeremy Vickery is great for learning that sort of stuff. Usually the best hand painted textures keep these facts in mind.

    Good luck, I'm sure the result will be great.
  • fabio brasilien
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    fabio brasilien polycounter lvl 11
    Great character. Nice style!

    I agree about the color hue variation from bright to dark.
    One way I found usefull is painting the occlusion and shadows (or bake some and paint over) in grayscale on a different layer, same for brighter areas in aother layer. Then get those layers as mask and do some adjustment (hue, saturation and lightness) This way you can have total control over the ilumination.
    I don´t know where I´ve seen that before, but worked for me.
    Multiply and overlay modes don´t give the right control and paint over sometimes is very time consuming in detailed areas.
    Not sure if that make sense, but I hope it helps. :)
  • specsowl
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    specsowl polycounter lvl 6
    I love this so much. I keep checking in on this thread just to see the new awesomeness that's come about. I really enjoy it and keep up the good work!
  • [SF]Three9
    Really, genuinely appreciate all the positive feedback :). It's been really awesome seeing people getting interested in this.

    Artquest and Fabio I'll definitely look into that and see what I can do to improve upon these guys. It's 3AM though and I'm still sick, so I really need to get to bed ;)

    After doing the lizard and looking at the Armadillo, I'm really not satisfied with how he looks, but eh, I'll try and sleep on that before re-adjusting him

    so with that being said, pew pew

    L11.png
    L12.png
    L13.png


    The reason I posted the renders in segments like that, is IF these guys were used in a game or something, that this would be the order of armor upgrades. so last being the peon worker, middle being the standard soldier, and first being the elite warrior

    oh! Might as well post the texutre flats; havent posted any of my textures yet

    body_tflat.png

    armor_tflat.png



    still things im fixing up obviously, but yea. Plan on downrezzing to 512x512
  • TaylorMouse
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    TaylorMouse polycounter lvl 10
    I love the colour scheme although, for me that is, it is too clean, like this guy was never in a battle or something.

    T.
  • mr_ace
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    mr_ace polycounter lvl 9
    awesome texture work dude
  • [SF]Three9
    Thanks guys! And for the bump! I was surprised to see two comments from today :)

    @TaylorMouse, yea I know what you mean. Personally it's a style that I'm wanting to do, however, I may end up going back and adding some damage to the armors (not like massive, but the standards dents and dings you would see from a battle hardened warrior).



    So after taking a bit of a break from these guys, I totally feel like they appear almost velvet like. That, as some of you have pointed out, is probably because I don't have enough highlights on them. I'm still trying to decide if that's a kind of style I want to keep, or if I want to revise it and fix it. I'm not ignoring you though, I want to be painfully clear about this :). I LOVE getting critique, and really appreciate all the feedback I've gotten from the community on these characters. I've always wanted to create something that you kids are polycount dig. I know I've achieved this, because a member called cloudkookoo recognized my name in a different thread and gave me a special shout out <3 Warms my heart :)


    ANYWAY, I've started work on the final character of this 3 piece trifecta of pain. I've never done a female model before (well...sort of one somewhat recently,), and I wanted to challenge myself to create not only a differently proportioned character, but also a female! Can you guess what type of animal she is?

    Silo.png
    Silo2.png
    Silo3.png


    OH, also felt like I should post this up here too

    So, it's going to be kind of a huge project for a side project, but I'm currently trying to get a game proposal and demo done for work to pitch. I've decided to take these characters and create a universe out of them, for a really fun game for iOS. That's all I'll say about it, but I'm working on blocking out an idea for the first level/demo project. Not really much to see or anything, just showing it off

    map1.png
    map2.png
  • FullSynch
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    FullSynch polycounter lvl 11
    Very odd tail. Is it a monitor? Maybe a crocodile? I give up :D
  • Sukotto
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    Sukotto polycounter lvl 8
    Totally a dragon :)
  • [SF]Three9
    Neither :) But I do see how it looks like a croc lol

    Croc is closer than Dragon...at least, geographically :)

    Silo5.png
    Silo4.png
    Silo6.png

    Armor is modeled, wooo
  • Stinkfoot
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    Stinkfoot polycounter lvl 11
    Great, clean colour textures! I love it.

    dare i say.. Boneriffic?
  • Pangahas
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    Pangahas polycounter lvl 10
    I love the colors I love the overall style.The only thing missing I think right now are some damage details, especially on the armor because they look too clean.Some scratches here and there should work well with the piece.
  • Tigerfeet
    PLEASE let her be a mammal at the very least. If there's one thing that drives me bonkers it's breasts on reptiles and birds. That said, I'm going to guess Hyena.

    As for the texture and highlights, it sounds like you're agonizing over choosing one or the other. This is digital man, there's nothing stopping you from making a copy of your texture file and painting over it to try out a different style. Sometimes it's hard to tell if you'll like something before you try it :)
  • [SF]Three9
    Tiger, bingo! Hyena she is :) (though it really does look like a croc lol)

    Not really agonizing, just trying to spend my time wisely and just trying to decide what kind of style i want to establish...im having a ton of fun with these characters, and thats all that matters to me...as long as im having fun i dont mind experimenting when it feels right :)

    Ill post some renders in a bit when i get back to the office


    Also, here is hoping she doesnt come out too furry :|
  • Torch
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    Torch interpolator
    It looks great but I would definitely scuff up the armor a bit :)
  • [SF]Three9
    @Torch, Word :)

    maybe a bit obsessive with how many renders I'm posting, but w/e, it's my thread and I can do what I want!
    And to clarify if I haven't yet, she has an Egyptian Theme (Lizard is Aztec, Armadillo is Mongolian, though I will be going back over him and making him look more theme relevant) She is also going to be a cloth melee class

    so to kinda expand on that, each character will have 2 roles. Lizard = Warrior, Ranger; Armadillo = Barbarian, Shaman; Hyena = Battle Mage/Monk (staff melee fighter), Voodoo Doctor

    Each role will have it's own specific armor, and this is to serve the purpose of giving each character a melee and range option

    Hyena1.png
    Hyena2.png
    Hyena3.png
    Hyena4.png


    If I'm lucky, she will be unwrapped and rigged tonight. This, however, will probably not happen
  • [SF]Three9
    made a lot more progress than I ever expected
    Hyena8.png
    Hyena9.png
  • [SF]Three9
    bit-o-progress during lunch

    Hyena11.png
    Hyena12.png
  • [SF]Three9
    haha ok so this texture is almost done and made a huge jump from the previous images...the Hyena didn't match her companions because of how dark she was, so that's been fixed

    Hyena17.png
    Hyena18.png
    Hyena19.png

    Could still use some more shading and highlighting; also the hair texture doesn't really show up on her thigh, so I'll have to fix that
  • Tigerfeet
    I think some highlights in the fur could help a lot. Looks like you've shaded just with the base color and a shadow.
  • Hang10
    Diggin the texture work and colors!
  • [SF]Three9
    Totally Tigerfeet :) That's what I'm currently doing and she's totally looking so much better. I'll probably post her up late tonight like usual
  • [SF]Three9
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