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WoW Fan Art: Pandaren armor sets

interpolator
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jmiles interpolator
Hey yalls. haven't posted in a long time, but I thought I would share with you some stuff I'm working on. I am going to pull off some armor sets and weapons based in the WoW universe. Thought the Pandaren would be good and challenging. I'll be honest right away and say that I've studied a few of the base models and armor parts out of the WoW model viewer to see for the most part how they're put together for the game, but I built my base mesh completely from scratch. Hope that doesn't destroy the magic for anybody, but I just wanted to learn how they did stuff. Anyway, painted in 3D Coat and PS. Enjoy, and crits and suggestions are always welcome. cheers

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Replies

  • Fenyce
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    Fenyce polycounter lvl 11
    Wow, really nice sketches! And also a lovely texture on that pandaren guy! I'm looking forward for more!
  • anglorum
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    anglorum polycounter lvl 6
    Dude! Hell yeah! This looks great. Really looking forward to seeing more progress on this.
  • jmiles
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    jmiles interpolator
    thanks guys :) stay tuned
  • jmiles
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    jmiles interpolator
    some quick work for today before my other job. hopefully get this all unwrapped and start the texture tomorrow.

    ch0g.jpg
  • Dan!
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    Dan! polycounter lvl 6
    go on.....

    seriously, looking good man!
  • jmiles
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    jmiles interpolator
    thanks Dan. much appreciated man :)
  • lotet
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    lotet hero character
    looks awesome, subscribed!
  • jmiles
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    jmiles interpolator
    thanks a bunch Lotet :)

    Here's a quick update from today.. unwraps for the monk done.. I plan to bang out the other character's armor and unwraps before I get to painting.. so I can knock it all out at once. cheers

    0fjz.jpg
  • jmiles
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    jmiles interpolator
    Some work from today. I have some things to fix on this yet, but for the most part it's about done.

    j0gr.jpg
  • 87roach
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    87roach polycounter lvl 5
    Looking awesome man, keep posting!
  • Visceral
    Looks cool and all, but please resize your scans, takes me like 20 sec to load the page.
  • jmiles
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    jmiles interpolator
  • Optinium
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    Optinium polycounter
    Looks good man, parts of the unwrap look a bit skewed though according to the checker pattern, it's apparent in the texture on the roof of the Mace/Axe weapon where it seems to be doing a zigzag.

    Apart from that it's looking neat :)
  • jmiles
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    jmiles interpolator
    thanks Optinium, yeah I'm aware of it. one of the things I gotta fix.. it painted correctly in 3D Coat, but for some reason, didn't transfer well to the texture. I'll end up doing that in PS I guess.. built the UV tile for painting straight lines, so it should be alright..
  • Gannon
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    Gannon interpolator
    Looking great dude, I really like the last sketch. Can't wait to see more of this put together.

    The base texture on the character feels a little weird but I can't quite put my finger on what it is - Maybe the contrast of the fur on the arms?

    Either way, gogogogogo!
  • jmiles
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    jmiles interpolator
    Ah thanks for bringing that up Gannon. I think there could certainly be some areas to add some more darker darks or more contrasted top/down lighting. particularly in the arms from about elbow to fingertip, as well as possibly balancing out the lighting going on in the torso area.. absolutely
  • VictorSantos
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    VictorSantos polycounter lvl 12
    Outstanding work so far! Keep it up!
  • jmiles
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    jmiles interpolator
  • jmiles
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    jmiles interpolator
    only had a little bit of time for a quick update today.. it's not much, but it's something

    1m5u.jpg
  • jmiles
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    jmiles interpolator
    Made a technical talk thread w/ this.. thought I'd post it here anyway so I keep it in my main thread:

    http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?p=1928072#post1928072

    hello there. I'm having an issue with painting directly on my model in 3D Coat after creating multiple UV sets. I'm not sure if there was some how that I locked my paint brush, but the rest of my buttons, like my bucket filler, eye dropper and erasers work fine, but my paint brush does not. I can, however, directly paint on the texture with the texture editor open, but even with it closed I still get the issue. I've been trouble shooting around 3D Coat to find the problem but really don't know what I did. Has anybody else had this issue? Seems kind of a boneheaded thing to me.. i'm unsure of what to do.. I don't usually paint on multiple uv sets, but this is the first time I've figured out how to do it, and decided to do it this way for this project. any assistance in the matter is greatly appreciated.. I bet it's a simple thing I just didn't see.. cheers..

    fax9.jpg
  • Justin Meisse
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    Justin Meisse polycounter lvl 18
    hmmm, is it possible your faces got flipped? backface culling is off by default AND ignore backfaces for the paintbrush is turned on by default.
  • jmiles
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    jmiles interpolator
    ah, thanks Justin. that did the trick. much appreciated :)
  • jmiles
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    jmiles interpolator
    Here is some progress from today.. tons to do yet. crits are apprectied.

    e6cr.jpg
  • lotet
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    lotet hero character
    looks really good. some of the details look like noise from a distance though, i think you could size some stuff up for better readability.
  • Add3r
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    Add3r polycounter lvl 11
    Definitely solid work all around, my biggest critique is the texture itself though. It seems you are really lacking a good color balance. If you look at most armor sets, especially from the expansion (well the more epic sets that this resembles), all usually have a decent array of colors throughout. Right now you are mainly using neutrals, with very little B/W contrast. It just feels bland. This not meant to be harsh in anyway, simply pointing the fact out. It feels really flat color wise. Throw some reds and oranges in there! The Asian cultures this expansion focuses on were most definitely not afraid to show off their wealth with their armor. What you have designed looks and feels expensive, shapes wise, so I say adding gold, oranges, reds, bronze-ey colors will really bring this to life :)

    Sweet job so far.
  • jmiles
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    jmiles interpolator
    Lotet-- thanks man, yeah I will definitely be working that stuff out for sure. Still trying to find the color and shapes balance, which is what Add3r was just saying

    Add3r-- dude thanks man. yeah that helps quite a bit. I'm still trying to find the feel for all my colors and shapes.. trying to make the painted materials look and feel right and unified between metals, cloths and leathers.. trying to make the over all design patterning feel balanced for macro and micro detailing. Also really trying to get a good sense of top/down lighting to help the contrast from head to toe.. Any tips from anybody on that? or is it just a matter of just putting the time in and painting in your light? would it help to bake out a lighting map? or would that take away from the hand-painted nature of the process? I imagine that's probably personal preference.. I'll continue to play around w/ these things-- Juicify the colors up nice.. My original intent was to have these set color schemes between the 4 classes I make armor sets for.. the Monk being green, cool dark (blackish), and silver'ish (in the metals mostly). There's definitely room for golds as well. I'll keep designing and trying to get it all balanced.. in the mean time. thanks gents for the crits :) really much appreciated
  • jmiles
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    jmiles interpolator
    Some exploration today for my priest.. may or may not take this to finish.. would like to, but just needed to jot down this idea..

    8waq.jpg
  • Add3r
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    Add3r polycounter lvl 11
    I love your recent 2D sketch. The design, IMO, feels much more like a Shaman. The pauldrons feel like totems, with the fire coming out and the cylindrical shapes, really cool nonetheless. One way I know Blizzard's teams create that well known hieirarchy is by using subtle gradients and focal points which everything leads from. If you look at like 90% of the in game assets from WoW and Diablo, you will notice a subtle gradient or something related. They will make a focal point within the piece and normally have the gradient fall off of it. For the current set you could add some sort of bright gem in the head, shoulders, or upper chest, and then work individual gradients on each piece. Super subtle, nothing crazy. Also to be sure to be using correct contrasts and your warms and cools. Right now you have a ton of cools working together, giving you that murky feeling I was talking about.

    Adding some golds like you had agreed upon would really warm up the set, even if it was just subtle accents, it would really bring it to life if used correctly :) Nice work so far man, I feel you are absolutely headed on the right track at this pace!!
  • jmiles
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    jmiles interpolator
    Thanks Add3r. that's awesome advice man. Matter of fact, my original idea was that this set would be made for Shamans.. only reason I wasn't technically going to make this for shamans was because they use all the Elements and I wanted to keep the Dragon and Water/healing theme to Priest.. and since Shamans use all the elements-- well you get the idea.. but in all honesty, it really doesn't matter at this point.. the design as a whole is organic and fit for change.. I love the idea .. I think I'll be adding a custom totem, just for shits n gigs as a bonus for fun.

    Good to know about adding the light in for focal areas.. I figured that was probably how they did it.. just didn't know if they cheated a little bit and baked out a low poly top/down lighting map or if they painted it all it.. you can get the effect either way.. as long as it looks good in the end, right?

    And I took up your opinion about lots of color.. I've been working at using a more saturated pallet and went crazy w/ the sketch last night.. it still needs a lot of polish, but I haven't had this much fun w/ pure painting in ages. Thanks again for the crits dude

    dpy8.jpg
  • Ferg
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    Ferg polycounter lvl 17
    awesome project miles! Certainly an interesting style to work in. I like where you're taking this armor set, but I think it's wayyyy too busy. Wow's art direction is a little all over the place some times, but I think their most successful designs are the ones that really keep a strong sense of focus and simplicity. The shoulder dragons on this design are way too much, and the bangles on the staff might be as well.

    Right now there's not really a focal point to the design, my eye wanders all over the place. Maybe give it a focus pass... lower the contrast in areas you're not trying to have draw the eyes, pull the shape language together a little more. It's already looking cool, but definitely still has a bit of design confetti going on.

    Hope that helps, cant wait to see this done!
  • jmiles
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    jmiles interpolator
    Thanks Ferg! yeah me and my friends were joking the other night about if this would win the most ridiculous shoulder paldron design award for a WoW character. They are pretty silly sometimes, but that's one of the reasons I love WoW so much.

    Totally great point on getting that contrast and focal area up to snuff. and I will be working at simplifying the design a bit and making everything fit right, formed right, and in perspective right.

    I'm gonna tackle this design in 3D right after I finish up the Monk.
  • jmiles
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    jmiles interpolator
    Update to this guy. Almost done, but still could take any crits or suggestions anyone has to offer to push it to the limit.. cheers

    jjr2.jpg
  • Dethling
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    Dethling polycounter lvl 11
    Awesome design.
    I think the shoulders plates are a little bit slim, for me it looks like they squeeze the poor pandar shoulder. :(
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