Blizzard Student Art Contest: Blood Scarab
Gave the Blizzard Student Art contest a bid, I tried last year but never got around to finishing it, so this time around I plan on seeing it through.
Im doing a character, it's a blood scarab race that lives in a very arid climate. I'm drawing a lot of influence from scarab beetles obviously, but also from Egyptian culture.
Here's the final submission. Thanks everyone for all of the incredible feedback! I wouldn't have come close to this without it:
Im doing a character, it's a blood scarab race that lives in a very arid climate. I'm drawing a lot of influence from scarab beetles obviously, but also from Egyptian culture.
Here's the final submission. Thanks everyone for all of the incredible feedback! I wouldn't have come close to this without it:
Replies
He has an under bite that protrudes far enough out for the pincers to attach to the sides of his mandible. Almost all of his mouth is bone or cartilage.
Also take care of the normal "color codes" in WoW: Neon green normally means "Fel injected" (Blood Elves, Burning Legion).
Even if the second concept has more color variation it looks very strange...
I would go with the first one (especially if you call them "Blood scarabs") and try to add more colors to the body of the creature (like the color fading at a scarabs shell)
Here's the beginning of my lowpoly, struggling with loop flow a bit, and don't know what to do with the shoulders and knees:/
Another update here, broke up the silhouette and enlarged some forms
I'm really trying to develop a strong contrast between is exoskeleton and what is going to be his "soft" inner portions. This will hopefully become more apparent once I begin texturing, but silhouette is just as important imo, especially with Blizz.
I need to rework the groin/legs, but once that's finished I'm off to UV mapping and texturing
Done Modeling and UV mapping...now on to the diffuse!
fun fact: I used 5998 of the 6000 polys
I'm probably going to go in now and start breaking up the colors some more, but I like where it's headed so far. Any critique is welcome!
Not totally sure why but I guess its the AO map, Blizzard really use those, normally they paint the AO by hand.
But neitherless it looks awesome
You're pretty much there with a solid design, the texture just needs some tweaking now. Good going
I think the little "fel gem" in your original concept was interesting and may be something you may want to add. It'd probably be a great way to get some bounce light in his chest region and may help guide the viewer to his face. These are just my thoughts, I'm looking forward to seeing this completed!
~Karen
P.S.
I am glad you posted your stuff. I only posted my final image, and probably should have gotten more feedback from people on polycount.
@kmactastic: Thanks for the feedback! Unfortunately I merged my AO into the texture a while back so I cant isolate it and turn it down that way. Like I said above i found another fix. Also, my UVs are pretty set in stone, there isnt much room to peel off the bracers and make a unique texture space for them
Here's what I have now:
I created a gradient map in maya and layed that on top of everything. I noticed from my references that all WoW characters have that gradual increase in value as you go up the character.
Here's my texture as well:
The overall color scheme is very 'orange'. I know that sounds obvious, what I mean to say is that you should be looking to add complementary colors in other areas of the model. Look at Firstkeeper's stuff:
http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?t=128955&highlight=thunder+king
Even on the orc where he has a lot of bare skin he's not just 'green', he has varying areas of blue on the feet, or yellows in the muscle cavities.
Otherwise awesome work which could really fit into WoW
I added some detail work to him, making him lessy "fuzzy". I also riged, skinned and posed him with the weapon. BUT idk if i'm going to include the weapon in my submission, since the guidelines say you can only have one 1024x1024 for the character. Although the weapon isnt technically the character so I might be able to get away with another 512x256. So I dont know what my best option is. I think he would benefit from having a weapon.
Here he is posed with the weapon base mesh though:
I think the pose could be stronger...thoughts, suggestions, critiques?
I'm done! Decided not to go with a weapon, I didn't wanna be DQ'd just because I used 2 maps, so I played it safe and went with what I had.
Here's the image I submitted as my final! Thanks everyone for all the great advice and critiques, this community is freaking awesome and I'll definitely be posting here again soon!