Mirana "Might of the Joined Skies" set
polycounter lvl 8
Apologies for the cheesiest title ever.
Here is the current state of things (more or less, I was too lazy to decimate and re-import all the sculpt meshes) - I just finished baking out the last of the normal and ao maps today, and will be moving on to texturing proper tomorrow.
I would greatly appreciate any feedback, particularly on the color scheme as I'm a little nervous giving her so much bronze/gold, and my usual sounding board is colorblind.:P
Thanks guys!
Here is the current state of things (more or less, I was too lazy to decimate and re-import all the sculpt meshes) - I just finished baking out the last of the normal and ao maps today, and will be moving on to texturing proper tomorrow.
I would greatly appreciate any feedback, particularly on the color scheme as I'm a little nervous giving her so much bronze/gold, and my usual sounding board is colorblind.:P
Thanks guys!
Replies
My fear is that the chainmail will be messy in game. I was putting some on a character of mine about the same size and in game it's hardly readable. Just blurry.
I think the biggest thing I notice is you could bump up the contrast. You need some really good highlights.
And I can see the lower swirl shape under the top one (on her chest). Might relax that hair in front too, the low poly just has a really stiff kink in it.
Colors:
I think you did a pretty good job with them. Sure, it's a bit heavy on Gold for her stock set. But you did a good job keeping it to smaller details and on her mount the gold is all pretty low down. In game it won't be seen as much.
Looked at her good in game...
You should make the bracers trim silver, also try to match the trims size closer to the originals. Notice the boots trim too.
The silver should have a slight blue tint.
and one last thing
The point on the sun looks dangerously close to removing here eye. I'd probably point them out a bit more, maybe even shrink that pauldron just a little (maybe 10%). That would reduce some gold pixels and make it look more even
(due to moon not having spikes)
==========edit
I wonder if her cape should be over her leg though. From the front side view it blends in with the lion and almost makes her leg disappear.
Plus you're covering a lot of her skin which is a strong part of her shape in game.
Here are unshaded versions of all her pieces except the cat (still working on him >>).
I don't have everything ingame yet, but here's what it's looking like so far (the chainmail is, sadly, pretty hard to see from the main camera, but thankfully it didn't turn into too much a blurblob when I downressed it). I'm thinking I might have to push the levels even more tastelessly hard to get a good read...:P
As before, any new thoughts or critiques are much appreciated!
Back to rigging and cat-texturing now!
I'm still happy to hear critiques and suggestions, I'm always looking to improve and these guys are updateable for a reason.;)
I got so many helpful suggestions from folks in the workshop, it was really really useful. And to anyone who came here from the workshop and was hoping for a non-feline mount, sorry for not giving you one. Next time I make a moon lady, I promise.
(Edit: Oh and here's a workshop link for anyone who wants it... I need to stop posting things at 1am.:P )
I'm glad to hear I'm not the only one who has a hell of a time getting the mount and rider to match.:P It probably gets harder and harder the less armor the mount has, too, since you have less manmade stuff to work with. On an unarmored mount, I think a well-designed blanket's probably the obvious go-to, but my very last step on him was to hue-shift all the purples of the original slightly towards the blue range that Mirana herself was using, which I think helped a fair bit. Subtle AO under her legs and skirt/cape/butt, while probably pretty obvious and not what you're looking for, was also a big one.
Since mine had so much armor, that was where I really tried to tie them together, with the same gold rays and silver trim/curls on both. (I would say the chainmail as well, but I think overall the chainmail was a bad idea from gameview.:P) I've gotten quite a few critiques in the workshop that the set is too busy, and I think they have a point. Since Mirana's mounts are usually a visual rest point I would suggest going a lot easier on the add-ons than I did, but they're another great way to tie the two together.
I hope that helps, thanks again for the kind words!
I now have a "go to post" for whenever anyone complains about mounts being too hard, haha!