Low Poly Journey

damir_boz · Feb 2014

I am a noob artist (about 4 months of experience) that uses Photoshop, Zbrush and Blender, my goal is to learn how to do low poly models with hand painted textures to be used in stylized games and projects.

I will post my low poly work here, and hopefully get some feedback by you guys

damir_boz · Feb 2014

Fenyce · Feb 2014

Are you aiming for a special direction with your handpainted textures and models?
Like more semi-realistic or more cartoony like world of warcraft?
Knowing this might help people with giving you critique.

For now the blade of you sword looks to bride/white and the metall looks a little to noisy.
Also some edge highlight on the metal might help defining the material. Especially on the bottom part.

damir_boz · Feb 2014

Thank you for your feedback Fenyce, I am looking to achieve a style similar to dota, everquest next and warcraft

Fenyce · Feb 2014

Ok. I'm not to familiar with Everquest, but Dota and WoW have more exaggerated forms. Like curves and big scratches. You should look up some of those.

Some examples:

Your sword is atm looking like a classic medieval one.

damir_boz · Feb 2014

Awesome, thanks for that examples

I know that my sword isn't looking as epic as these examples, I should've mentioned that I'm trying to build up on my knowledge on hand painting and modeling simpler forms so that later I know how to make something cooler

damir_boz · Feb 2014

Improved a little, moving on to a different project.

damir_boz · Feb 2014

Just started painting a new sword in Zbrush, what do you think about Zbrush polypaint? I find it more intuitive than painting in photoshop.

Moosebish · Feb 2014

It definitely looks like you're moving in the right direction, keep with it. Don't be afraid to add more color, especially to the metal parts. Adding a little blue, purple, or orange to a grey metal can really add to the piece.

Right now your design looks like a lvl 1 player's weapon, make it epic! Check out all the color in these weapons

damir_boz · Feb 2014

Thanks Moosebish, I think the hardest part of this kind of work is coming up with a good concept, so yeah I'm gonna keep practicing, maybe in a few years i can come up with something like that WoW weapons xD

stevston89 · Feb 2014

You don't always have to come up with your own concept. I would say it is better to not make the concept on your own at the learning stages. Take a look at FirstKeeper's 2D gallery she has some great weapon concepts in there http://firstkeeper.deviantart.com/gallery/3065306.

Spacey · Feb 2014

damir_boz wrote: »

Just started painting a new sword in Zbrush, what do you think about Zbrush polypaint? I find it more intuitive than painting in photoshop.

I've always had a really hard time visualizing how the texture is going to look on the model from Photoshop. It was always fine for blocking in details, but was excruciatingly slow when I started getting down to the finer details. Things have gotten much easier since finding 3dcoat, being able to paint directly on the model. There are a few other options you could look into like the Viewport Canvas feature in Max and the model painting mode in Blender.

At this point, tackling design, modeling, and texturing might be too much. There's nothing wrong with directly copying one of the WoW models posted earlier and trying to replicate it as close as you can. You'll free up the burden of "design" and be able to focus on getting a low poly model that represents the concept and understand the subtle nuances of the painterly style (like the color Moosebish pointed out). Just be sure you explain clearly it isn't your own design.

Keep going, man. It's going to be a fun journey!

Felipe Vargas · Feb 2014

Look this
http://media.steampowered.com/apps/dota2/workshop/Dota2CharacterArtGuide.pdf

damir_boz · Mar 2014

In the last couple of days I've started experimenting with different workflows, right now I'm doing :

1. Low poly parts in blender
2. High poly sculpt in zbrush
3. Polypaint
4. Baking texture map in Zbrush
5. Baking AO in CrazyBump

Now I have to figure out if I'm gonna composite the textures in photoshop and kinda go from there.

This is just an update on my "improvement"

Uberren · Mar 2014

Sword itself looks nice, but as others have said in this thread already, I think you should try for more vibrant and interesting colours.
As for the workflow, what do you do with the highpoly once you've sculpted it? Bake the AO onto the original low poly parts you built in Blender? Or are you gonna retopo off of the sculpt?