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[Riot Art Contest] - Owl

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Owl
polycounter lvl 6
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Owl polycounter lvl 6
Hey everyone! Lots of good stuff already going! Adding mine to the stew. Been working on a few concept paintovers over the weekend. Got some ideas for the den and one for a turret. Right now I'm mostly favoring the den design with the big tree stump... None of them are finished concepts, just vignettes to get my ideas down. Probably would just flesh the rest out in 3d. Still thinking on the inhibitor design... haven't really started with it yet. Will have more to come soon!

Let me know which strikes your fancy!

MOST RECENT UPDATE:

FINAL UPDATES!!!

Final Den and Turret Presentation:

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ORIGINAL CONCEPT IDEAS:


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Replies

  • Aerisnoir
    Hi! I am very drawn to the banners, they're nice additions.
  • Neer
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    Neer polycounter lvl 4
    So good! You got this thing. I cant wait to see your progress.
  • nksilver5
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    nksilver5 polycounter lvl 5
    Awesome designs :D !
  • FemCharles
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    FemCharles greentooth
    Lovely ideas. I like the last one in particular! The orange leave on the tree is a nice touch.
  • Afklamer
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    Afklamer polycounter lvl 7
    howly mowly, this stuff made my day =)
  • Owl
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    Owl polycounter lvl 6
    Thanks everyone for the kind words!! This stuff is a lot of fun to do. Looking forward to moving onto 3d but still tinkering with ideas...

    What do you guys think of adding in some Autumn colored trees??? I like the idea, but want to keep the tree the main focal point and don't want to get too much crazy stuff happening in a small space... So I'm not sure if its actually strengthening or weakening the image. What do you think?

    Thanks for looking!

    9Eo1TQ6.jpg
  • Odow
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    Odow polycounter lvl 8
    This is so beautiful, i'm in love. The orange autumn tree make it even more beautiful
  • Owl
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    Owl polycounter lvl 6
    Hey guys! Worked on a new Turret Idea tonight. Let me know what you think! Obviously still very wip. :p

    INDo4ra.jpg
  • FemCharles
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    FemCharles greentooth
    I prefer it with the orange trees personally. It makes it a lot more interesting to look at and in small amounts it works well.

    I like the details of the first turret although i do think its too similar to what they already have in game (the pose). I prefer the silhouette of the second one, although i don't know if i'm keen on the rock base.

    Anyway keep it up, some great stuff :)
  • Fenyce
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    Fenyce polycounter lvl 11
    OMG. Loving this. Your painting skills are awesome and fit the level very well. I can't wait to see some 3D stuff! Please continue to record some of your process (screenshots/WIP shots) since I really enjoy watching it! :)
  • pixelb
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    pixelb greentooth
    Leaves are really pretty, but I think they read as too much noise detracting from the trunk. I prefer without.

    I also like the second turret, because it's different from what's in the game already.
  • Afklamer
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    Afklamer polycounter lvl 7
    agree with pixelb, the orange draws alot of attention looks beutifull but i think this amount will visually fight with the creeps
  • Kel-Shaded
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    Kel-Shaded polycounter lvl 6
    Wow, I love your style
  • Owl
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    Owl polycounter lvl 6
    Thanks for the feedback everyone!

    I agree that the way the orange leaves are now, they distract from the trunk/den... so I will keep thinking on them, maybe a smaller less distracting way to incorporate them.

    In the meantime... here is another wip of the second turret design.


    oXSlxYy.jpg
  • Owl
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    Owl polycounter lvl 6
    ... and early morning idea for my inhibitor.. Let me know what you think... I've kind of adopted a bit of the Darksiders 2 Maker style in my last two concepts. Always really loved that design.

    Obviously super WIPP... Work in Progress Poop

    alkCa4G.jpg
  • Khaja
    really loving the shots your putting together. Gotta ask though the in game screenies with udyr really show off the creep dens nicely. Do you mind sharing where you grabbed them from? :) Also that inhib is very maker, which i like. Maybe too much of a darksiders influence?? *shrug*
  • Owl
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    Owl polycounter lvl 6
    @Khaja - thanks for the input. Ya, I want to be careful not to make it too Darksidersish... I do like some of the design ideas from the DS2 Maker stuff and feel it fits pretty well with the New Summoners Rift map style... Just needs to be LOL's bigger smoother/slicker texture style, less of the super broken, cracked and jaggy DS2 detail, I think...

    But ya, that concept still needs some work before its working the way it should...

    For the screens I did the paintover on with Udyr, it was from this video:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cv5EMMZZG5Q

    I just set it to HD and screen grabbed the dens I thought might be cool to redo.

    :D
  • Khaja
    thankyou very much indeed :D
  • blakeo
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    blakeo polycounter lvl 7
    inhib looks awesome!
  • EatenByBats
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    EatenByBats polycounter lvl 10
    Your concepts are fantastic. I can't wait to see the final pieces.

    I've gotta agree with the guys saying the yellow leaves add too much visual noise to the creep den. I really like the idea, but it pulls the attention away from the den itself and I feel like your design is strong enough to stand on its own.
  • Owl
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    Owl polycounter lvl 6
    Thanks for the comments guys!

    A couple more quick concepts for tonight for the turret... I've got to decide on these soon... I had a couple people crit the one of the dwarvish dude on the rock, saying that they felt my first turret concept was a better "turret" design... So I took that as a base and did a new idea off of it... Let me know what you guys think.

    Do you like:

    Turret #1 - the top one, Statue holding hammer in front of his chest.

    Turret #2 - The Dwarvish dude on the rock... I think this one maybe needs more of an actual base to make it feel more like a turret...yes? no?

    Turret #3 - Floating statue dude holding his hands up... 2 versions with slightly different arms and helmet...

    Open to ideas and crits.. Got to wrap up this concepting stuff and start modeling PRONTO! :D

    P3GOvv4.jpg


    gpKyCJF.jpg
  • Neer
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    Neer polycounter lvl 4
    YEAHHHH! I'm liking that direction. I like the longer sleeves version of turret #3. I do really miss the banners and shield though.

    And I still say vines, glowing runes, and floaty bits, could be used in each piece to tie it all together nicely.

    One things for sure though, It could use a little more Owl Belt. I gotta have more Owl Belt!
  • Owl
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    Owl polycounter lvl 6
    @Neer - Thanks man! Glad you like it. Ya, I will play around with the banners. I did like them too, just not sure yet how to integrate them in a way that makes sense.

    Small update on the inhibitor, I figure Owls are a good theme for me. :D And they are what the red side has a theme already... so... kinda makes sense to me.

    Didn't want to take the time to render this all out... sorry, this is all you get for now.

    PzmQVdi.jpg
  • CocoaCup
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    CocoaCup polycounter lvl 6
    I love the idea with the ruins and trees, it has a nice atmosphere :)
  • Avanthera
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    Avanthera polycounter lvl 10
    Aw man, love all of these Jesse! Especially the creature dens, they look so good!

    I like these last two turrets the best, really good read and nice dynamic poses. The first two guys feel a bit stiff and generic compared to the last two.

    I'd say the guy with the hanging robe, lots of character with that, and a better silhouette to boot.

    The tree root-den is my favorite, nice and spooky, but fits really well into the environment.

    Inhibitor is looking great as well, you've really stepped up your concept game!
  • Dantert
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    Dantert polycounter lvl 10
    Amazing stuff here! Great job!
  • parasyte7
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    parasyte7 polycounter lvl 18
    I just want to make sure you saw this post with the update to the rules:

    Hi everyone,

    At Riot Games, we have a very strong feedback culture. We pivot and make adjustments when things can be done better or are not working. In the spirit of this culture and after internal conversations with feedback from the community, we have decided to make some tweaks to the environment section of the contest. You can now choose to create the turret or the inhibitor rather than being required to create both. We want to make sure we are giving everyone enough time to create assets that you are proud of and able to finish in time for the December 19th deadline.

    We are also tweaking the animation com petition and not have animators pick an established character since animating a specific character without the exact model will be difficult. We want to see solid animations that are keeping the animation style of LoL in mind when creating these ability assets.

    We thank you for your understanding and look forward to seeing what you all come up with.

    -Kenny
  • Owl
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    Owl polycounter lvl 6
    @ Avanthera - Thanks Elijah!!! I appreciate it. Ya, I've been spending lots of mornings drawing and painting. :D Definitely still have a ways to go, especially with characters, but its a slow process, and I'm alright with that.

    Thanks for the thoughts. Ya, I agree the first dude was really stiff, second was a bit better and I agree the dude with the sleeves is probably the winner. Although, now we only have to do a turret or inhibitor, and I've already started on the inhibitor... but I was looking a lot more forward to the turret... Ugh.. Might just still do all three... not sure...


    Thanks Kenny for the update!


    Will have to take that into consideration. Was planning on doing both, so maybe I still will. I guess it will just depend on time.

    Anyways, here is some work on my inhibitor base. Its still WIP, but a decent start. The hole in the bell needs to be larger I think, but I'm a little torn with it because I don't want it too close to the next hole... Maybe I should only have two holes in it instead of four... I think I might try that...

    Sorry, now I'm just spewing thoughts on polycount...More to come soon!

    Cheers!

    fseNrG9.jpg
  • Hawk1701
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    Hawk1701 polycounter lvl 8
    Hey Jesse, stuff looks pretty schweet! Gotta say, I'm liking that mage-like tower with the long sleeves. I'd just give him an owl hood and call it a day :D
  • Owl
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    Owl polycounter lvl 6
    Thanks Jason. Ya I'm going to try that dude out I think. The base obviously needs work and some of his elements are not really LOL style so I need to watch that... but I'll get it figured out.

    So, just did a quick rework of the opening in the centerpiece to get something a little closer to the ratio in the concept and removed it from two of the sides, which I think will look a lot better and allows the holes to be bigger.

    But I'm going to put the inhibitor on hold for now. Going to start on the Turret. So my plan is to get all the modeling and Zbrushing done first, leaving texture for last. And now with the new rules.. I think I'm going to focus most on the turret and den, as they are the most fun. But since I have a pretty good start on the inhibitor I may finish it, if time allows. It really just needs some final tweaking, a little more modeling and everything uv'd but again, I think I'll wait on it till nearer the end to see how the turret and den come out.

    So here is the Inhibitor for now.

    cY9Hvy6.jpg
  • Owl
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    Owl polycounter lvl 6
    Alright, as promised, I worked on the Turret design this weekend.

    Still very WIP on every area, but blocking out all the different pieces in Zbrush. I plan on breaking up the symmetry a lot more, as everything right now is pretty much all symmetrical. Just trying to get all the pieces in to some degree so I can start tweaking all the big forms before I start breaking it all with asymmetry.

    More to come soon.

    oXhsHXx.jpg
  • artquest
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    artquest polycounter lvl 13
    Looking awesome man! My only feed back so far is on the Inhibitor. I would "chunkify" the shapes a little. It seems like a lot of the shapes are a bit too thin to fit the league of legends style.
  • Owl
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    Owl polycounter lvl 6
    And... A little more...

    Widened his arms out after some crits, added some back armor and a few other things.. Thoughts so far?? See anything that looks weird or should be changed?? Let me know. :D

    Everything is still pretty wip and needs a major polish pass. Just trying to nail down the ideas and pieces first.

    Thanks!

    QEE5YHo.jpg
  • Perzik
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    Perzik polycounter lvl 5
  • Owl
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    Owl polycounter lvl 6
    Alright, so here is the Turret dude a bit further. Probably as far as I'll take him in sculpt form. The rest will just need to be painted.

    Now I'll start on the base for him and then Low poly soon hopefully.VWG0Rrj.jpg

    :D
  • Owl
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    Owl polycounter lvl 6
    Hey guys! Little update from me. More work on the turret. Modeled the base. Working on retopo for the turret. Did a paintover of something close to what I'm planning on doing with the base.

    Cheers!

    B7mwHEa.jpg
  • Avanthera
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    Avanthera polycounter lvl 10
    Nice! The garland of flowers on his hood and the moss really looks great!

    If that is all in the correct perspective of the game and all, I'd grab the left hand of the low poly and pull it out and away from the shoulder, and grab the right hand and pull it down and away from the crystal so they show up better in the silhouette, it's a bit confusing as it is.


    It's all looking fantastic though! I'm really excited to see what it will look like once you start painting it!
  • Kel-Shaded
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    Kel-Shaded polycounter lvl 6
    That is really good, love it dude
  • DefiledVisions
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    DefiledVisions polycounter lvl 4
    Kickass work Owl!! really nice. I think you could explore the silhouette of the flags a bit more. Right now it doesn't feel like they add so much to your turrett. Definitely looking forward for more!
  • RoadKill2222
    Dude...You're totally rock'n it out!! :D Can't wait to see it finished.
  • Owl
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    Owl polycounter lvl 6
    Thanks guys for the kind words and good crits.

    @Avanthera - I agreed about both of the hands needing adjustments. I made some changes that should help with that now. :D

    @ Kel-Shaded, DefiledVisions - thanks guys and yes I agree about the flags. They still need quite a bit of design work. I'm going to nail down the statue and base I think first and then work out if the banners are actually helping the Turret or detracting from it.

    @RoadKill2222 - Thanks Ben! I've got a couple of your sculpts in my Ref/Inspiration folder for this guy! :D

    UPDATE:

    Changed a few things and added some more details. Still deciding on the cloth bits... may redesign them or rework them.

    8rRAqTU.jpg
  • Neer
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    Neer polycounter lvl 4
    Dang it's looking awesome! I like the arms being posed a bit different.

    If you're still looking for feedback on the turret, the one thing I'm not feeling on it is the large bottom stone piece. It feels more naturally formed to me than fractured and broken off of a statue. Maybe it could be remnant pieces of a shattered robe or something.

    Seriously turning out great though!
  • Fenyce
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    Fenyce polycounter lvl 11
    loving this... can't say much more :)
  • Owl
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    Owl polycounter lvl 6
    Thanks guys! Appreciate the feedback.

    Update for tonight:

    Low Poly on the turret and an initial bake. Spotted a few uv issues so I will tweak those and then probably be pretty good to go. Here's the first bake. Mixed the green channel from a bent normal map, AO and a top down gradient map. Also, I baked it down to a 1024x2048. That way I have the other half of the texture for the base.

    Time to sleep....

    sdyE6Hr.jpg
  • DefiledVisions
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    DefiledVisions polycounter lvl 4
    fuuuuck thats looking good :] so tasty. What's your workflow for retopping and texturing? I'm curious to hear how you're gonna translate the delicious zbrush detailing into the diffuse.
    Inspiring!
  • Owl
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    Owl polycounter lvl 6
    @DefiledVisions - Thanks man! I appreciate it. My workflow is nothing too fancy. I do retopo in Max with the graphite freeform retopo tools. Then when baking I bake out AO, Normal and Bent Normal maps. I take the green channel from the Bent normal for up lighting. And take the normal map into Crazybump to generate a couple edge/cavity maps. Then I baked out a top down gradient map in Max. Then basically combine it all in Photoshop. The only other thing I do some of is using gradient maps in Photoshop to set up base color gradients for the different materials. But in the end it will all get flattened down and painted over. Its really a lot of work that in the end you still just end up painting over, but I guess the point is that it gives you a great starting point/base texture to work with and a good start to defining your materials and edges/light and shadows.

    Here's the start on the base texture, basically the result of everything described above.

    XucmGs7.jpg


    So from here, I am acually putting this one on hold and going to start on the den. I'd like to get all the modeling/uvs done and then have all the remaining time for texturing both pieces. So my next update should be on the den. Kinda hard to set it aside, as I love texturing, but I want to make sure I set aside proper time to get the den modeled out as well. So here I go!!!
  • Owl
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    Owl polycounter lvl 6
    Alright, another quick update! Like I said, put the turret on hold and started on my den.

    I reworked my concept a bit and got it worked into a screenshot from their new interactive map. So enough with the concept stuff... I'll work the rest out as I go. :D

    Here's what I'm shooting for!

    njcGaiv.jpg
  • Owl
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    Owl polycounter lvl 6
    Hey Guys!

    Sorry I've been lame and haven't updated in a bit!! I'm still working away on this stuff. My den is pretty close to done, and I'm working on my turret update. I'll post up pics and stuff really soon.

    But for now here's a couple things...

    This ended up being my final concept idea for the den:

    N9FzgZa.jpg


    And here is an update on my turret!

    mWvyvge.jpg


    I'll post my den progress soon, but its almost done, so I'm just going to finish it first. :D
  • s0id3
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    s0id3 polycounter lvl 8
    I really like the little owl
  • soulstice
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    soulstice polycounter lvl 9
    It's coming along real nice Jesse, really diggin hand painted textures! Can't wait to see it done!
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