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The Quarterly CHARACTER ART Challenge | January - March

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Alemja quad damage

Welcome to the Quarterly Character Art Challenge!

New concepts will be chosen at the start of April
Previous Challenge Thread

How it works
  • Every new challenge, 3 Character Concepts will be provided
  • Pick one concept to work on for the duration of the challenge and post your progress here!
  • Complete a 3D game res model of your chosen concept
Guidelines
  • Help other artists grow! When you post an update, also leave a critique for someone else. Share knowledge you have learned
  • There are no software restrictions; you're welcome to use as little, or as many different software packages as you like.
  • There are no polygon or texture restrictions, it can be a 3,000 triangle hand painted model or a 100,000 triangle current gen model. Just make sure the final result is a game model, not a sculpt!
  • You are welcome to cross post on different sites (Artstation, Facebook, Discord etc.) for additional feedback
  • Before starting your character, break down the concept and plan your work accordingly. Being able to effectively estimate how long it will take to complete a project is an important skill, especially for freelance artists.
  • Your final presentation should be posed and rendered in any real time engine. (Marmoset, UE4, Unity, etc.)
  • Don't be afraid to ask questions, but don't hesitate to find the answer on your own - chances are, the answer to your problem has already been answered within these forums
  • If you feel anything should be modified or added to these guidelines, please let me know!
Resources


Concepts

Please credit and link to the artists when posting on other sites!

The Lamplighter by Max Filip Petersson


Candle by Elisavet Theodosiou


Candle Knight by Théo Guillot


How concepts are chosen:
  • Trying to keep it consistently one male character, one female and one other non-human (robot, creature, humanoid, etc)
  • Trying to keep the 3 concepts look like they are part of a theme or could fit in similar universe.
  • Concepts must be full body and clearly drawn. There shouldn't be a lot of guesswork on what the details or proportions are. Turnarounds are a good thing to have, but not required
  • Concepts shouldn't be too complex or too simple to allow people to get them done in the time-frame while also finding something interesting and giving a challenge.
  • Must be able to link back to the original source artist to they can be properly credited, places like Pinterest can lead to link rot. If I cannot find the source or original artist, the art will not be used
  • If you are a concept artist and want your concept removed or want to create a concept for a future challenge please feel free to contact me.
  • If you have any suggestions of themes you would like to see in the future, send me a message!

Replies

  • Justo
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    Justo polycounter
    Great design choices :)
  • tinyworlds
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    tinyworlds polycounter lvl 2
    Sounds like a cool idea for a challenge! On this: "If you are a concept artist and want your concept removed" - hope you contact the concept artists first and ask if they are cool with their art being used for this :)
  • Alemja
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    Alemja quad damage
    @tinyworlds I don't always get the chance to, but if they have stuff in their bios about not reposting I try to respect that. I always make sure I link back to a source (pinterest doesn't count) though sometimes mistakes happen and things get missed. Since this isn't being done for profit and there are no prizes except people creating portfolio work there generally aren't any problems.
  • DiegoBAQ
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    DiegoBAQ polycounter lvl 6
    Loved those concepts, I think I'm gonna have to participate on this one. 
  • lerrine
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    lerrine polycounter lvl 3
    Nice concepts! It was hard to choose, but I think I will give a go! exciting!
  • Bort
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    Bort polycounter lvl 18
    Wanted to relearn Quake 3 shaders and mess around with morph targets for death anims before trying a PPM I'm planning so I'm going to chuck Candle into Q3.

    Planning on 800 polys and I'm going to change at least one of the hands for bare wick so the change weapon anim is a 360 spin.
    There's going to be a wick skeleton inside the model that will emerge during the death anims a la the new terminator in Terminator: Date Fate.

    Day 1: Getting the scale right before I attempt to finish anything.
    Hair needs more girth. Neck is a bit too long. Holder around the neck is super rough. Thighs need a bit more meat. Feet need to be a bit longer.

  • Bort
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    Bort polycounter lvl 18
    Day 2 was modelling and UVing and coming up with the name Ivory Tears. Forgot to do renders.

    Ended up being 739 polys but 59 will be double sided via shader so 798 is the real count.

    Textures are:
    Base texture: probably 256
    Animated Flame: 32x64 *4
    Halo: 64x64
    Haze: 32x64
    Drip (three different drip types): 32x64

    Day 3 was final tweaks after uving, temp rig and doing the three death anims. They came out half decent (for me).



  • Bort
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    Bort polycounter lvl 18
    Day 4 was rigging and the rest of the anims then I spent two days on the shaders and the crappy texture.

    Quake Live workshop: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1982020572
    Quake 3 pk3: https://onedrive.live.com/?id=CD3FE467557BA113!7750&cid=CD3FE467557BA113

    Wireframe - Crappy Texture
    The environment map on the Holder really pops when the texture is janky like that. *shrug*
    Only used one texture for the flame in the end, clampmap and turbulence did the job.

    Learnt what I wanted from the project. Texture is fairly off from the concept but that was expected.



  • Molo
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    Molo polycounter lvl 4
    I love the look of the lamplighter concept; it reminds me of something out of dark souls. Considering it differs pretty drastically from my usual style I'm gonna give it a go. 

    I'm gonna set my deadline at 3 weeks with a target tri count between 15 and 50k. With the target engine being ue4.

    Since the concept is pretty vague, I'm gonna take the liberty of filling in the blanks. 

    The concept has a rather religious feel to me so I'm picking a monk or priest of sort as the thematic base for him.

    Its unclear to me where the chains originate and what purpose they serve. I'm thinking of connecting them to a pair of shackles, which I think fits well with the overall concept of a slave Or servant of the gods who willing dons the mask and shackles as a sign of obedience.

    As soon as I get home from work I'm gonna start on him. My goal is finish this no matter how messy or ugly it turns out.
  • Molo
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    Molo polycounter lvl 4
    @bort i know absolutely nothing about that quake 3 engine but the model looks absolutely adorable!

    heres my blockout so far; was hoping to get more done on my day off but oh well.



    im gonna play around with the silhouette a little bit more before i start polishing him. also i still need to figure out what to do with the chains.
  • Bort
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    Bort polycounter lvl 18
    Since you aren't doing a 1:1 from the concept and you are still blocking out shizzle it's hard to make any strong crits so far. The only thing I'm seeing is that the dome is a little bit too big, but that could just be your preference. The anatomy looks like it has the right proportions from the concept.
  • Torch
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    Torch interpolator
    @Molo - yes dude - looks very nice! Some proportional tweaks to make but a great start. Candles can be tricky to sculpt/define materials with well, looking forward to more on this.
  • lerrine
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    lerrine polycounter lvl 3
    Hello everyone! Happy to see all the model taking form! Shaping mine little by little, it`s starting to go from blob to humanoid. Still shaping it right now, not quite ready yet!

  • Bort
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    Bort polycounter lvl 18
    Nice start. Legs are nice and long and the torso is appropriately compact.

    You're still in the forming stage but before you add detail double check the head. The hair is too human and the face is too anime atm. The concept is bulbous and curvy, not angled.
  • lerrine
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    lerrine polycounter lvl 3
    Thanks @Bort
    I haven't really work on the head yet, but it's definitely some good points I will need to keep in mind! 
  • Kiraitul
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    Kiraitul polycounter lvl 5
    Hey Guys,

    I have been slowly working on this guy:


  • Bort
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    Bort polycounter lvl 18
    Nice start @Kiraitul

    Few crits.
    The torso is a bit too long between the arm holes and the belt.
    The gloves and feet are too meaty.

    You'll be working on the heavily worn nature of the concept later on but it's most evident on the skirt and the popped collar, both are sharp and straight atm (easier to start that way). The skirt has been chipped away and the collar appears to have a curve to it (the overhanging wax making it more pronounced).
  • lerrine
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    lerrine polycounter lvl 3
    Nice! 
    thanks for all your support @Bort !
    I am in the process of finishing my retopology! I will do my best to finish on time!
  • Alemja
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    Alemja quad damage

    As always you're welcome and encouraged to finish up your models from a character challenge. You can continue posting here or start your own new thread, this thread will no longer be stickied
  • lerrine
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    lerrine polycounter lvl 3
    I haven't finished, pieces still missing (feet button and hair drip) , modifications on the proportions and material changes to do. But I will still post some progression.
  • Alemja
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    Alemja quad damage
    @lerrine Looking great! Looking forward to the finished result!
  • Bort
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    Bort polycounter lvl 18
    @lerrine Looking nice. The face is more traditionally attractive then the goober/sheepish concept but that's fine. The only slight tweaks I'd mention would be to slide the tutu back a little bit so it isn't in the center of the torso and lose a bit of definition in the arms since quite literally she doesn't have any muscles.
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