Dominance War II: Gavin_G

#1

Hey guys, I’m officially entering the battle. Mostly this is just to reserve my spot…

Posting a quick sketch, I’m clearly no concept artist…but hey, hopefully it gets the point across :stuck_out_tongue:

The idea is that this guy is more or less brute force, the muscle they send in to clear a path for the important people. Expect more little sketches soon -

Not taking the “ancient” term too literally,. I imagine these guys as being an old race, almost lizard type creatures that once ruled a ton of planets, drained them of any use to themselves and left them alone. Now that Polycount is messing things up, they’re pissed and have sent in these guys to clear a path and for a first impression.

Still not sure on weapons or the lower half. He may just go hand to hand…thinking about giving him some cermonial looking type armor plates around his waist and legs.

Gav

#2

the head things make him look very twil’lek (or whatever the hell it is… from star wars) but your description kind of makes me think of astaroth from the soul caliber series. i like the big bony extrusions coming off his wrist. must have one hell of a backhand.
if clearing a path is his forte, you may want to consider giving him some sort of centaur kind of lower body. not like a horse, but like a rhino or an elephant, something large that people wouldn’t want to be in the way of. just a suggestion. look forward to seeing how he progresses.

-J

#3

Centaur/Rhino thing is a pretty wicked idea…Perhaps I’ll sketch that up :twisted:

I was also thinking about making a giat mouth (or hole area) around his stomach that would contain a sort of magical fire. I hate using that term as it sounds very frilly…but that’s the best way to describe it. So, this area when set on “fire” would create a coloured smoke to billow off of him as he would walk around the battlefield. The purpose of this, much like Blackbeard making his head smoke, would be to intimidate his opponenets as he would appear to be a hulking fighter made out of smoke and fire…or at least give him a more hellish look.

Also thinking about changing his tumor-like arms to have spines coming out of them…so when he does do this backhand…it’s a little more violent.

Opinions? Go team!

Gav

#4

hi Gavin, your first concept looks great!
Enjoy the war :wink:

#5

Great start here fellow warrior!
His arm structure reminds me of a gorilla, who also is a strong cleansing creature!! Also on the weapon side some kind of mace or a great hammer might do!
Waiting for more

#6

Thanks for the replies, guys! Another little doodle. Trying the look with an “rock” type armor that would billow smoke and a centaur like bottom half (as mentioned earlier.)

Opinions?
Gav

#7

SWEEEET AS!

i dig this concept!, as for a weapon? are you thinking of maybe a large flail for your guy…i dunno i ain’t no artist soo i’m not gonna intrude but keep doing what ever the hell ure doing… its working for me! :slight_smile:

keep up the AWEsome work

#8

hey gavin!

very nice design. funny detail about the “belly-head”.
good luck.

-r

#9

Thanks guys, hoping to start modeling soon. Can’t wait to start his face.

#10

Maybe th mouth in the belly can barf out a beam of plasma, like an internal blaster cannon :wink:

#11

i like it so far. i think the rhinos back is to flat. hit it up w/ some musculature and it will push the overall brutness. im not sure about the mouth though, its cool but depending on what this characters overall appearance will look like in the end im not sure if it will be necessacary. but then again, its only an opinion-good stuff though-keep it up!

#12

Cheers guys, I really appreciate the feedback. The body will definitely be more beefy than what my concept lets on, with the crusty, scale bits, scars, etc. I’m debating redesigning the arms and calves to be gauntlets/braces with the spikes sticking out like in my last concept.

Anyways, here’s some progress on the head modeling. This is the base I’ll be using before I slap him into ZB.

Thanks.
Gav

#13

Hey dude centuar kind of craeture looks cool:thumbsup: Nice concept and great start with modeling. All the best:)

#14

Graet job on the face. definitely matches the sketch. Good luck with the contest!

#15

Thanks guys. More modeling…I’m hoping to add a lot of the detail in ZB, especially around the belly mouth.

Something is kind of bugging me though. Oddly enough, this is the first character I will have created for next gen specs and I’m wondering what the best workflow would be for generating the normal maps. Obviously, the ZB sculpt is a key element to my piece…what I’m expecting to do is make the best cuts I can so that I can subdivide it in ZB to a decent level of detail and then just export the corresponding low poly pieces and generate the normal map through ZMapper. I’m afraid though that the seams will be very obvious, maybe I’ll just have to paint out the seams in PS.

Any suggestions? I’m definitely not new to the whole ZB scene…just that all of the character’s I’ve ever created have obvious places to put a seam - t-shirt to bicep, neck/collar, etc.

Cheers,
Gav

#16

Holy Crap G, I had no idea. Fantastic

As far as you normal question there are 2 camps on this. One is you do your low poly model first and unwrap it, the other is you do your high and then low poly around it.

Epic does a low poly to get all the shaping created, then creates the high res, then rebuilds the low around it from what I understand.

Good luck man. Lookin sweet

#17

Word, thanks man. Your stuff is looking sweet as well :slight_smile:

The way I usually work is that I create a medium res mesh (quicker and easier to get shapes right), slap that sucker into ZB to get all of the fine detail, reduce that same med res mesh to an engine friendly mesh, unwrap him then chop it up and import it into ZB to project the normal maps onto.

The issue I’m having now is wondering where I should chop him up for both the high and the low…1) so ZB can handle it and 2) so I can put my seams in smart places. Before, most of my characters are civilians and stuff…pretty obvious where to put seams.

So I guess my problem is more or less what pieces to export to sculpt as this character is pretty much 1 piece. Maybe - 1) Head 2)Neck/Chest/Arms 3)Stomach Mouth Piece 4) Legs/Back/Belly.

…Maybe? :stuck_out_tongue:

Peace man, thanks for comments
G

#18

I personally create the lowpoly, unwrap it, then bring a slightly moded version of that into Zbrush (so that subdividings works as I’d like, ie. more geo in the chin). Then I use zmapper to bake out the normal map. You’re also able to update the lowpoly and re-import that into Zbrush as the lowest subdivision as long as you don’t make any vertice changes (great for detailing for a pose, since it keeps your symmetrical details you created on higher levels).

*For chopping up, you can try importing more than you want to detail… like that forearm as well if you’re detailing the hand. Then the hand once you’re detailing the forearm… then crop them and photoshop and clean up with the neutral blue or clone stamp. You can also clonestamp the seam out in Zbrush once you bake out the texture.

I really like your concept and where you’re headed with this guy. You probably don’t need all the vertical lines down the chest and stomach… I think if it doesn’t affect the silhouette and won’t help with deformation, I remove it (if I plan on normal mapping).

#19

Cool, thanks for the tip Scotcho

#20

good stuff buddy.I also have a four legged creature in my concept. :thumbsup: