Orc in a Starfighter

#1

Hello everyone. Here is the WIP for my latest project.

I was looking at pictures of fighter pilots in their cockpits, and imagining myself all alone in a cramped space hurtling through the sky at supersonic speeds while not knowing what all these levers and buttons do made my palms sweat. I wanted to try and capture that feeling for my next image, so I put an orc in a starfighter.

Concept Art:

Cockpit:

Sculpting the orc:

#2

Orc update:

#3

Fun Concept! It would be great to see R2-D2 squawking at him from behind.

#4

Thanks, wakkamis! I was actually thinking of having assist him through a video monitor or something but decided against it. I want to keep him completely confused and isolated.

Here’s what the orc looks like now. Going to retopologize him next before sculpting the high resolution details. Since I’m going to be rendering in 4k, I’m going to have to use HD geometry, which I’ve never really used before. Anyone have any tips on that? I heard it can be a bit… finicky.

#5

Here’s where the topology is at right now:

#6

Detailing progress:

And a BPR for good measure:

Might do some skin tests in Maya soon since I can never tell if my detail is right in ZBrush.

#7

Have you try to narrow the distance between the two eyes? I think your model is great but that distance make it less believable

#8

Have you try to narrow the distance between the two eyes? I think your model is great but that distance make it less believable

I gave it a shot. How does this look?

#9

I did some skin tests in Maya to see if the detail holds up when applied to an sss shader.

#10

Detailing update:








#11

Polypainting:

Apparently you need to be in the highest HD subdivision level while polypainting HD geometry or the polypaint won’t stick. Two hours lost. Oh well.

#12

The rest of the orc polypainted:

#13

Looks alot like Jason Statham :stuck_out_tongue:

I think you are doing amazing progress, but the polypaint might need some more work, does not seem very detailed compared to the rest

#14

Looks alot like Jason Statham :stuck_out_tongue:

   I know, right? Completely unintentional, but I'll roll with it.
   
   You're right about the detail. I'll give him another pass of darker blemishes and veins. I'll have to paint thing like dirt in Blender though since HD geometry apparently doesn't support layers. Thanks!
#15

Trying to improve the quality of the skin:


I can’t seem to properly paint the speckled pattern that looks like tiny blood vessels. I tried to make it apparent on the ear.

#16

It`s great! Cool details.
Why i am thinking that he looks like Statham?))

#17

@AlexAndrieL
Thanks! He’s an accidental Jason Statham orc-a-like.

Now lest I forget that this is a sci-fi piece, I did more work on the cockpit. I redid a few models, most notably the front control thing, and added a few more bits and pieces. I stuck some sticky notes to the controls, as if someone thought that those would be enough to teach an orc how to fly a starship.

Added a size stand-in for the orc to see how much space he takes up.

I also started texturing the cockpit. I’m starting with the UV-independent methods of texturing first so that I have a bunch of basic materials that I can slap onto any object without having to UV map every tiny bit of geometry. I’ll work on the unique details later. I still might have to bake everything to texture though since I noticed that this method is really slow to render.


The bump map is a little too strong on the paint material one. I’ll have to adjust that.

#18

I tweaked the modeling of the cockpit a bit more. I realized that the original model had no seat belts, so I had to change most of the seat to accommodate them. I also changed the exterior of the ship and added frames for the glass. I think this works better for the composition since there are now lines pointing to the general area of where the orc’s head is going to be. I’m going to focus on texturing now.

#19

Texturing update:

I’m still using projected textures at this stage, though I had to bake out the edge wearing texture on some of the objects. The curvature shader I’m using is doing something funky when not baked and I’m still trying to solve it so that the base shaders are more procedural.

#20

Update (click to view full res):

I’m thinking of just getting rid of the gun. It might just be in the way.

I’m going to start baking down the textures to bring down the render times (this image took 3 hours…) and then I’m going to go back to working on the orc (retopo and texturing of the clothes, teeth, gums, eyes, nails).