Did some work in UV mapping to get the breast plate started to rough out. I’ll actually model the laces and texture those seperately along the seams. There will also be laced together plates on the shoulders and a series of them hanging from the breast plate. Next texure job will be on the top of the helmet.
Man, that looks great! I’m glad you went back to the less “super hero” body style. I’m still plugging away at mine, slowly. Seems I never have enough time to get anything done on this, what with work and the wife and the kids. 
I figured doing something simple would be easier to finish, boy was I wrong.
Anyway, keep going. You are a very talented individual. 
mrwilt–thanks man, I appreciate it. I’ve got the luxury of alot of time and the handicap of finite funds. Yep, time to find another contract/gig really soon!
Well, after jumping around hooping and hollerin’ when I finished this I wanted to post it. Well, its really to gloat at my success, I admit it I’m an immature arrogant bastard…hehe. The first time I really tried a difficult UV map I pulled it off! I created a UV map for the snakes that wrap around the gloves of the weapons.
“WHAT! NO! HOW DID YOU DO THAT?” you say!
Well, I finally found a cool short tut online using morphs to lay flat a mesh to get a good UV map so it may look like your tearing up your object but its only a morph/expression! Once you get your UV map, you delete the morph target, reweld the surface you cut and pasted to seperate it and Presto Change-o! You got a good UV map out of something that otherwise is a muck of lines to sort out and your model is no worse for wear. So now I can put a real looking snake skin on those puppies! Right now I’m trying to normalize the mesh with the red grid to reduce image deformation then I’ll start creating a snake skin.
Found some awesome websites on constructing Japanese armor and I’ll draw from those resources as I build it.
you wouldn’t mind listing those resources, would you?
if now now, at least at the end of the challenge. please?
No problemo Bent!
Japanese site on history and making a suit out of cardboard (for festivals and parades)
Direct link to the process of making armor out of cardboard
A guy stateside that studied with armorers for a number of years in Japan that’s involved with the SCA. Just click on the title.
Hope this helps you. I’m all about sharing info, that’s how we all get better! They each take some time to wade through to get the details and track with the Japanese names of everything. You gonna have Bullwinkle in armor? Hehe…
Hey blueCougar!..I’ve been following your thread since the begining… I should have commented earlier cuz this is great!! Great concept and the modeling is looking fabulous…Remmember Wind in the Willows??..remminds me of a character from that show, only he’s made for Middle Earth :)…
Can’t wait to see the finished peice!!
fetus
Fetus23–Thanks man, no I’m not familiar with it. I’ll have to find something on the net about it.
Sir_Lavain_78 --I remember seeing a bit of that on PBS one time. I really liked it.
dark_lotus–Thanks man! We’ll see if I can get through the texturing now…hehe
Got a base texture started on the snakes, had to do it all by hand. I couldn’t find a decent image of a snake skin to use, so I’m hand painting it as I go. Still need to do the turtle for the helmet, just not looking forward to sorting out another UV map so I’ll start on more of the armor tomorrow. Got the buddhist monks performing in town gonna go check them out tonite. Later.
I love it!
The armour looks pretty bulky, and like it would be difficult to fight in, but who cares. This is so refreshingly original. 
Good work on the armour, it looks solid!
The snake texture is also looking good.
Can I ask where you found the UV tut, Ive never actually surfaced a model so Im thinking Ill need all the help I can get.
The only thing that is looking a bit odd is the width of the helmet, it looks a little large for his head…
wave666 – Thanks for the feedback. I’ll look at in wireframe and see how it lines up. Hadn’t even thought about it. As for as the tut goes, I’ll see if I can find it. I don’t know if I bookmarked it or not.
Here’s some progress on the armor. The lacing that holds the plates together, and Yes, they are geometry not texture maps. I did make a UV map of the very first one and then copied from there so all the lacing will have one UV MAP! MWHAHAHAHAHA! Here’s the pic…
Well, seems like either my servers down, or they’ve decided to no longer host it. I’ll have to call in the morning. In the meantime, I’ll just attach the pic. Here’s a majority of the lacing done on the breast plate. I’ll have the rest hopefully done by tomorrow as well as my site back online!
I guess I didnt catch this thread befotre, even tho I see you online all the time…
Great work man, Love that armor…
Otter folk are cool as heck man, Two towers need a MASSIVE otter army to fight the orcs…that would be amazing…
Great concept, modeling and detaling thus far! I feel so far behind
:buttrock:
KingMob Thanks man, I noticed you posted here after I tagged yours! Yeah I’m having fun with the armor…I’ll attach one of the reference pics, I’m using the one on the right. Roll on man!
i love the armor, i can imagine it haveing a few scratches on it through to the metal and how awesome that would look it’d be really cool if you could have a scene with a few of these guys in there… but i guess time makes it hard to do taht, great character. keep it coming
Armor update…yeah its dragging along. Still not sure where this is leading but I hopeful I’ll get what I want out of it. I may backtrack a few times in the process to get there but here is where I am so far…
