The Evil Within: The Keeper [Stylized] - Feedback

#1

Hello!

I’m currently creating a stylized version of “The Keeper” from a game called The Evil Within. My overall goal is to produce a polished model that I can use in a beginner tutorial series that teaches the basics of Blender 3D.

I’ve attached an image so you know what I mean when I say “polished” (art work by Gleb Alexandrov). By polished, I mean that the textures don’t look flat, brightness/contrast are balanced, and shaders (reflections, gloss, etc) are noticeable, but not overbearing:

Primarily, I’m a 3D modeler, so I’m trying to improve my texturing and shading skills via this project as well.
I’d love to get feedback on what you think is wrong with my model, may it be with the textures, shaders, lighting, proportions, etc. and what you think I can do to improve.

My project is in the look development stage. I’m experimenting with different textures, shaders, and lights.
I’ve attached a render of my incomplete project below. I’m using Blender’s Cycles render engine along with the Principled BSDF shader.

One of my primary problems is getting The Keeper’s apron to look a certain way. For example, here is what it looks like in the game:

While I’m not trying to exactly recreate the Keeper’s apron shader, I would like to make something similar to it. However, I can’t seem to come up with a good combination of node groups and texture maps to do this. If anybody has any solutions or tips, I’d love to hear them.

If you need anymore information, tell me in the comments and I’ll see what I can do.

Thanks in advance!

#2

Update: I’ve altered the apron texture. I’ve adjusted the specular mapping for the apron to make it reflect more light. I also added some smudges and fabric stitches to it.
The lights have also been adjusted to brighten the scene.

#3

The apron in the ref is most likely some sort of latex or (most likely not) shiny leather. Either way it’s a very reflective material. So I’m not familiar with blender but you should play with reflectivity (most likely you can crank it up quite abit, since now it looks like fabric rather than latex) and posibly light setup. Might be that there is not enough light going towards apron for it to make that strong reflection.

#4

After looking at some images, I think you’re right about the apron being latex. I just need to experiment with recreating that look now.
Thanks for the feedback!

#5

New Update: look development is coming along. There’s a definite improvement over the earlier versions I’ve posted on this thread. I’ve been experimenting with different combinations of textures and shaders to see how it can improve the look of my model.

For example: I used a very small repeatable texture map (of fabric stitching) for the Keeper’s shirt. It definitely looks better than painting the stitches onto a UV map in Photoshop - it provides much more control as well. I overlayed a separate blood and dirt texture on top of that; since both textures have their own shader settings, I can tweak the individual specular/normal intensity of both of these elements. I can also adjust the size of the blood stains and stitches as well.

These same techniques are applied to other areas of the model. The barbed wire is also made from small repeatable textures, although I’m still trying to figure out how to make the barbed wire look better. I’d like it to look more like real rusted barbed barbed wire, but I don’t think it looks good enough yet. I may have to remodel some elements of the barbed wire so it looks sharper, rather than soft and rounded.

It’s still a work in progress (and I have to re-adjust the normal maps on the apron), but here’s what my project looks like at the moment; what do you think - any suggestions or criticisms?