GAC 11: John Henry.

#1

Seeing some great stuff early on that has inspired me to throw my hat in.

JOHN HENRY - The Steel Driving Man

John Henry was a late 19th-century folk hero, a hammer-wielding railroad worker of towering strength who challenged a steam drill to a steel-driving race and won.

John Henry was a railroad man,
He worked from six 'till five,

"Raise 'em up bullies and let 'em drop down,

I’ll beat you to the bottom or die."

MORE INFO

I loved the story as a Kid. He competed against a machine tunneling through a mountain.

Age: 30(ish)
Height: 6’5"
Weight: 265 lbs
Eyes: Brown
Weapon: Huge Steel Hammer
Fighting Style: Street Fighter

I’ve never done a game Character, I hope I can pull off something nice.

#2

My scanner is out of Commission, but I like Damion Scotts work and want to work inhis style.

Something like the Lebron James Character, but a bit beefier.

#3

Added a link in the first post with more info on John Henry, realizing some have never heard of him.

#4

Not much, but I’ll have more done tomorrow. I really want to get the face right, because the clothing won’t be too elaborate. I’m going for a MARK of KRI/ Damion Scott style. I’m using Florians realtime fighter model as sort of a reference since I think he did an awesome job.

#5

Fleshed out the face a bit more. Sorry I don’t have any sketches my scanner is broken.

#6

cool. great character.

there was an old stop motion short of him where he said “outta my way woman, I’m John Henry” …that is the first image that comes to mind though…

I also could not help but think of Def Jam [the game] when I heard you were doing this for a fighting game challenge…

I am looking forward to seeing more dmonk!

#7

Thanks Bent!

Actually I was just looking up some reference from def jam vendetta. I really love the proportion of some of there characters.

Heres an update from the last 15 min of fleshing out the shape off the head. The topology is all jacked up but I’m cleaning it up now.

#8

Please ignore the colors. Was out all day so didn’t get to do too much.

#9

Started the body. So far I am only at about 3000 tris. I’m not used to lo-poly work so I plan on doing a lot of clean up.

I’m trying to make him large, but with and athletic build.

#10

Some Progress.

#11

Just mess about with the proportions a bit. Night Folks :wavey:

Let me know what you think so far.

#12

Small update:

Just a look at the scale of his Sledge Hammer. I’m working on the hands and might have an update on them tomorrow.

(The Shape and size of the hammer you could sy this one is temporary.)

#13

I thought you might be interested in knowing that Disney made a short about John Henry a few years ago. Here’s a link:
http://disneyshorts.toonzone.net/years/2000/johnhenry.html

You can also find it on IMDB if you look.

#14

Thanks Smarty Pants! I hadn’t seen this. This is great reference material If I could find some more images.
Two update withthe hands finished.Sorry they are so big I was tired and not thinking.

Front Veiw

On a slight angle

#15

Great work. I like the proportions. Keep it up

#16

I think his waist is a bit small and his hands could use some more definition but other than that it looks like a great start

Keep going bud!

#17

I was actually digging the small waist. Most bodybuilders usually appear to have a abnormallt small waist, I wanted to give this character some height as well as mass so made made the waist smaller on purpose, but I see what you mean. I like cartoon proportion mostly anyway. Thanks for the inout though.

Actually, smart pants hooked me up with a link of a short disney did on John Henry. If you check out the link and the bottom of the page there is a pick of him standing in front of a steam engine. I was thinking of making a render of something similar, but on steroids.

Small update

Suspendors (sp)

#18

I love ths Image.

#19

Looking nice, I hope he will have some heavy boots for him. Should be nice.
Take care

#20

Things that will be added.

  1. Heavy black and tan trim industrial steel toed work boots.
  2. Black leather fingerless work gloves.
  3. Old worn out gray work shorts.
  4. Might add a version with red shirt, but like the idea of him being shirtless.

For a final render, if i can figure out something cool I will add some sort of particle effects to the hammer.

Very minimal. Anything to showy would n’t really be true to character.

Thanks for the comments, they are very encouraging.

P.S. So far this is about 6 to 8 hours of work. I only have time to work on this after work. The poly count for the model Character and hammer are at about 6000. I think the finished model might run about 8000 total if not a big more, but I think I might be well under that.