Gavin vs. ThatDon: Animal Warriors

[Gavin]

Hey guys!

You may have remembered something like this floating around CG Talk a while ago (the one that comes to mind is dur vs. fetus: alien overlord) and possibly other sites we frequent. The basic idea is that myself and ThatDon will create separate characters with the same theme in a friendly competition/ simultaneous WIP. Not necessarily looking for a "winner", no strict deadlines...just a side project to do for fun while taking a break from other projects.

So, the topic we decided on is "Animal Warriors." Basically taking an animal and turning him into a humanoid war machine. I decided to work off of a white tiger, stand him up and give some ornate armor. I wanted to play with his proportions a bit and make him seem a little dynamic...also want to go a little nuts with the armor detail. The idea is to try and make the armor more regal...not really that damaged or anything. As you can see, I'm not the best concept artist out there...but this is the main idea:

http://www.gavimage.com/animal_warrior/kitty_armor.jpg

The bigger plates I'm thinking will be a type of scalemail while the breast plate and back armor will be an ornate design. I originally thought some type of swirly, almost floral design would be nice...but now I'm thinking of going with an angular look throughout...to go with the sharp looking scalemail and spikes. Not sure what to do on the pants just yet...maybe somekind of studded leather? I want him to look somewhat functional...not a "tank." Open to suggestions :)

Let me know what you guys think! Stay tuned for more updates and the infamous ThatDon.

Cheers.
Gav

[Wahlgren]

That is indeed quite awesome and im eagerly looking forward to this clash of the titans.
The concept is very tight aswell. I like white tigers and have you read that article about them? Tons of inbreeding to get the white ones.

[butt_sahib]

Excellent idea guys- would luuub to follow you guys' progress.
The concept looks very solid ;)
Have you thought on what that sword on his back will be like?

[Gavin]

Cheers guys!

Airguitar: Hey man! It shall be epic. I read a bit about the inbreeding..I didn't know much about it until a few days ago. Kind of odd. I was considering making a mutant one as a deformity from the inbreeding...but...I decided against, more in the mood to do something cleaner and less monster like :)

butt_sahib: Thanks man. Yup, I'm going to "borrow" the style of the minotaur swords and scabbard from Narnia. See it here and look at 3c...something like that.. -> http://moviesmedia.ign.com/movies/image/article/669/669397/chronicles-of-narnia-the-lion-the-witch-and-the-wardrobe-the-20051122023302671.jpg

I want to have him look more finesse than hulkish...i think the scimitar would make him look pretty and kind of goes with armor and general look. If you have any suggestions though, let me know :)

Thanks!
Gav

[ShadyD]

It looks really awesome!
Just a bit defaul at the moment to be honest.
Maybe inverse ancles could give him that finesse look your looking for? =)
Oeh maybe some dreadlocks would be cool on him =P just as a detail

[TryForce]

Thats sick! I may will try to do something like that aswell, a VS fight against a friend.

Your concept looks really great. Kind of remind me on Jody's aka. GoK TigerWarrior, nice one. Gogo go! :)

[Tiax]

ah , i remember those competitions in cgtalk ; unfortunately peoples stoped it because competitors rarely finish their pieces :(
hopefully you'll both finish , good luck to both of you :)

[Gavin]

ShadyD- Cheers dude. ThatDon and I actually talked about the inverted ankles, I think it's a good idea...but since most of the characters I've done for personal projects have that type of leg structure, I wanted to do something "different." Plus, with this type of leg I can really push the proportions and still make him look sturdy. The dreadlocks are an awesome idea, they're kind of there in the concept...but I didn't make them obvious enough, i guess :P I was thinking his chin fuzz could be braided...maybe try dreads all around where his "beard" would be?

TryForce: Thanks! I'm wondering if Jody's work was some kind of subliminal inspiration...looking at it now I definitely remember it, hehe.

Tiax: Me too :P We're going to be taking it slow because of our schedules..but we shall see!

Thanks again guys,
Gav

[Mogster]

project sounds fun yea he looks quire cool, though the head looks a bit lost in the armour.

[_tdc_]

That is a sweet concept. Good luck to you both. Can't wait to see how you two execute this. Have fun!

-tchiu

[brickwallfish]

Nice :) I'm doing the same thing with a colleague of mine, but we're still just beginners so its nothing fancy or anything worthy to show here.

Good luck to both of ya!

[BuroKun]

@Gavin - NICE, love the idea. love the concept, but if it were mine I would change that red to a blue.....blue seems to go better with the white tiger, but eh thats me. NICE WORK, and good luck.

[Eclipse]

sooo nice, looking forward to the 3d!!

[Frozan]

sweet. good luck to both of you. ill be bugging thatdon for sure on that. just have to go down a few floors to his room haha.

Stalker...

[Japhir]

great stuff! I love white tigers :D i used to look up lots of pictures of them ;)

so where's that don's WIP?

[Marcus Dublin]

This should be interesting, I'll keep my eye on this thread.

[Blaizer]

I'll keep an eye on this thread too :D

[blankslatejoe]

great idea guys!

[obi-one]

seems promising, great concept.

I'll follow this one.

[East]

I like the rough sketch you've got. Probably don't need more than that to get started, and give you the direction you need :)

Fun idea, btw. I approve ;)

[shadowbreeze]

this sounds cool, but it seems a bit one sided ATM, where's THATDON, what are you cooking up???

[Frozan]

i saw it i saw it! i wont ruin it for anyone but its cool. hes working hard on it!!!! hawtness!

[ThatDon]

So Gav and myself sorta played tag with my concept, here's what we came up with.
http://img88.imageshack.us/img88/8232/finalconceptew6.jpg

Proportions and Silhouette by Don
Line Work by Gav

[Japhir]

wow thats nice! love the proportions and especially the hoofs :p
kinda hard to read though, you can't really make out his hands. So from now on you are working together?
good luck! i like it a lot!

[Gavin]

Looks cool, man.

Japhir: Nah, not really "working together", just gave him a tiny bit of help with the concept :) Arming the rebels, as it were.

Gav

[zabuza2k]

nice a real warrior look ;P and a bit taure ;P from wow XD

[Frozan]

quite a strong concept u got going there. really like where all the greens are coming from.

[_tdc_]

Looking good. What's the weapons? Looks like the tiger warrior has a sword but i'm not so sure on the cow.

-tchiu

[kirilot]

The armour's sweet

[Amethyst]

This is going to be fun to watch. Very good idea..

[Gavin]

Hey Guys.

Found a bit of time this evening to work on the head base mesh. I'm trying to figure out how to make the dreadlocks and make them in a way that won't make my poly count 15000tris. I'm also wondering if having longer hair like that, although I think it's a cool idea, would make most people think "Lion" and not tiger. Crits are most welcome.

http://www.gavimage.com/animal_warrior/animalwarrior_wip01.jpg

Gav

[Tiax]

nice start!
"I'm also wondering if having longer hair like that, although I think it's a cool idea, would make most people think "Lion" and not tiger."
i love that hair in your concept , but it may look better if you add more hair around cheek area. other wild cats doesnt have much hair around thier cheeks , its kinda special to tiger as far as i know.
eah hard to describe , long story shorter ; check this one ;) (http://www.luckyoliver.com/photo/891988/white_tiger_full_face)

[ThatDon]

I actually prefer the longer proportions of your concepts head than this squished look you have going on here.

edit: I do think once the hair is added it will help beef up the back of the head though and correct what i'm seeing now.

[ShadyD]

I agree with ThatDon, Kinda looks like a bear atm.
Nice though =)

[onelung]

Both concepts are pretty rad, but gotta say i'm liking The Don's more... it's a little more dark (which is where my true love lies),

It seems like both of them could use some breaking up of symmetry, Gavin's might be a tad tougher, cause there are no horns to break off easily. Got any ideas running around on how ya'll might do this?

Looking forward to these, rock out fellas.

[sinz]

Gav can still make it look hawt, and if dark is the look don's going for then it'll look like good against evil.

[ThatDon]

Funny you guys bring the Good vs. Evil up, that was one of the other topics gav and I were throwing around. looks like it we inadvertently did it anyays

[Amethyst]

Hi Gavin,
At the moment your tiger looks like a pussycat in armor. To stand up to the
"Bull" his head could be bigger and mouth open with very sharp teeth....hehe,
my 2 cents... What ever you do it usually turns up 1st class.

[BiG ToE]

Gavin: what the problem may be, the face is too thin, as if he had his head crushed between to safari cars full of people trying to take pictures of him mating. Not sure if the scale tool could fix this, but to help you out and show how much love I got for you: http://i55.photobucket.com/albums/g129/DJBiGToE/050608-163-Sumatran-Tiger-w.jpg
http://i55.photobucket.com/albums/g129/DJBiGToE/tiger.jpg
http://i55.photobucket.com/albums/g129/DJBiGToE/414625922_6bb470f565_o.jpg
Now is that love or what.

[Gavin]

Thanks for the feedback guys, much appreciated. I really think the lack of hair is throwing off the shape of the head, I really don't want to do the wisps on the side of the head, so I'm attempting to make them into ponytails/dreads and incorporate them more into the face through the sculpt. I'm considering making smaller ones for the head as well that will fill out that area. I also need to make armor around the neck too and will probably fit the hair that once it is made (relaxing the ponytails and stuff then)...

Tiax: Thanks! See the image below for what I'm starting. This may be a bit too extreme...I just wanted to try something different :)

ThatDon: You cheeky monkey. I might stretch it out more. It was a bit longer before I pushed it in but I'm worried if I do that it'll start looking like a dog or doglike creature.

ShadyD: I might play with stretching out the nose.

onelung: I definitely don't disagree with you :P I tend to go more towards the dark side with my work as it is subject matter that I am familiar with and find interesting. This time though, I wanted to make someone who was more of a "good guy"...at the very least some type of "anti-hero"

As for breaking up the sym, I'm not sure. I'm thinking of adding straps around his torso to throw it off a little. I'm also considering losing one of the big cat head shoulder pads and making the other one into a bigger pad/neck protector.

sinz: Thanks man!

Amethyst: Thanks :) Yeah, I agree with you. I was tempted to make him crazy looking, exposed teeth, snarling, etc....but I wanted to go for something a little more heroic.

BiG ToE: Thanks for the ref man. I tried to follow your first one there with the "beard" shape.

Based on the feedback, I widened his head a bit, moved his ears to a different position...added "hair" (or at least a test at it) to make the head wider and look more tiger like. Played with the eyes...and just general tweaks.

http://www.gavimage.com/animal_warrior/animalwarrior_wip02.jpg

Thanks again.
Gav

[Japhir]

that looks much better! first i thought of a crit, but when i looked at the reference the guys above provided i noticed i didn't know a tiger's face as well as i thought :p (even though i have 2 huuuge posters of tigers in my bedroom :p)
keep it up! i believe this is going to be a great piece!

[ShadyD]

Great stuff!
He looks cool! Still looks like a bear from side though =X..
The dreads look convincing enough =)

[Vailias]

I like the bull thing.
It reminds me of the feel of the Mondoshawans from the fifth element, but evil and more mobile.

[Gavin]

Thanks guys. A small update. Found a little more time this afternoon...messing with more "hair" and some general tweaks.

http://www.gavimage.com/animal_warrior/animalwarrior_wip03.jpg

Tanks for lookin'!
Gav

[shadowbreeze]

hey Gavin looking good:thumb:

ok so i found some side on ref's to compare to, about the bear comment, i don't think it does but i let people decide:D


http://i139.photobucket.com/albums/q287/shadowbreeze99/tiger.jpg

[Vailias]

The tiger head is certainly feline, but I see what people are catching on,
The muzzle.

its currently more housecat or humaniform than big cat.

if you pull the muzzle out along the normal of the face, and then scale up the nose and chin so the top of the nose is a bit more straight out of the face..'
meh paintover works faster and better than lots of text.

also the ears need to come down the sides of the head a bit.
http://i36.photobucket.com/albums/e28/vailias/Tiger_paintover.jpg

[Marcus Dublin]

Wow the hair is really starting to come together quite nicely but it would be cool if you varied the length of some of the locks. Other than that it's looking pretty solid.:thumb:

[Marcus Dublin]

:ack:Ekk, what a beast, your going to have to muster up all the skills you've developed so far to pull this guy off, good luck Don!

So Gav and myself sorta played tag with my concept, here's what we came up with.
http://img88.imageshack.us/img88/8232/finalconceptew6.jpg

Proportions and Silhouette by Don
Line Work by Gav

[ShadyD]

Hot!
Really missing that one dreadlock that grows from his chin though!

[_tdc_]

That tiger is coming along hella well. Keep it up. Don! Get started already! Good luck guys.

Note on the debate on bear/tiger silhouette: wait till it's textured. I had to do a jaguar at work and people keeps telling me it looks like a bear but i keep telling them to wait till i texture it and if it still looks like a bear i change the verts around. When I finally laid down the texture people started to finally leave me along and I only had to change a few verts around. (Though I would suggest making the bridge of the nose curve out more than in from the side view...if that makes sense...)

-tchiu

[Frozan]

coming along hella well.
-tchiu

well stated haha. i like how your going about doing the hair.

[Gavin]

Hey, thanks guys! I played with his nose a little bit more to square it off and make it more like the ref. I also started roughing in the body. I'm still not sure on it...think I need to fool around with the head/neck/shoulders more. Also, one of the angles has a goatee dread as a placeholder wondering if i should add it, make a totally different type or just leave it empty.

Basically this body would just be used as a guide for armor and to fill in gaps when making my normal map. So, no really sculpting or anything is intended for it, I'll probably end up just building armor and stuff right over it.

http://www.gavimage.com/animal_warrior/animalwarrior_wip04.jpg

Thanks for all the feedback!
Gav

[butt_sahib]

Looks EXcellente' :D

Love the face gav. very SEXY hands too

[Japhir]

hmm.. i like the proporions in your concept much better, in your concept the lowerbody/legs seem to fit better to his upperbody/arms. right now your upperbody and arms are huge so that his legs/hips are a bit small comparing to them. In general i'd also make him a bit taller. I love the hands you made though!
keep it up!

[Frozan]

don where u at?

[ThatDon]

I'm at your Moms cleaning

[ShadyD]

He indeed strike me as massive from the front and perspective! job well done so far!

I think his (lower) back can be buffed up a bit, as it makes him look kinda thin from the side.
..
@ThatDon.. xD..lol

[kessler]

Hello Gavin!, Good start. I have some suggestions. Much like ShadyD make him beefier, sorta like me. I would also say more hunch in the back to make him menacing. Also I want to see more mane (down there) j/k. But seriously I think some more hair in the back would be awesome! BAM! Follow your dreams.

[Gavin]

Yo Guys!

butt_sahib: Thanks.

Japhir: Thanks man. I've made him a touch taller. I think once his legs and hips get armored up, it will fill him out more and make the upper and lower body come together more.

ShadyD: Thanks..Like for Japhir's comments, I think once armor gets on him he'll look bigger. I really don't want to add too much mass to his lower back because then he'll become a lot more solid. Like Mr. Incredible. I've played around with blocking in some gear on him..nothing crazy, just blocks and stuff...but I think once he gets the armor on his stomach and the sword across his back it'll fill out more. If not, I owe you a coke and will make the change.

kessler:The world is not ready for cat warrior Kessler. Trust me ;)

Small update...

http://www.gavimage.com/animal_warrior/animalwarrior_wip05.jpg

Gav

[Japhir]

yes! taller= way better! great stuff! I'm really looking forward to more updates! that silhouette is looking great too!

[eraQ]

Don trailing behind again. I swear...lol. Love the look so far Gavin! Really well done, cant wait to see more.

[ShadyD]

Aye, taller indeed looks better! :)
He looks even more intimidating now. Can't wait for the armor and high poly :)!

I'll keep you to that coke ;)
But you're probably right :)
Keep up the excellent work, Really looking forward to this one!

[-JL-]

Yea this does bring back memories for me... the "Beasts of Battle" comp (or whatever it was called... its been so long :) ). I had a Panda flametrooper back then... ah memories :D.

Anyways, cool progress so far on the tiger Gavin! :)

And ThatDon... that guy looks so like a Tauran Warlock (if their race would have that class ;) ).

Edit:: Actually Gavin, have you considered making the hands just a tad smaller? They look just a little too big now imo. :)

[Frozan]

ohh ur cleanin huh? at my moms house? i bet ur not cleanin like i cleaned your mom ;) post something sometime this weekend. i want to see what a bull made by the great don looks like

[ShadyD]

Found this on my HD, dunno if it's of any help.
http://img212.imageshack.us/img212/2492/tigerrunnk8.jpg

[Kalango]

Reminds me of Leo from WarZard....Man this is looking cool keep it up :), also want t see the progress with the minotaur ThatDon!!!
keep it up :).

[indian_boy]

woah!
this is some kick ass shit going down right here!

eyo, is that bengal tiger gonna get some indian armour on it :D! mwaahahah, thatd be nice to see...

regardless:
both of u claim to be 'not the greatest concept artists' but holy crap, just seeing those sketches makes me KNOW that this'll become one of the craziest and most popular threads on GA. and the idea's good too!
i look forward to seeing the two completed.

i DO need a new desktop wallpaper :D!

cant wait to see things keep going.

[Amethyst]

Waiting for more. Exciting work and I totally agree with Indian_boy's comments...

[poopinmymouth]

Nice. One suggestion Gavin, is on the forearms. Right now you have the model edges going straight down, when that hand position means the forearm is rotated. It would help if you had the edges rotated to help imply the anatomy. Otherwise looking good.

Now where is ThatDon's progress? Slaaaaacker.

http://www.mr-chompers.com/images/poop.gif (http://www.poopinmymouth.com)

[Gavin]

Hey guys! No update just yet, I just wanted to drop in.

-JL-: Thanks dude, I may scale the hands down. I still need to build armor around it, so scaling down the actual "guide" may not be a bad idea.

ShadyD: Thanks for that :P

kalango, indian_boy, Amethyst: Thanks :)

poop: Thanks for the feedback man. I really just created this to block in the shapes, there will be big honkin' gauntlets going over top and, in the in-game model, this mesh won't even exist. It's a valid, and really helpful, point but would changing it effect anything (since this won't be used in game and, at best, is a base mesh for sculpting)?

Again, thanks guys, I really appreciate the feedback. I'm currently looking over my armor design and getting more in depth concepts cooked up. I'd really like to go with something more detailed, functional and also keep breaking up the symm as mentioned earlier. I'll keep you updated once I get something made. :)

Cheers!
Gav

[Gavin]

Alright, Been playing a bit more with his armor idea. Basically keeping the same idea as his old suit but making it a little more functional. Wanted to break up the symm a bit and lose the spikes from the original. Kind of going with a tiger/claw/feline theme to the armor.

With this concept though, I'm seeing that a lot of the shape I liked from the original gets lost...so, I may taper in the stomach more and puff the shoulders out to give it more of that V shape.

http://www.gavimage.com/animal_warrior/kitty_armor2.jpg

Cheers!
Gav

[Twindragon]

I think it would make the concept stronger if you did make his shoulders larger and waist smaller. It would make the hands seem not so out of place I think.

[Gavin]

Thanks man! I agree...maybe more like this?

http://www.gavimage.com/animal_warrior/kitty_armor3.jpg

[Twindragon]

I was also thinking maybe with those skinny ankles he could have bigger feet to match those hands

[HntrLuc]

This is really cool. Dreads were a cool choice!

[ShadyD]

Aye, I Agree with Twindragon.
The feet can be scaled up to increase sense of stability but you can keep the legs thin/small.

Maybe shoulder pads will help making him look broad? :)
I Like the concept(s), I Would personally go for blue instead of red but that's just me :). Keep it up!

[katana]

Yep, I hope you don't mind me saying, but the first thing I thought was that it needed wider/longer feet.

[Beartastic]

He's looking great gavin. I think the wider waist and even hips of the original concept suited the character more and made the smaller legs and feet look great. The original had that great V shaped build of the Batman and Superman animated series characters -- massive chest and tapering down.

The details are awesome and the modeling so far is tops.

[ThatDon]

bla bla bla
http://img255.imageshack.us/img255/4205/wip3rb6.jpg

[Gavin]

He's alive!

Fuck man, I think I need to revisit my model. your silhouette looks a lot more impressive than mine :P No real crits because I know you're just roughing em in. when the time comes you might want to break some of the horns/spikes...just for something to do, y'know.

Gav

[miezis]

don! you rock raw bleadin' ass [thats's a good thing] ! the concept was kick ass and now this! the silhouette is wery powerful [with a w - thats double :)]!

[BiG ToE]

the only problem is, we can't see anything important. We need wireframes man, wireframes.

put that between some img tages and post it.

[Sir Rodriguez]

word up! let's see the model with wire frames... i wanna see

[ThatDon]

Everything is just blocked in right now, so it's not very pretty. I will show wires of the final low poly w/ normal map when the time comes until then........Suffer:mad:

and miezis, you rock my friend, making front page of 3DTotal and all. Congrats!

[ShadyD]

You are being fooled!
He just posted a drawing and fooled you all!

[Twindragon]

Its coming along nicely. I am not sure if at the start of the thread you posted constraints for the model like poly limit etc. I will have to go back and check but if you didn't I was wondering if you are going by any.

[Gavin]

Yo!

I don't think we really set the limit. I think we may have different specs we're shooting for. Personally, I'm aiming for around 6k tris with 2 1024x textures. I think Don is going for DS specs.....(kidding) :D

Gav

[Marcus Dublin]

I eagerly awaiting the grand unveiling!:lucky:

Everything is just blocked in right now, so it's not very pretty. I will show wires of the final low poly w/ normal map when the time comes until then........Suffer:mad:

and miezis, you rock my friend, making front page of 3DTotal and all. Congrats!

[Frozan]

don your guy looks like a wow character. post something so i dont think that.

[BiG ToE]

Everything is just blocked in right now, so it's not very pretty. I will show wires of the final low poly w/ normal map when the time comes until then........Suffer:mad:


I think you might have this whole W.I.P. thread thing confused with homework.:think: Its a Work In Progress, so, the idea is to show, work in progress.;) The key word here is progress. Show it.:thumb:

[ThatDon]

I did, I showed you a silhouette, which is far more important than wireframes at this stage. If you want to see geometry wait for the high poly, and if you want to see wireframes wait for the lowpoly, I showed what I felt is important at this stage.

[BiG ToE]

meshflow is whats important. Silhouettes don't show that.

Just saying, thats all. I'm done.

[kessler]

Silhouettes Schmilouettes. GJ Gavoon. Cat man to the rescue! weee Horn face to the place!! weeee. I cant wait to see both results, its going to be great I love furry stuff!

[Beartastic]

Damn thatdon that's awesome. Way to cocktease btw.

[Steel Style]

Showin the wireframe is a way to break the surprise so I can wait :p.

[onelung]

Gavin,
the new concept is looking a lot better, i agree with you though and thing it could use a few more things to male the silhouette pop. Possibly taking the lion shoulder gauntlet and having ti stick out more? Making a tad more of a "T" and with some fangs hanging down i think it'll sell a little better. Also thoughts on maybe a 2 handled sword, or 2 swords... something to add a little more vertical break in the silhouette.

That Don,
Silhouette is looking good.. MORE MORE MORE! (hiding in the shadows)

[tef]

Silouette is very important, and yours is looking good. Waiting to see what you will show off in the next phase.

[Gavin]

Thanks for all the feedback guys, I haven't had much time to work on my guy lately as I've been pretty busy with work. Hoping to get back at it either on the weekend or sometime next week.

Cheers,
Gav

[BiG ToE]

I haven't had much time to work on my guy lately as I've been pretty busy with work. Hoping to get back at it either on the weekend or sometime next week.



Don't worry, with all the updates you keep posting, no one will say your not holding up your end.:D

[onelung]

Don't worry, with all the updates you keep posting, no one will say your not holding up your end.:D

BUUUUUUUUUUUURN!

[ThatDon]

Quality not quantity, although Gav is efficient at both....and I hate to say this but keep it constructive or keep it out please. I'm getting rather annoyed now with all these useless and lewd comments in our thread directed at myself.

So if you can't comment on what has been shown please keep it to yourself.

[Frozan]

BUUUUUUUUUUUURN!

that was uncalled for. and yes everyone lay off don. i wish he would post more but seriously everyone, he will post when he feels ready. :)

I got your back Don :D

[shadowbreeze]

ThatDon - well to be honest i can understand where your coming from, but if you want to play the pricktease came which you do hint at thats your game,

then you have to expect to get this type of reaction from people it can't always be love:lol:

NOW NOW before you go getting annoyed again i do like what you have so far, the Silhouettes looks impressive, and i am looking forward to your next update, but please make it a bit more so we can see whats going on.:thumb:

best of luck to the both of you

ps. only:D fitting comments about your work from now on

[ThatDon]

Go refer to my gaara thread for the next update. it will be quite substantial.....

[onelung]

i guess humor is not allowed. duely noted.

[Sir Rodriguez]

cool update dude. The wire frame looks so good. how did u get it to look like that???

[Gavin]

Drama!

Anyways...here's a quick update. Waiting for clients to get back to me, I cracked open the model and played around with him some more. Added some temp armor pieces (that's why there's no wireframe this time...focusing on the silhouette reading better as that was a weakness..and the armor pieces are literally cubes mushed around...it'd be really distracting)

http://www.gavimage.com/animal_warrior/animalwarrior_wip06.jpg

Gav

[Beartastic]

Gavin, I really like the way you've made the whole shape look for the body. It captures the original concept really well and the chest is nice and beefy now. I'm not sure if from the front his waist could taper even less, but I think that's just personal taste now.

ThatDon, sorry to have been lewd. To be constructive, I think the shoulders are lost in the silhouette too quickly when angled towards the camera. If you tilted the skulls back a little or otherwise broke up the back of the shoulders I think it might work a little better for me.

[3dimentia]

@That Don. Dude take a chill pill man, why so defensive? So people had a bit of fun at your expense, welcome to reality, and the industry in general. I didn't get any better without people telling me I sucked ass. Ya it hurts but you get over it and more importantly, you get better. What are you so afraid of? You have good work, quit being afraid to show it, to get crits and get better. thats the whole point of a web board, specially one related to art.

[Gavin]

Thanks man, I'll probably mess with the waist more once it all gets built with armor. The hip/lovehandle guard things I think will help the waist not look weird and bring the upper and lower body together...

Gav

[shadowbreeze]

nice Gavin the angle of your first silhouette looks aggressive, the only thing is the feet maybe to small, but hey it's hard say with the armor more fleshed out it might be cool anyway:thumb:

so will he ave a second smaller sword? no worries if not i'm just a big fan of double weapons:D

[xvampire]

quarter view : looks good
side view ; awesome!

front view ....
hmmm, looks like his actual body doesn't fit to support those armor and weapon ...
oh anyway its just the silhouette

[BiG ToE]

Gavin: can we get a look at that sword your working on. You got most of it hidden right now.

[Gavin]

Like I said....


.....
Added some temp armor pieces (that's why there's no wireframe this time...focusing on the silhouette reading better as that was a weakness..and the armor pieces are literally cubes mushed around...it'd be really distracting)
....


I should have included "temp weapons" as well as it really is just a cube messed around to give me the rough shape I want. This way, when it actually comes time to build the highpoly I can just build it to these rough dimensions and I know it'll work. It sucks going to town on a highpoly model only to realize that something is off.

Anyways, here it is in all of it's glory..since you asked.

http://www.gavimage.com/animal_warrior/animalwarrior_wip07.jpg


Edit> i mentioned this before as well, but the final design will be something like this -> 3c (http://moviesmedia.ign.com/movies/image/article/669/669397/chronicles-of-narnia-the-lion-the-witch-and-the-wardrobe-the-20051122023302671.jpg)

[BiG ToE]

good stuff.

[Kalango]

UUUU.....looking nice :)

[Vahl]

I really like the silhouette you have there man, it's quite dynamic, the side and 3/4 views are great

that's apersonnal thing but i'd make the claws bigger on the front view, to continue the line of the "gauntlet" thing, that may help to balance the silhouette a little, I'd also make the arm bigger (front vew again, others are cool) but again that's a personnal taste thing, it's awesome the way it is man :) can't wait to see more.

ThatDon, concept looks promising, go, go, go man !!!
Same remark on the silhouette, I love the bulk you have there, I'd push the whole things towards that trait, but once again, just personal taste :) although those silhouettes are awesome on the concept phase, they are hard to crit since it's really subjective :D

keep up the great work dudes

[ThatDon]

Thanks for the nice comments Vahl :)

[Gavin]

Yo Vahl. Thanks man, really helpful comments. I can totally see what you mean by continuing the gauntlet line. By "make the arm bigger in the front" do you mean give him more bulk in the bicep? If so, I'm torn with that, I kind of like the contrast with the big hands, i think giving him big muscles might go against that. Either way, I'll try beefing that part up and see how it looks:)

Again, thanks everyone for the feedback.

Gav

[Vahl]

Yeah that's what I meant, but I was pretty sure that was a decision on your end to make the biceps look so thin compared to the "gauntlet" thing, and you're right, making the arm size even will definitely break the contrast you have, which would be sad because it looks great the way it is :).

[Muchomuchacho]

I'm so glad I checked this out. Every thread with you in it turns into a Laguna Beach slapboxing match. harharhar. The cow is pretty awesome though. Rock on donovich.

[shadowbreeze]

hey guys are you still working on your characters? yeah i know it's a casual thing, but i'm just curious too see whats shaping up:thumb:

[Gavin]

Yo man!

Yeah. Still puttering away at mine but I've been crazy busy for the past little while. Did get time to start making some boots, also started on the leg plat thing, but I think I'm going to go for a different design. I was originally going to make them "floppy" like a scale mail attached to a leather pad...instead though, I think I'm going to remake them as more rigid and just split them at the middle where the waist would bend.

This ain't pretty..but a small update..:)

http://www.gavimage.com/animal_warrior/animalwarrior_wip08.jpg

[vikramvr]

awesome going.....do u finalise the low poly model in the beginning, or do you build the final low poly version based on the high poly version? like in the epic studios pipeline?

[Gavin]

Hey dude. Personally, I follow Epic's pipeline (or close to it at least) just in this case I build out a rough base to build armor around so that when i do go crazy and model stuff high in Max, I don't waste a ton of time trying to make it all fit together :)

Some stuff I've done for work though the client has asked for a LP version first..it's not too hard to clean up that mesh, create a base out of it and throw it into ZB. I just prefer Epic's way :)

cheers,
Gav

[vikramvr]

Thanks for the reply, so you export stuff in chunks from zbrush and then build the low poly over it, and then do the Uv's and generate normal maps in
3dmax? Isn't that very time consuming? i hate that part the most. I personally feel that, if there is a way to reduce time in the middle somewhere, life would be a lot simpler, you know. But is there a way around it? I feel sometimes that zmapper is the best way to go about generating normal maps, and sometimes, xnormal works out too..What do you feel is the best way?

[Gavin]

Yo man.

Yeah, that's pretty much what I do. But rather than build a brand new low poly over the entire high poly, I usually have a base mesh that serves as the starting point for my HP and my LP. So, sculpt from that medium res one and optimize for games for the LP one. It can be a bit time consuming, for sure. ZMapper, I find, is great for organics...but because it shoots out a uniform raycast, hard surfaces can come out looking really weird. Also, a lot of the work I'm doing now has overlapping and flipped UVs, which Max seems to handle a lot better. xNormal is great for that as well. I used to always use ZMapper but I think my needs have changed and has made me use Max a lot more, even if it is more of a pain in the ass.

Gav

[PixelGoat]

Just loving this. Reminds me sooo much of the Vah'shir race from EverQuest. Keep it up :)

[Platypus_Green]

Looking great, both models.

I agree with Gavin about using 3dsamx for normal map creation over zmapper. I do like 3dsmax's normal map baking system with the adjustable projection cage.

Apart from the fact that it doesn't like the high poly and low poly mesh faces touching each other. It can generate some odd artifacts there. I also find that max sometimes generates normal maps with a fair bit of noise in them. Maybe it's a setting I have not figured out, I normally spend time painting them out in photoshop.

[SuckADuck]

Any chance that this thread will get going again? I personally thought both characters were going great while reading through it and would love to see them both finished if you guys aren't bogged down with other things.

[AchmedtheSnake]

omg epic bump back form the dead....

[butt_sahib]

lawlz.......

[TrooperDon]

Wow, yeah, some serious thread necromancy going on but what became of this? Those are some sweet concepts and WIPs that were happening!

You guys know you want to revisit it... so much learned in the last year, you could finish it so well... cooome on... coooome on! :)

[Kalango]

yeah -.-' i miss VS threads....and this was quite something ...

[Gavin]

Wow! Blast from the past. I can't speak for Don (come online sometime, you smelly person, you. Or PM me...) but I'm stupidly busy lately. Since my last post hre I've gone on to work at a studio and have been pretty preoccupied with that as the project I'm on grows closer and closer to completion.

I actually really miss Vs. threads and thought it was a great idea. Both on gA and in the day sof old on CGTalk. I think it's a great idea if you want to avoid the hustle of a main comp and sort of do your own thing. I might actually be up for starting another one with the disclaimer that it would go VERY slowly.

As for resurrecting this fella, I've lost interest in him...but again, wouldn't mind starting a new one on the side if a someone wanted to collaborate/challenge :)

Thanks for the interest. Let sleeping dogs lie :)

Gav

[ThatDon]

A duel? how can I resist :p

Round 2 :p