Dominance War III | Rasmus Holmgren | Fairn

[Rasmus Holmgren]

Dominance War III | Rasmus Holmgren | Fairn


Rasmus Holmgren has entered the competition!

[Draxxuss]

whoo hooo... yer in!! Now... let's see some stuff!

[Rasmus Holmgren]

"In the very heart of hearts, beyond the Ponds of Durhamel, past the Gorge of Souls, where the trees grow so thick and tall that even the moss sprouts moss, Fairn was born. Raised by distant kin from a civilization lost, the animist grew up deep in the chambers of these ancient woods, learning day by day the ways of the forest. At 16 he commanded the spirit of dew, the whisper of morning mist and a thousand upon thousand other arts long forgotten by mortal man. Once entered into manhood full, Fairn was, fittingly, a natural, and had but to lay his hand on pale moss to know when and whence the inkling of it's first growth came to be and how long it yet had; or rest in the afternoon sun against the vine-clad ruins of ages past to hear their laughter and sorrows in the wind. Soon both plant and beast knew and greeted him where he walked, never slow never in haste.
It was thus that Fairn awoke one morning from an unfamiliar feeling, a strange heat had woken him there in the clearing, and though he rubbed his green eyes of dew it seemed to him a warm light lingered ahead, as if somehow soft sunset had forgotten to give way to morning mist. As he stood a clear hum rose from everything around him, the flowers themselves tense in anticipation, the bark too straining to see the events that followed.
Like a mortal struck by the clarity of true love, or a bud by it's first rays of light, Fairn followed this voice of the woods. For how long it was not clear, and though he knew every tree by name his bare feet took him deep through passages unknown. At last upon the weathered cliffs of Mount Altuirn, high above the rushing falls of Corm, what came to pass was to change these lands forever. Arms outstretched beneath the open morning sky, Fairn closed his eyes and began to feel the earth move through him - he felt the surge of life itself flow through him, the blinding spark of birth, the burst of youth, the strength of maturity and then the stagnating roots of age trickling down and wilting into death itself, reborn into soil. In his veins ran sap instead of blood, where toes had dug into soil roots sprang forth, and the rustling of leaves now replaced his long brown hair.
Opening his eyes livid and trembling, he held a single continous branch, a living circle, and knew in his heart what was vested in him. Order was to be restored to this and every other world."

With great literary pretention, he enters

[Rasmus Holmgren]

Various concept doodles. Have yet to experiment with a face, so more to come, but I'm pretty settled on the whole thing as it stands. Essentially, he's a bare-chested hippie animist (Invoker / Claricon) with tree roots for legs and leaves for hair, who's come across/been given a very powerful artefact in the shape of a circular branch, which has the power to give and take life at the will of it's bearer. Needless to say his magic falls squarely in the "Vegetation" category, as it focuses on growth/wilt, and all kinds of armor, weapons and horns are nowhere in sight Rest assured though, that's one kick-ass artefact, and there's nothing more dangerous than a righteous hippie

[Rasmus Holmgren]

Random sources of reference / inspiration...

[bilbana]

Great! Rampaging hippie! I`m guessing he`s the activist type and not the pacifist type. Will take some brainpower to get the circle of branch to look lifesuckingly and powerful looking though. Have that problem with my artifact as well.
Man if we could animate it, in action, magic looks soo much better animated! Nazis aging turning into skeletons by the power of branch circle!!!....I`m thinking..3 months!!!....uuhhh....I`ll go back to my forum now...

But honestly, great idea. Will he be floating around on a piece of land or is that the podie?

Bilbana/ Polycount Dominance war 3 entry
http://boards.polycount.net/showflat...e=0#Post277270

[Erigo]

nice idea dude!..keep going

[Rasmus Holmgren]

bilbana: I haven't really given any thought to making the artefact look menacing - it kind of just doesn't, and I don't have any problems with that. No glowing lights, none of that crap. Just good old natural life and death Like you say the best way to illustrate whatever these guys are up to would be to animate them, or spend time we don't have on creating a little diorama with enemies being turned into decomposing heaps of molten leaves or whathaveyou. Podiums go some way in illustrating this, so I hope I'll have enough time to push that as far as possible... But no, it's not floating, it's like the tip of a cliff sticking out of a massive forest.

[Rasmus Holmgren]

OK, first couple of lopoly WIPs up here. Only about a days work in here, so bare with me. Comments and critique on anatomy welcome - I'm modeling my first human here Hands and face a little small right now, among other things. The hair is a base mesh on which lots of separate leaf-objects will be stuck later on.

Trying to avoid fallic inuendo with the roots there, but I think I'm doing ok

[BigJohn]

Avoid?
You know, my dad has a sticker on his truck saying "If you can't Dodge it, Ram it!"
I think you should take that advice. Avoid nothing!

[Rasmus Holmgren]

I think I just got rammed

[Rasmus Holmgren]

Hands so far. Comments welcome if you see anything weird. (Obviously the circle-thingy is not final)

[tai_tang]

Nice cool idea that is very different than the rest in the competition. I think the design of the artifact right now doesn't translate the power of it. You may want to push it a bit to show it can do all the magic in your description. For the hands, I think the middle finger is a bit small or short, and the pinky finger is too long. Hope it helps, the idea rocks!! keep going!!

[Rasmus Holmgren]

Thanks tai_tang. Will give the artifact some more thought, it's come up before. Hard to combine the unassuming naturalness of it with the immense power it has, though. I'm sort of thinking along the lines of the little branch the good wizard-witch had in "Willow", if anyone remembers that :P

Middle finger is actually longer, but also more curved than the index, but I'll give it a look. Pinky looks long now that you say it, thanks.

[Rasmus Holmgren]

Did some face-sketches, think I'm going for a full beard

[Japhir]

looks great! i love the bottom left face + beard
keep it up! looking forward to your sculpts!

[Rasmus Holmgren]

Thanks Japhir, sculpts are next on the menu

[_CAD_]

this concept is awesome i cant wait to see more. great work mate

[bilbana]

Looking forward to the sculpt, wood is good!

[Rasmus Holmgren]

Thanks for the peptalk, guys

Been working on the face a bit, almost done. Crits welcome. Pretty much triangle-free, I just need to do some eyelids and connect it to the body. More updates as soon as that's done. The polycount is creeping up on me, but I'm pretty much on track, with about 5000 for the body, 2000 for the head and a cautious 2000 left for all the leaves and the artefact. Fingers crossed.

My workplan is to do all the lowpoly stuff, map it and then sculpt, hoping that I'll have enough time for my rather ambitious podium backdrop, too... Banzai!