Mini Challenge #7 - Ornate Armor

[blankslatejoe]

Theme:
Ornate Armor!

Brief:
Hot on the heels of the monstrous minicomp that was Minimoo Fighters, we've got something a bit different in line for this comp. In fact, I can't recall any other forum ever doing anything quite like it. The goal: model a single piece of armor. That's it.

What? Just a single piece of armor? Yep, it could be a helm, a shield, a breastplate, heck, a pair of gauntlets if you wish. There's a catch though--the limits/specs are high for this minicomp, and the emphasis is on ORNATE detail. That means we're looking for intricate and/or lush details. These armor pieces should look [B]ceremonial, beautiful, and expensive. [/B Or just ornate. Whatever that means to you.


NOTE: There's been some concern about the high limits: Normal mapping and high-res sculpts/bakes are encouraged, but not required. A single piece of armor should still be just evening or weekend's worth or work, despite the high limits.

NOTE 2: To give everyone a similar jumping point, I've uploaded a presentation mesh here. (Right Click>Save As) This is just a flat, untextured model that you can 'dress up' like a paper doll. It's not a requirement to use it, since I don't want to limit us to JUST males, but the more people who use it the better! This model was donated by Arshevelon and JoshSingh (I think Arsh made it, but Josh has tweaked it a bit). Thanks guys!




For concept art, we are looking for the same, but in 2d . As always, backgrounds are optional. Pedestals are optional. Texturing/coloring is optional. Basically... everything is optional. This challenge is here for those desiring to practice their art and receive friendly advice from fellow artisans. So as mentioned in mini comp #1-6, keep it easy, keep it quick, and keep it real. Good Luck!


Please do not make a new thread for your entry. Keep all w.i.p shots in this specific thread.

The Specs:
- 1600 triangles maximum
- 1x512 diffuse
- Optional bonus maps: ANY/ALL are permitted. Make something pretty.


Final Submission:
You can submit your finals here:
http://www.gameartisans.org/contests...character.html

Prizes:
1st place:
- 1 book from Amazon.com (up to $30 value)
- 1 new forum and gallery award icon for mini challenges
- 1 point towards raising your overal game, elite, and/or master rating
on gameartisans

2nd place:
- 1 book from Amazon.com (up to $20 value)
- 1 new forum and gallery award icon for mini challenges
- 1/2 point towards raising your overal game, elite, and/or master
rating on gameartisans

3rd place:
- 1 new forum and gallery award icon for mini challenges


Public Voting:
All Winners are chosen through a public voting system. Only GA.org
members may vote.


Deadline:
DEC 9th 11:59 p.m Eastern Time


All that said:

[damagecontrol]

Nov 9th?!

So you want us to get this done in the past? :-)

[QuikBE]

that pic is hilarious! Ha ha You mentioned in the next comp thread that you were going to put up a grey model so were all on the same page is that still the case??

[BuroKun]

can we have more then one entry?

[blankslatejoe]

whoops! thanks damage, fixed now.

Quikbe - working on it now. I don't think we should require usage of it, since it's a male model (and I could see some people here having a lot of fun modeling chick breastyplates), but yeah, I'm uploading it now

burokun - well....yes and no..you can post as many entries here in the progress thread as you'd like, but only one can be submitted in the end. This is a limit of how the submission system currently works. So, you'd have to pick your favorite entry to be your 'final' to get voted on.

[damagecontrol]

we can still enter both 3d and concept as long as they're different, right?

[QuikBE]

thats cool I was thinking about either doing a female breast plate or a shield any way but im still unsure

[Revliss]

thinking of making a booth but is the model have to be fantasy or i can do a sci-fi model

[blankslatejoe]

sci fi is fine, so long as its armor--- and ornate

[Parnell]

Wow this mesh has some mammoth toes!

[XenoZiden]

Do we need to use the Mesh, or can it just be the Armor piece?

[blankslatejoe]

you can just have the armor piece if youd like

[goffskullz]

say we wanted to do gauntlets, only hypothetically of course

obviously they could be the same and use the same maps for each glove, but what about the polycount would it be 1600 per glove if there the same, or 800 max per glove. obviously this is assuming the gloves would be the same i'm sure someone could make a set of 2 different gloves. this is assuming in the final setup i show both gloves because i think it would look nicer.

[Darksun]

very interesting compo! Don't think i'll join this one, but it'll be interesting to see what happens!

[MasteroftheFork]

This sounds like a cool idea. I look forward to seeing all the interesting designs people come up with! I want to join but don't think I can, school projects are picking up. We'll see though.

[-JL-]

Interesting... think I'll give it a go...

And I'm interested also on what the answer would be for goffskullz's question.

And I know that figurine in the title image... Echidna is it not, from Queen's Blade?

[Deto]

One quickie question.. The base mesh, we can tweak it right? To change muscularity or fatness

[TryForce]

are shields allowed? or only stuff wich can be attached to a body?

Animal armor too?

[blankslatejoe]

obviously they could be the same and use the same maps for each glove, but what about the polycount would it be 1600 per glove if there the same, or 800 max per glove. .

Interesting question. If the gauntlets are absolutely IDENTICAL, then you can render one on each hand, each one up to 1600. You're basically just providing us with two renders of the same model in that case. So, no, in that case you would not need to drop the count to 800 per glove. If each glove is unique (a different model/look/variant) then COMBINED they cannot surpass the 1600 limit.

This solution gets a little tricky when it comes to someone who wants to model a whole suit of armor... but we'll address that problem if it comes up.


@darksun and Masterofthefork - cooomee on guys...you know you want to enter...!

JL - yup. It's also one of the first google results when you search for "Hot Chick Armor"

deto - you can tweak the mesh if you like. It was provided to give everyone a similar start point, that's all.

tryforce - shields are allowed. Animal armor is allowed too, just make it ornate :-)


ill be out of town for a few days starting this afternoon, so if there's any super pressing questions, message FredH. Otherwise I'll try and jump back on on friday or saturday. Happy tday everyone!

[Miguelito]

I want to see the whole pic of that chick!