DWIII - 3D - Buzzy - Yuki

[Buzzy]

Hey ya'll. No final concepts yet, I'm going to hold off a bit until I see if there will be a specific theme for each forum.

But I do have a bunch of good ideas and I'm ready to do battle.

[Buzzy]

Ok, so unless FredH tosses out some new forum-specific requirements, I plan on building a ice-based female archer. Her artifact will be her bow. I figured ice/water is the best element to go with our forum colors.
I thought it might be cool (no pun intended) if her bow froze-over with ice when she drew it back, then the ice shattered when she released an arrow. I'll have a small back story and some concepts up later today.

[Buzzy]

Did a simple quick sketch. Not anyway near final...just some brainstorming. I plan on doing a somewhat stylized character...no hyper-realism for me.

[killadee]

sweet! your concept is cool, ice maidens ftw.

[Warlock 279]

I like your idea of the bow freezing over when she draws it back, course that means you've got animate it to show that off. ;-)

I'm looking forward to seeing what you come up with.

[Buzzy]

Did another sketch...more for attitude than actual costume design. I'll be doing some draw-overs of costumes today. I also did a first-pass model of her face...again, mostly trying to get the look and attitude correct.

[Miss Mikame]

Thats a nice Face. howd you get the tri's to hide that well.

Am i right in saying that its a full ish ambience light with directional shadows
applied via say a raytrace shadow map.

self shadowing looks horrrrrrrible cos the tri's always show up.

[Buzzy]

Thanks Miss Mikame

I used a simple light tracer setup in max.... a single skylight with about 0.6 intensity and a single spotlight with 0.6 intensity and 2048 shadow maps

[akimba]

I like the attitude change in your second concept Buzzy.. And love the Ice archer idea. I'm doing an ice character also so I'll be checking up to see how yours is comin also. I'm curious to see more concepts of her bow.

[Miss Mikame]

Thanks buzzy, thanks heaps. that works a treat.

[Buzzy]

I've been a bit dormant the last couple weeks.... sorry. But I am still working on my entry, I just haven't had time to put a post together. So here are my latest concepts.

[Buzzy]

I have the model pretty much built already. Here is the latest and greatest. I'm still not sold on all the color choices (this is just simple coloring, no actual textures yet) Her body armor looks white in this mock-up....it will be super polished steel in the end...almost chrome

[BiG ToE-3DT]

she seems to be packing a load of junk in that trunk, which is a good thing if you ask me.

But, from her outfit I would have to say that she lives in some type of cold weather area. But she runs around in her Victoria Secrets. She must be cold. So you might want to play with that idea and have her skin look a bit frost bitten.

Last thing, the arrows look as if they could fall out of the bag at any moment. You might want to slide them in further and have the sharp end poke out the other side of the bag. That, or you could lengthen the bagso that it reaches to where the elbow is in the arm.

[khemist000]

Solid model Buzzy. I agree with Big Toe's comments though she could use a bit of a grungier, frostbitten look. She has a very Disney feel to her right now, which doesn't really say "War", though I understand you are not going for realistic. Regardless, Im excited to see where you take this. Good Luck.

[Buzzy]

Thanks for the comments guys. I showed this to some of the other artists at work and I kept getting the exact same 3 comments that Big Toe gave me - 1. She looks good with a little meat on her bones, 2. She should appear a little frostbitten and cold, 3. The quiver looks odd and out of place.

So, I will mess with some things and see if I can get a better quiver design.

And I definately like the idea of giving her some rosiness to make her look cold.

[poopipe]

dude - theres one (or two) very important feature missing if she's been out in the cold in that outfit .

you know what I mean ;)


otherwise - I like this more than a lot.

the quiver looks unbalanced rather than wrong to me

[Buzzy]

A minor update
I unwrapped the UVs and changed the quiver a bit.
She's weighing in at around 6700 tris right now....I plan on spending the remaining 2000+ tris to do a fur effect on her hood and boots (that 9000 tri limit is killing me with this fur!) Hopefully I can get a good amount of the texturing done this weekend.

[Buzzy]

Ok, here's a few tests
These are lo-res models with normal maps
Really, only her face, hood, armor, and legs have normals so far
Also, this is an early test of the fur for the hood

[Puckducker]

The fur is looking pretty good, though I think it's a little too subtle. When you pull the camera out, you'll hardly see it. I think you could make it a bit longer, and with some different variations in length.

Looking very cool though. Not much time left, so better get on those textures!