Platypus_Green - Gender Bender - The Darkness

[platypus_green]

I've been following this contest for a short while and finally decided on a character; The Darkness.

So I did a quick photosohp of one of the comic panels as a first look into a design.
http://img9.imageshack.us/img9/113/darkness01.th.jpg (http://img9.imageshack.us/my.php?image=darkness01.jpg)

With almost 3 weeks left I should still have just enough time to produce a finished result.

[platypus_green]

Getting the proportions sorted and started a basemesh for the head.
Did a quick paintover to see what needs changing on this mesh before I create the basemesh to import into Zbrush to start sculpting on.

I'll probably make the legs a tiny bit bigger, but I guess most of the proportions look good enough currently.

I'm unsure on the best way to do the hair. I'll probably use a few layers of polys for it with an alpha texture map.

[adena22]

Looking good. Looking forward to what you will do to create the hair.

[platypus_green]

Beginning to get to work on the zbrush sculpt.
Once i'm generally happy with the anatomy i'll begin to detail in the Darkness costume.

[SnappedStrings]

Shoulders seem a bit broad. I don't know much about this character's body shape, or it may just be the style, but realistically the shoulders are a little too wide

[gegrazion]

look at some refernce of athlets, 100m sprinters etc :)

[platypus_green]

I'm not looking for 100% realistic proportions but something close enough. I have looked up a fair bit of reference for this model. But the Darkness costuem will probably hide most of the subtle details a realistic model would have.

Some more zbrush work. Haven't really started on the legs, back or forearms yet. Also all of the orange bits in the costume have yet to be added. I'm thinking i'll add another mesh layer for all the orange areas and areas of indented detail, it will make applying the textures for those areas a lot easier.

[strict9]

personally i would give her the mouth piece as well...the body is clear enough to know she's female.
the body is shaping up well i must say.

[Edragon]

Lookin pretty sick :D

[platypus_green]

Yeah, I was wondering about the face mask. Was actually thinking of spending the poly count on two faces that can be swapped out with eachother, one with mask, one without. Shouldn't add more than another 120 polys at most. and shouldn't need all that much more texture space either. I'd only need to swap out the face area, since anything under the hair can stay the same.

Just under two weeks left no, hope I'll have the time to finish this off.

[chris_solo]

good progress!

[platypus_green]

Worked more on the forearms and legs.
The Forearms i think i'll rework a lot more as they don't look as I wanted them to.
Legs need much more tweaking, trying to get a balance between feminine looking and strong muscles is hard.

[tompa]

just great anatomy, I don't know if it's right but it sure looks good :drool:

I feel a bit threatened :smug: (which is good)

[platypus_green]

Tompa: Yeah the anatomy is somewhat iffy, some things I added in because it looked better. And I needed fairly strong forms to be visible, hopefully they will work better on a normal mapped low poly mesh than a completely anatomically accurate model.

Not sure I can get it done on time, but will try.

Things slowely progressing.
Trying out a mask.
Arms are roughly massed in, am about to clen them up and then detail them.

I think I have thought of a way to get the hair done, will start on that soon.

Overall model is still pretty low detailed. And I haven't even added most of the indented areas yet.

If I am to get this done on time I need to get the high poly model done by this weekend.

[gegrazion]

looking really nice and the mask looks awsome, really gives it character

[SR_6274]

This is coming along great. The details are definately coming along.

[zanman]

Your Jacklyn Estacado is looking awesome keep it up......

[platypus_green]

High poly mesh almost done.
Even though there are more details i'm going to add to this in zbrush, it's about time I started on the low poly mesh. Any further details I add will not effect the forms at all, so I would not have to rework the low poly mesh at all.

I think I will get the low poly mesh done next, then get the UV's set up and bake a preliminary normal map and AO pass to check things out before any further detailing. That way if something crops up I should have enough time to submit something at least at the deadline.

I'll get the low poly mesh done tomorrow.

[Itsgallus]

This looks very promising....

i liked the overall design and shape...

Keep goin'

//cheers

[H2olt]

Great work. I love the detail in the face mask and around the rib cage area. The thighs are looking a bit sparse though. Hurry up and get the spider arm things made so you can sculpt those out too.

[hellkorgi]

The details are coming up great and the face mask looks awesome. Go man go!

[chris_solo]

great work man! I like the details.

[platypus_green]

Got the low poly mesh done now, will bake the first draft of the normal map tonight.

Also got the hair done. Hopefully it will look ok when the rest of the model has it's normal maps and other textures.
I always find the hair a real pain to get looking any good. Fairly pleased with the results this time, but plenty I can improve on the enxt time I do low poly hair. Must leave this as is since I'm almost out of time.

So far I've used about 7800 tris. Means I have some left over for cleaning/smoothing some areas up.

[Quintonius]

Nice work on the hair, it looks great. Do you have a spec map on there for the highlights?

[platypus_green]

Yep, used the method described in http://www.paultosca.com/varga_hair.html

When I get the rest of the model textured up then I'll prob go back and adjust the hair maps a little.

[Prince-G]

I really like how the hair turned out as well as the overall sculpt. I was looking at that particular tut on cg arena but the link you have gives the fleshed out version. I will definitely play around w/ that method some more next time around. :)

[platypus_green]

Started the first pass on the texture maps.

Loaded the current progress into xNormal to see how it'd look.
Seems the hair has some z-sorting issues with that many alpha planes; having some polys showing infront of others. The hair is also a tad big, I think I'm going to flatten it down towards the head surface a lot more.
Also the legs seems bit small now, thought I had the proportions ok. Well that's something that can be tweaked a little if I have the time later on by adjusting the low poly mesh after doing all the baking from the high poly.

The texture is really basic atm, really just areas blocked off into flat colours with a tiny bit of rough shading added to the larger areas.

I'm tempted to resculpt the high poly mesh to refine the details and then rebake the normal map. But with only a day or so left that's not likely to happen. I really don't think i'm going to make it on time. A shame, but I did start this half way through the time alloted.

[Agent-X]

I like your model, its coming out really nice. I can't wait to see the finished version. The hair came out really nice. Keep up the good work.

[lampshadehead]

I think quitting would be a mistake. I'd finish as best you can right now. I'm sure it will look amazing. After the comp is done you could always go back and try to make improvements.

[SR_6274]

Yea, don't stop now. I know you can make it. This is shaping up to be one of my favorites so I really want to see you finish it.