Dominance War V - 3D - Daedra, Goddess of the Abyss - Miclepickle

[miclepickle]

hey guys starting my thread, hoping to have enough time to devote to this competition.

here is my initial concept, I have been wanting to make a female character, so I am gonna go for a goddess im feeling dark so Goddess of the Abyss it is :P

I am a little worried she looks a bit minion like right now... but we will see how things go :D

[frostsnake]

nice start.
I like how the armor layers are looking on her left shoulder.

[miclepickle]

update:

new breastplate, and I got rid of the bigger pauldron.

havent made any decisions about the lower body yet

[GregStrangis]

Looking cool mic! You should def take a look at Paul Richards concepts. You can get some great ideas from there. http://www.autodestruct.com/concept.htm

[miclepickle]

Ill have to take a look at those concepts, thanks for the heads up! :D

[miclepickle]

started blocking in the base mesh.
I am planning on starting by sculpting out the body then finish figuring out the armor once I have the body figured out.

[miclepickle]

just needs wings, then its time to start sculpting!... I would greatly appreciate any crits on form/proportions...

[terry1337]

the arms look a bit too short

[Warlock 279]

Aye I have to agree, tho its hard to say from the perspective there, but the arms do look a little short, and the hands look small. Something seems a little off with the neck as well, too long I think.

Your topology looks like it'll work well enough for sculpting, its a little dense for my own tast, I'd probably use about half that for a sculpt base mesh, but its clean enough to work.

[mix_mash]

I think you should work more on the concept first and flesh out a really good design. If you start working on the details now, it'll be tougher to have a good workflow later.

Paul
(mix_mash)

[miclepickle]

hmm I think I can figure out the shapes of the body in zbrush, then once I have the body sculpted it will be easier to do a paintover to design the armor better.

[washka]

Use some grey flat low tones when you concept, trying to get interesting shapes.
Use references for the body.
Gl man, and welcome onto da war!

No pity against other forums, kill them aaaaaaaaallllllll !!! :evil:

[miclepickle]

silhouettes for headgear... not sure i like any of them...

[Warlock 279]

Fourth one in the bottom row, if she has feathers anywhere on her. The one right above, it she does not have feathers. Also, mix in some of what you were doing with neck piece in the 2nd and 3rd on the top row with the 4th and bottom 4th, that'd be a good direction to go.

[dhin]

The last two on the top row have potential.

[miclepickle]

I think tonight I will play around with 4 and 5 on top and 3 on the bottom...

[washka]

mix
those you like and rework until you're happy.
That's the bulding process, then erase/refine until you're happy/people are happy.
warlock's comments are really constructives, I think we should vote for the best generals at the end of da war. :D

[wil_himura]

No. 4 on top row is an attractive concep imo ;) Nice topology on the model aswell, I'm concerned about topology but not worried by now... I hope it doesn't take me much time later on.

[puerto77]

The 3rd one, though I would maybe suggest exploring taking the section from the eye-line and above out, and maybe using the 2nd one, and blending at a 45 degree angle, if you get me (so the front part still covers the nose, but tails up the same as the original section on the 3rd example)

[Senrof]

i have to make me echo of the other guys that say 4 ... is a good shape, and broke the figure, so u can use that idea in other parts of the body aswell.

Peace bro.

PS: maybe a little small inage will work better... i dnt like to pan to see things XD

[miclepickle]

thanks for all the responses guys!... hopefully I can find the time to work on this soon. lol

[miclepickle]

found some time to do some headdress concepting... :D

[Puckducker]

Headdress is looking nice. I prefer the second version, without the chin strap. Do you feel like these are meant to be like "wings" coming off the side of the head, or wrapping around the head, more like a spike?

[miclepickle]

wrapping around the head, with her hair flowing out the back... although I have never really done a good job with hair.. so that should be interesting :D.

as far as color scheme I was thinking of dark purples like dark elves from Warhammer (my referance is from warhammer online, but im sure it applies to tabletop aswell)

http://img.booru.org/Grognard//images/13/465a32aa796d37cfde564ec829cf34aba7d44dda.jpg

...props to the concept artists at mythic and to Sze Jones (former character modeling supervisor at blur, who modeled this) for producting this amazing character :D

[zugok]

Convincing looking long hair can be hard to do on game models, but since it wont have to animate it should be possible.

Cheers

[miclepickle]

yeah, I know its possible... I just dont know if I can do it.. heh
but its clearly possible
http://www.paultosca.com/varga_hair.html

[Neil_F01]

cool.. i can see why you were looking at spiders now...

[miclepickle]

actually I was looking at stuff like this:
http://www.autodestruct.com/images/ds_horsemen1.jpg

those spider concepts were just in there with those :P

[zugok]

yeah, I know its possible... I just dont know if I can do it.. heh
but its clearly possible
http://www.paultosca.com/varga_hair.html

I try to stick to examples like that one or shorter. Black hair is also easier as it tends to not show the poly plane shading, plus the example is shown mostly in silhouette.

Long, soft, smooth, flowing hair like on the Dark Elf might be more difficult.

Great work so far!

[miclepickle]

oh I was planning on making it pretty messy :D

[miclepickle]

WIP of my sculpt

[Puckducker]

Reminds me a lot of Kerrigan.

I'd say focus on proportions and pose right now. She seems overly tall, added with the legs being a little too long.

[Neil_F01]

her shoulders are a bit brawd..

[miclepickle]

Reminds me a lot of Kerrigan.

I'd say focus on proportions and pose right now. She seems overly tall, added with the legs being a little too long.


well, she will actually have a membrane between the boney parts of the wings, but I dont need that in zbrush...

did some adjustments to the proportions, let me know what you think.

[wil_himura]

Hey! Nice topology and base mesh, what I'm asking myself is why did you shorten her legs? Let me paste some pics

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_6ueLfmkEaRQ/TKDNdGWoToI/AAAAAAAAAIY/nEEEKKi0ZnA/s1600/luis_royo_julie_smiths_temp.jpg

http://www.collectiondx.com/system/files/LuisRoyo_MedusasGaze.jpg

In both images the legs are more than half of the image and still I don't find them strange or out of proportions. Long legs are sexy mate!! :D

[miclepickle]

I shortened the legs per puck's comment, which technicaly is correct, maybe somewhere inbetween where they were and where they are would be good...

[Warlock 279]

You've got a decent start. Your proportions could use a little refinement yet tho. First she's 7.5 heads tall, which works, but you've got four of those the upper body and 3.5 in the lower, so you could stand to shift her pelvis/hips/et all, up a little bit to give her more leg. Conversely you could just move her to 8 heads tall, and stretch the legs downward.

You know what, actually, I think it'd be best to take the extra size out of the torso, her breasts are a little low. You've got too much space above them.

I did a quick/dirty little adjustment [hope you don't mind]. Shortened the torso some by moving the breasts up and taking a little out of the mid riff, lengthened the legs to account for the shorter torso [the pubic symphysis should fall at roughly half the figures overall height], shortened arms [wrist should fall right around the top of the femur], enlarged the hands [should be about the size of the face], moved the eyes and nose down [should be inline with the top of the ears and half way from the top to the bottom of the head], and moved the eyes in just a pinch [they felt too far apart after moving down]. Something like this...

http://i179.photobucket.com/albums/w303/Warlock279/Mini%20Tutorials/micklepickle-Propo_01.jpg

[miclepickle]

thanks for that Warlock! I struggle with proportions a lot.. and I really appreciate you taking the time to really show me what was wrong... :D

[miclepickle]

tweaked the proportions some more let me know what you think.

I ended up scaling down everything but the head, because she was like 8.25 heads tall :D... but now her head looks big... but isnt. maybe im just used to looking at her with wacky proportions...

[Warlock 279]

Much much better. I think overall, your proportions on the vertical are looking pretty good. The hips could do with a little play yet. I think they could stand to be a little wider or it could be just a matter of starting the "flare" for the hips higher up.

The legs are looking kind of thin in the side view. The lower leg is probably okay, but the upper leg could probably use a little more meat on the back of it I reckon. You know, I'm kinda thinking the legs could use more meat all around in general, just a bit tho, no too much, looking at them relative to the arms, they look a little thin. Might be worth playing with.

I think everyone struggles with proportions, there's always gonna be little tweaks that make the proportions [feel] more "right." There's also enough variance in real human proportions, that there's not really a "right" just a bunch of loose guidelines to point you in the general direction, beyond that its just getting a "feel" for it really. Don't feel too bad, I'd reckon I've got a long way to go before I really get proportions down myself.

[wil_himura]

Great ;) Looks fine to me now, well done. I really like this tips/crits/help environment.

[Cordero]

from the side view, the ribcage is a lot bigger than the hip area. make the hips bigger!

from side view, feet looks too big. check if they still look big after the hip scale, and if they do, scale them down!

make the boobs like two cup placed on the ribcage, pointing outwards: and then make them affected by gravity, making the downside a bit wider.

the belly and the belly button is too low: on your sculpt its right on the 3 head from top -> the belly button is between the hips, while in reality belly button is much higher placed on the body.

Butt from the side view is way too much: butt is not a separate "object" like the boobs, they are very well welded in to their environment: check the butt connection to the thigh, and to the waist region.

thats it for first, in general find a lot of references. If you do have references already (about 4-5 good references per region, and by region I mean butt, boobs, waist, arms, legs, ankles etc.. good pictures from ALL the regions, from ALL view) then USE them!

gl

edit: oh, and don't worry, this is the hardest part, getting the proportions right as Warlock said. Its causes some headaches for me too for sure :D

[miclepickle]

hey, thanks for the responses.

as for the legs being skinny, yeah I know, I stretched them to get the length they needed but havent had time to beef em up yet, ill take a look at the feet again after beefing the legs... originally they were massive.. lol i already shortened them a bit :P, not sure why I had them so big to begin with.. but whatever.

[washka]

Himuya: In both images the legs are more than half of the image and still I don't find them strange or out of proportions. Long legs are sexy mate!!
Both on your images've got high heels. xD It's not anat proportion ref , it's accessories ones. But I agree about long legs sexy thing.
Warlock's #37 gives good anat legs/body props for those. (Without high heels)
Keep it up miclepickle!

[miclepickle]

Himuya:
Both on your images've got high heels. xD It's not anat proportion ref , it's accessories ones. But I agree about long legs sexy thing.
Warlock's #37 gives good anat legs/body props for those. (Without high heels)
Keep it up miclepickle!

lol, one of those pics, the legs were like 2/3 of the body... I dont think thats due to heels :P...

[miclepickle]

did some sculpting to get some meat on her :D mostly worked on the torso, legs, and feet. she is definately going to be wearing some sort of heals, so i put the feet in the right position for that. been thinking about making the shoes out of a demonic mutation with a spike sticking out of her heel or something, not sure if I wanna do that or not yet though.

[mix_mash]

I honestly think that you should get a rough bulk of the work done before picking at the detail. True, the exact proportions my be off but worry about that later. If you spend too much time nitpicking about the small stuff now, it'll affect your work flow in the future.


Paul
(mix_mash)

[miclepickle]

did some conceptualizing tonight...