SnappedStrings - Battle Chess - The Black Knight

[SnappedStrings]

Oh my god, this makes me so happy. I'm extremely excited to see that the 3d total character modeling challenges are back, especially after I had to drop out of DWV due to time constraints with school.


I originally started out doing concepts for the Rook, but in the end I was unsatisfied with the outcome.

I've wanted to do a Dark Knight character for a long time, and I decided this was a good opportunity to finally get it done. So my character will be based on the images below.

Also, I plan to mount the knight on a sort of demon-wolf, which is inspired by the Warg Riders in LOTR (concept below).

The armor of the knight will be inspired by the Judges from Final Fantasy XII as well as Sauron's Armor.

I'm a poor concept artist, so I figure on doing the majority of my planning within Zbrush.

[paulius-st]

cool idea and a cool path you're taking. its interesting how will youre knight look :) .
good luck :)

[SnappedStrings]

Thanks Paulius for the encouragement!

Here's a first shot, basically showing proportions.

Not sure what I'm going to be doing with the head/tail of the mount, but everything else is likely to make it through to the final.

Gonna start on blocking the knight's armor next I think

[Cordero]

cool concepts!

From the screenshot, it looks like that u are in orthographic view in zbrush, I would suggest to switch to perspective..

You should either work a lot on the anatomy, or cover it up with armor, because atm it doesn't look right.

I hope u'll be able to finish.

[SnappedStrings]

Just a quick update on this. Most of what's here is blocked in and will likely be refined in later updates. I plan on keeping the demon face though. The helmet's basic shape is determined, but the details need to be worked out greatly. Not sure what direction I'm going to go in with the legs. Expect the hands to have armored gauntlets

[SnappedStrings]

So, I had to scrap alot of ideas from my first Progress Shot because I realized that I was trying too hard to imitate the style of my references, rather than let them inspire my own style. And we all know what a dangerous road that can be. Essentially nothing was meshing together and it all felt very disingenuous.

I think we can all agree that this second progress shot is worlds ahead of the first one and I'm excited with where it's going.

The back is going to have two cape-like shreds hanging from the spaulders to represent the Black Knight's scorched wings. It represents a sort of fall-from-grace kind of thing.

[AlucardAssassin]

The second version is much better...interesting idea about the scraps of cloth! Keep it up!

[SnappedStrings]

Okay heres the latest version of the Black Knight. The design is pretty much finished here. Have to do a few more things in HighPoly before I'm ready to move on to Low Poly, but this is pretty much it. He'll be a fairly symmetrical character, but I plan to break this up with folds in the cloth and scratches on the armor as well as tears in the cape.

[SnappedStrings]

Okay, I refined the details and features of the Knight's Mount and it came out pretty good. I'm quite satisfied with it.

Also, the last render is a visualization of my final concept and where I plan to take the whole thing. Just a simple rough-out in zbrush

[wil_himura]

There's something about the creature extremities I don't like, the toes probably, I don't like the thumb idea. Did you try to change that toe in the smallest one in the outside of the feet instead of inside? :D


http://lapsusmental.files.wordpress.com/2011/07/test-snapped.jpg

Apart from that, loving it!!

[SnappedStrings]

Hmmm, you know I actually kind of felt the same way, Wil. I was just gonna leave it but since it seems I wont be the only one to notice, I'll go back and re-examine it.

Thanks for the C & C, Wil!

[TonyClifton]

Coming together pretty well, and it looks like Battle! Keep it up!

[SnappedStrings]

Okay Okay, haven't updated in awhile and it's coming down to the wire. But I'm not out yet!

Here's a preliminary texture render and normal maps.

Still got a good ways to go on the texture maps before they're finished, but I'm confident I'll finish in time :-D