southparx - Gender Bender - Female Marcus Fenix

[southparx]

Hi folks,

i'm excited to join the challenge to let myself learn as well as making friends,

the character i'm going to be doing will be Marcus Fenix, basically I've just watched Vitaly Bulgarov's
Gnomon DVD and really inspired to do something Gears-ish.

Here is my reference sheet and the middle is just quick sketch



i'm going to add one two personal touches for example She is a rocket launcher personnel,
will have slight warpaint on her face and the bottom right picture is FF7 Cloud's shoulder pad which
i think is interesting and perhaps i will make one part of her armor some animal head shape.

other than that, i guess i will follow GoW design - not exact copy though coz i think my skill isnt there yet anyway haha

oh perhaps I should post the color schemes i did



I picked the Black/Orange since i think the other colors
arent very good, but please let me know if you think otherwise.

Lastly I made another version of Black/Orange and ended up choosing what i post in the first pic



Okay really excited to be participating, next is i'm going to draw some details - maybe a couple variations,
then onto making character sheets.
If you have any comments/critiques please do share

thanks in advance and have a nice day

~cheers,
andrew

[ryvick]

dont loose those big round discs on the chest armor. its like their signature armor style.

[H2olt]

yeah, and the football pads style of armor (built up around the neck)

like this kinda
http://api.ning.com/files/v8dtJqwDxM.../18290410.jpeg

wow, it's hard to search for girls in football gear without drowning in porn.

Basically I'm just saying she should look more thick and armored. that's the essence of the gears of war look.

[goast666]

SHE CAN'T HAVE ANKLES!!! No one in Gears has one. They have a knee that goes right into toes. And a chest width that is grotesque...but for some reason you put armor on top and no one noticed. Hmm.

[southparx]

Hi guys,

many thanks for the tips and advice,

i will revise the design with those key points in mind

cheers,
andrew

[southparx]

Hi guys,

here's the updated design, the backpack i changed it to some car engine which i think has interesting pattern,



regarding the Ankles, after looking at my references I have to disagree with Ghost666,
the boots does have ankles and it seems the design of the armor has to have it otherwise the foot won't be able to bend

anyhoo, here's today's progress - i decided to not do the character sheet and go straight to sketching in zbrush, it's faster and i can sense the mass and general shape in three dimensional








well in the concept sketch, i realized the mass of the armors arent bulky enough so it is done in the sculpt sketch.

please let me know if you guys have any input. next is to build each parts in polygon.. now thats gonna be a bit painful

cheers,
andrew

[goast666]

Looking good so far. I was kidding about the ankles are your character. I was more just pointing out that there is a weird overall design to the gears characters that I find...well, weird.

Anyway, attached is marcus' foot. You find his ankle and I'll give you a taco.

[H2olt]

Very nice update. The overlapping details on the chest armor look great. The butt looks really tall and flat though. I'd try to fix those proportions before getting much farther into detailing. It'd also be great if the pads on the leg could have the bulky quality that the chest pads have. Right now they look very thin. But since they also look ragged I assume they're early WIP.

[TheSlingshot]

Starting to look pretty great ^^

I love to engine pattern you got there, I would only make it go a big higher on the part and it can almost look as the spinal cord of the armor.

And it looks a bit hard to stand on those boots So I think you should do it pretty flat under the boots, like in the image attached by goast, they would look more massive I think and they would catch more the essence of Gears.

And...anyone can correct me if I'm wrong, cause i'm far from an expert, but I think the shoulders are a bit low, or that the head sticks out too high.


But other then that it looks really great, love gears characters and with an awesome texture I think it will look awesome in the end!

[lampshadehead]

Nice sculpting. I do gave to say however that it seems a bit silly for such a heavily armoured character to be wearing an armoured thong with her butt hanging out. I know it's par for the course, but it's been done many times. I can't imagine that it will lend much credibility to the character as a whole either.

[southparx]

hi guys,

first of all cheers to everyone for their thoughtful crits, wow you guys are really friendly here

goast666,
woah many thanks for the reference pic, i still need to find more reference pics and this one sure helps a lot

Hi H2olt,

thanks yeah will make the butt more pronouced since i guess it becomes flat with the masses of the armor surrounding it

regarding the armor pads on the legs, well i was a few hours after the chest area and i got lazy i guess so i just trace lines real quick,

the idea for the zbrush sketch sculpt is just to check the design and mass,
everything will be rebuilt in polygons, will overlap and thickness and so on,
but yeah thanks for the advice heads up

Hi TheSlingShot,

you're right about the neck, it is far too long, will keep that in mind.
the boots will be somewhat flat when done in polygons

Hi Lampshadehead,

well i was thinking the same way how her butt cheeks aren't guarded while the rest of her bodyparts are,
but i'll try some artistic liberty here, since i kinda think, if she is fully covered by huge armors and i will have her face war-painted, i'm a bit worried people won't be able to tell she's a female gender - hence the thong and ass

again many thanks for the crits guys and please keep them coming

-andrew

[VinsanityV20]

Man, Marcus Fenix. I would LOVE to be good enough to do a Gears of War character, but alas I'm just not that skilled with high res sculpting to live up to any of Epic's stuff yet. Plus, I don't currently have sculpting software installed my computer, but I digress.

You sir, clearly are talented enough to do the idea justice, and you certainly have worked fast so far. I gotta say though the bulkiness of the armor is causing some of her female form to get lost in the torso - compared to the concept, it's just too bulky. Plus I'm confused as to why the leg armor is so form fitting while the top is still bulky - I'd prefer it to remain consistent. And in this contest, I'd say go with whatever helps the character to more instantly read as female, so I'd like to see the form fitting armor personally.

It's looking phenomenal so far, and I'm definitely going to keep an eye on this thread during this comp

[SnappedStrings]

I agree with what Vinsanity was saying, I don't have the skill to sculpt hard metal surfaces (robots, armor, vehicles, etc.) in Zbrush. I do organics okay, but hard surfaces are a pain - looks like you're doing a great job with it though! Looking forward to seeing how this comes out.

H2olt, you're right, I never realized it but all the Gears have cankles

On a further note, that thong looks reaaaaally uncomfortable, haha. Put a little more meat on her buns and I think you'll really be in business

Keep up the great work!

[southparx]

Hi Vinsanity,

you're absolutely right regarding consistency,
and since Gears of Wars characteristics as stated earlier by H2olt is bulky,
i think i can't make the form fitting -




and so i made the leg armors bulkier to match the upper body armors,
also fixed here and there like the length of neck, slightly proturude the buttocks more (might do more in polygon stage we'll see), etc etc

Hi SnappedStrings,

as per your suggestion, yeahh that thong... hmm..

i tried some hanging armor pad - like some saint seiya characters - but it doenst look 'badass' enough - made her look like masculin waitress with too much steroid haha

well it's cliche but i guess i'll keep the thong in place for now until i figure out something better,

so please keep suggestions coming guys

many thanks,
andrew

[southparx]

update: started modeling



still havent added shapes for the straps and other parts, hopefully can get it done tonight so i can move on to other bodypart