Action Hero - Mr Murder

[MrHappy]

Artist Name: Christopher Lawton

Mr Murder

CLawton - MrMurder.jpg (http://javascript%3Cb%3E%3C/b%3E:zb_insimg%28%27119499%27,%27CLawton%20-%20MrMurder.jpg%27,1,0%29)


Mankind is a war-zone. Billions of souls stumble through their lives unaware of the true nature of existence. The typical human has a very limited view of reality, which doesn't venture much further than their five senses, their stinted emotions, limited intelligence and the petty trivia of their day to day lives. A few, less fortunate, individuals catch glimpses of the truth around them and it drives them into madness.

For the human reality is only one of many, and the human soul has become quite the commodity. Daemons and beasts thrive amongst the inhabitants of earth. They corrupt the souls of those around them in order to feed their own hunger, out of pure greed and power lust. Every soul is vitally important in tipping the balance in the battle between the Heavens and the Hells.

Since the birth of the first man the earth has become another battleground in the eternal war. Countless realities have been ravaged and succumbed to the furies of the war. Mankind's souls have proven to be especially powerful, one of Creation's finest achievements. The forces of the Heavens know that the loss of humanity will cost them everything, and so they protect mankind with everything they can.

Mr Murder is a Daemon, whom fights for the Heavens. He is quite a dirty little secret, as he is just as dangerous as any other hell-spawn. His true name is Gibreel, although he is only ever referred to as Mr Murder on account of his tactics. Mr Murder hunts and destroys other Daemons, and relishes his job with gusto. He devours the souls of the Daemons he destroys, and those of the evil, corrupt people he kills. He is not allowed to devour the souls of the innocent, and instead sends them to the Heavens.

Millennia of wandering every plane of existence has driven Gibreel quite mad, and his twisted sense of humour mirrors that of his deranged soul. Not many Daemons wish acceptance in the Heavens.

Mr Murder can slip in and out of any reality, or time period, he wishes whenever he wants to, which allows him to track Devils to anywhere. His reality is very different than that of humanity. He can make his presence known to humans, or disappear completely from their view at will. However, like the other Daemons and Angels, he cannot hide from other sacred beings.

The abilities he can utilize in his fighting are limited by the technology of the time he is in. He must remain subtle when surrounded by recording equipment for example, as whilst he can wipe his presence from the minds of those around him, removing himself from cctv is another matter entirely.

Gibreel can control the minds of weaker beings, such as humans. He uses them to do his bidding, however he will only use evil people to commit evil deeds unless there is no other option. Having an evil man murder another is an easy way for him to get his job done without revealing himself. However, when it comes to fighting Daemons, Mr Murder must get down and dirty himself.

He is an extremely powerful fighter, and can regenerate from almost complete destruction over time, however even he could be killed if in a truly weakened state. In order to fuel his regeneration, he burns through the souls he has consumed from other Daemons and evil men. He can also utilize the souls he has consumed to wreak fire and brimstone style carnage on his foes if it is absolutely necessary, however this also can leave him greatly weakened if he uses it too much.

He may be a hero, but he does not suffer fools gladly. The little old lady waiting for her cat to be returned safely from a tree may well find herself hanging from it, if she catches Gibreel on a bad day. To try and counter his madness, a small Angelic guide was sent to help him, however the pair get on like a house on fire... with the occupants locked inside.

[aiman]

Well he kind of looks like sideshow bob from the simpsons, I need to see him fleshed out a bit further before i can crit it, the idea is not bad.

[zeke3d]

looks like a level designer I used to work with, .... eerily.

[MrHappy]

Thanks for the feedback guys. Here is a quick sculpt I was working on for the past hour. No references used as of yet, I am just trying to rough out ideas at the moment. I wont be going down the sideshow bob route lol, there is no body / costume yet as I have still to decide which time period I wish to show him in. Over the next week I will be working on a series of different head sculpts to develop the characters look further, and will then take it from there with proper references to ensure it is as anatomically correct as possible.
mmurder quicksculpt 01.jpg (http://javascript%3Cb%3E%3C/b%3E:zb_insimg%28%27119502%27,%27mmurder%20quicksculpt%2001.jpg%27,1,0%29)

[SolidSnakexxx]

I like the style you are going for ...quite unique in this contest. Looking forward for more.

[joe55]

i agree, your model is lookn cool

[MrHappy]

Quick update. Started with a zsphere body, made hands out of a plane, then combined and retop'd it into the base mesh im now sculpting from. Just working on the body anatomy at the moment.

BodyWIP01.jpg (http://javascript<b></b>:zb_insimg('120646','BodyWIP01.jpg',1,0))

[VitorFerreira]

Not bad but seems a bit too rushed. I'd recomend you to first get the proportions right and the basic volumes down there. Don't think too much on small muscles so far, just model the big groups so you can start getting a good silhuette. If you success getting a nice basic shape and a nice silhuette then the rest will be piece and cake :D

[ISK-86]

I think that the cartoony style of the head needs to have a cartoony body...

The head is just great, but... imho the character would need like... pear body, short legs and big hands...

but maybe thats not your initian concept :o I'll sit and wait to see where this goes ;)

[DAnconia]

Just know that nothing on the human body is a straight line up or down. Like on the wrist area. Everything in and on the human body has a curve to it. The shin bone should not be so pronounced and the calf muscles need some attention. especially on the inside of the calves. The knee centered. Shoulder width should be a head length on each side. The head is a bit too tall for the rest of the body.

Keep up the good work!

[MrHappy]

Thanks for the feedback folks. I have done a bit more to the torso and arms, whilst also fixing the proportions somewhat. Side by side for comparison I have put a more regular proportioned body along with an 8-heads high comic book version. The final piece wont be cartoony, that head was just a quick rough in of a concept. The head itself is going to come later. Updates will be thicker and faster once I stop being ill :)

Anyhow, let me know what you think about the tall vs short body.

BodyWIP02.jpg (http://javascript%3Cb%3E%3C/b%3E:zb_insimg%28%27120662%27,%27BodyWIP02.jpg%27,1,0%29)

[MrHappy]

Decided to go with the tall body. Here is some more progress on the sculpting of the body. I'm not too happy with the back of the legs at the moment, but I'll have another look at them tomorrow.

BodyWIP03.jpg (http://javascript%3Cb%3E%3C/b%3E:zb_insimg%28%27120976%27,%27BodyWIP03.jpg%27,1,0%29)

Edit: I'm thinking of widening his shoulders a bit.

[VitorFerreira]

Hey dude, this is improving a lot.


My suggestion now is to focous some more on the silhuette before keep detailing. For example the spine is too straight, don't be afraid and do some exagerated curves there. Same goes to the legs, when the viewer look at them on the front side at first they look like plain cylinders and you have to force the viewer to see it actually has some shapes there.

:tu:

[MrHappy]

Thank you Vitor, I will take your advice onboard tomorrow once I am started back on the model. One of the things I love about zbrush is that it makes massive changes not only easy but fun. I will post the results of my experiments tomorrow. Cheers

[MrHappy]

BodyWIP04.jpg (http://javascript%3Cb%3E%3C/b%3E:zb_insimg%28%27121255%27,%27BodyWIP04.jpg%27,1,0%29)

Just a quick update for the moment. Here is the general form of my character's body. I'm fairly happy with it now, so I think I will move onto refinement. If you spot anything off with it please do let me know though and I will sort it out.

[MrHappy]

After spending some time refining the model (still LOADS to do there :D ) I thought I would get a bit of practice in with transpose. I also wanted to test out how the model would deform etc. I was very pleasantly pleased with the results. This isn't the pose I will be going for, just a test.

BodyWIP05.jpg (http://javascript%3Cb%3E%3C/b%3E:zb_insimg%28%27121294%27,%27BodyWIP05.jpg%27,1,0%29)

[P'etur]

His legs are a bit wide, around his knee area...
Otherwise good progress

[MrHappy]

Thank you for the input P'etur, I think I have fixed the knees' width now.

Here is an update showing further progress on the body, plus a concept for the head. I am going to try out a few others and see which I like best before pushing it for realism.

HeadA WIP 01.jpg (http://javascript%3Cb%3E%3C/b%3E:zb_insimg%28%27121893%27,%27HeadA%20WIP%2001.jpg%27,1,0%29)

HeadA WIP 02.jpg (http://javascript%3Cb%3E%3C/b%3E:zb_insimg%28%27121894%27,%27HeadA%20WIP%2002.jpg%27,1,0%29)

[MrHappy]

head B01.jpg (http://javascript<b></b>:zb_insimg('121968','head%20B01.jpg',1,0))

head c01.jpg (http://javascript<b></b>:zb_insimg('121970','head%20c01.jpg',1,0))

head d01.jpg (http://javascript<b></b>:zb_insimg('121971','head%20d01.jpg',1,0))

head e01.jpg (http://javascript<b></b>:zb_insimg('121972','head%20e01.jpg',1,0))

Some proportional ideas I was playing around with. Not sure which head is my favourite yet.

[SolidSnakexxx]

Great progress, MrHappy. I see you are testing out various facial proportion and for me I like the 4th one the most... BTW great transpose test as well, With that skill, I'm sure your final pose will look wonderful. :tu:

[MrHappy]

No physical update at the moment, I've been totally snowed under... I will be posting an update to the model at some point over the next 24 hours, I hope that will be ok.

For the moment, I cannot decide on the costume I am going to go for, it is a toss up of one of these three ideas:

Modern day gangsta style urban clothing.
Ragged travelling clothes, thin and robe like.
Voodoo inspired with dolls and talismans.

I also am quite taken by the notion of combining the voodoo and modern gangsta ideas. Let me know what you think.

Cheers.

[SolidSnakexxx]

Hey there...I'd love to see the character with Voodoo type of clothing :) I think he'd look cool in it.

[MrHappy]

This might be an odd question but I will post it here anyway....
Does anyone know where I can get another polysphere? Mine seems to be broken, in the ztools folder... it worked the other day?

[threetails]

nice progress, i like the dreads, if you want a better sphere, when you open zbrush and you go to Tools/ load tool / a dialog box will open to your ztools folder, select the polysphere.ztl from there. it is made from a cube and won't break at the poles when you go to higher sub divs. im not sure if breaking is the right word. a hole appears at the pole, but that could be the normals flipping as the mesh density grows at that single vert.

[MrHappy]

Cheers threetails... but thats the one thats broken. For some reason the centre of the sphere is off whenever I load it, but i never save anything into the ztools folder. My save directory is even on another harddrive lol. Glad you like the model

[MrHappy]

I dont know whats going on with zbrush tonight, but when I ctrl-shift-click an object to show/hide polygroups, it is switching subtools. Its becoming rediculous. Any ideas how to fix it?

(I know this is not the Q&T forum but its hindering my contest entry)

Iv tried rebooting several times, using different files, resetting hotkeys and nothing has worked.... please, if anyone knows how to fix this let me know. I searchet Q&T and found nothing :cry:

[MrHappy]

Totally dull update.... got the head topology redone complete with mouth sock. Looking forward to getting stuck into the head sculpt tomorrow after work. I discovered the problem I was having on the previous post was down to using low resolution geometry, zbrush was just selevting straight through the polys to the subtool behind. So if anyone has the same problem, subdivide a few times and it will stop.

The garbled lines in this pic are the mouth sock's topo showing through, which will be fixed tomorrow but for now I'm out of time.

new head topo.jpg (http://javascript%3Cb%3E%3C/b%3E:zb_insimg%28%27123529%27,%27new%20head%20topo.jpg%27,1,0%29)

[MrHappy]

CharacterStrip.jpg (http://javascript%3Cb%3E%3C/b%3E:zb_insimg%28%27123674%27,%27CharacterStrip.jpg%27,1,0%29)

Quick update on the progress of the character. I'm fairly happy with the direction its going, however I just noticed some nasty projection artefacts under the armpits.... so I need to reproject the body detail again tomorrow. Still quite a bit of work to go on the face, but it is getting close to what I'm after.

[MrHappy]

CharacterStripmmurdsml2.JPG (http://javascript%3Cb%3E%3C/b%3E:zb_insimg%28%27124568%27,%27CharacterStripmmurdsml2.JPG%27,1,0%29)

I'm getting quite happy with the head now, and I have changed the proportions of the body slightly to make him a bit bigger. Time to move on for the moment to the clothing.

Quick edit: I just noticed how far back into the head the mouth muscle seemed to be going. Here is another version of the head with it brought forward some, I think it looks better now.

CharacterStripheadsml.JPG (http://javascript%3Cb%3E%3C/b%3E:zb_insimg%28%27124574%27,%27CharacterStripheadsml.JPG%27,1,0%29)

[Audiodoc]

Hey how did you make the dreads? I'm trying to do a similar thing on a project of mine and can't figure out how to make them.

[MrHappy]

dredtut01.jpg (http://javascript%3Cb%3E%3C/b%3E:zb_insimg%28%27124622%27,%27dredtut01.jpg%27,1,0%29)

dredtut02.jpg (http://javascript%3Cb%3E%3C/b%3E:zb_insimg%28%27124623%27,%27dredtut02.jpg%27,1,0%29)

No problems Audiodoc. Here is a wee tut for you.

1: Create a Zsphere and enter edit mode (T key on keyboard)
2: Put on X Symmetry (X key on keyboard) and add another Zsphere to the chain. To do this click and drag on the Zsphere with draw mode and ZAdd both switched on.
3: Shift-click on this new Zsphere to create another at the same size coming out of the new Zsphere.
4: Switch to move mode (W key on keyboard) and move the Zspheres you have created further away from the main Zsphere.
5: Alt-Click the link between the main Zsphere and the first new one you made to sever it (must be in draw mode).
6 - 8: Add new Zspheres to the chain by clicking on it in draw mode, and move them to shape the dreads.
9: Press "Make Adaptive Skin" in the Tool Menu to make your new dreads.

To get rid of the skull cap type bit of unwanted geometry, hide the polys that you do not want and press "DelHidden" in the Geometry Menu.

Hope this is of use :D

[SolidSnakexxx]

Looking good and nice update there MrHappy...Love the way you created the hair piece.. :tu:

[luis2008]

your sculpt really creeps me out...in a good way...if thats possible :P great sculpt. i love the forms youve created

[MrHappy]

clothes rough.jpg (javascript:zb_insimg('125918','clothes%20rough.jpg',1,0))

Rough work on clothing, still a long way to go.

[SolidSnakexxx]

Nice update there MrHappy. I like his shirt and pants. and yeah he's looking creepy :)

[MrHappy]

outfit wip01.jpg (http://javascript%3Cb%3E%3C/b%3E:zb_insimg%28%27126326%27,%27outfit%20wip01.jpg%27,1,0%29)

outfit wip02.jpg (http://javascript%3Cb%3E%3C/b%3E:zb_insimg%28%27126327%27,%27outfit%20wip02.jpg%27,1,0%29)

Thanks for the feedback guys, if its looking creepy its got to be a good thing given the nature of the character. I've ditched the shirt, and have started reworking the shorts...

The time setting has finally been decided upon, it was going to have been modern day but I scrapped it for something a bit more fun. I am now making Mr Murder as he would have looked around about the 1600s, in the golden age of piracy. Plenty of work still to go, but its definitely starting to come together.

I am still debating whether to make him an albino or not (as it had been the original idea). But that can wait till the texturing phase.

The expression on his face at the moment is just a test, I will decide upon the exact expression once I have decided upon the pose. The materials currently on the model were created by Sathe and kindly donated to the community (I just wanted to test them out to see how they looked). You can find them here (http://zbrushcentral.com/zbc/showthread.php?t=67553). Cheers again to Sathe, the materials rock hard :D .

[TheNorm]

aw man i'm digging this

[SolidSnakexxx]

Cool update...love the Python around his neck :cool: Making him looking more creepy!

[MrHappy]

Thanks a lot for the comments ;) . Can't believe the deadline is so close... and in a particularly busy week lol. No matter, I am determined to finish so I'll sleep when I'm dead.

pboots01.jpg (http://javascript%3Cb%3E%3C/b%3E:zb_insimg%28%27126869%27,%27pboots01.jpg%27,1,0%29)

pboots02.jpg (http://javascript%3Cb%3E%3C/b%3E:zb_insimg%28%27126870%27,%27pboots02.jpg%27,1,0%29)

Pirate boots, made from real pirates :D .

[SolidSnakexxx]

Nice boot there MrHappy. :cool: I know....I can't believe the deadline's so near. Now we have to work extra hard for the time left... Good luck to you.

[MrHappy]

Thank you SolidSnake, I am sure you will be able to finish on time ;) . Good luck to you too.

Here is an update with the painted boot. Material is from Sathes collection (I will be tweaking the mat a bit if I get time).

pboots03.jpg (http://javascript%3Cb%3E%3C/b%3E:zb_insimg%28%27127094%27,%27pboots03.jpg%27,1,0%29)

[SolidSnakexxx]

Nice color to the boot there.....especially the blue tint...I seee.. So it's indeed from a human skin, eh? That'd be real creepy. :)

[MrHappy]

As I said, made from real pirates :D

[MrHappy]

Fairly big update...

I still need to do the teeth and gums, the snakes, make a weapon and make a base before I get to the posing etc. Let me know what you think :)

MM Front HR.jpg (http://javascript%3Cb%3E%3C/b%3E:zb_insimg%28%27127554%27,%27MM%20Front%20HR.jpg%27,1,0%29)

MM Back HR.JPG (http://javascript%3Cb%3E%3C/b%3E:zb_insimg%28%27127555%27,%27MM%20Back%20HR.JPG%27,1,0%29)

MM Right HR.JPG (http://javascript%3Cb%3E%3C/b%3E:zb_insimg%28%27127556%27,%27MM%20Right%20HR.JPG%27,1,0%29)

MM Left HR.JPG (http://javascript%3Cb%3E%3C/b%3E:zb_insimg%28%27127557%27,%27MM%20Left%20HR.JPG%27,1,0%29)

MM Top HR.JPG (http://javascript%3Cb%3E%3C/b%3E:zb_insimg%28%27127558%27,%27MM%20Top%20HR.JPG%27,1,0%29)

MM Bottom HR.JPG (http://javascript%3Cb%3E%3C/b%3E:zb_insimg%28%27127559%27,%27MM%20Bottom%20HR.JPG%27,1,0%29)

MM Cust01 HR.JPG (http://javascript%3Cb%3E%3C/b%3E:zb_insimg%28%27127560%27,%27MM%20Cust01%20HR.JPG%27,1,0%29)

MM Cust02 HR.JPG (http://javascript%3Cb%3E%3C/b%3E:zb_insimg%28%27127561%27,%27MM%20Cust02%20HR.JPG%27,1,0%29)

Sorry for the big images ;)

[MrHappy]

Looks like I might have to bail on the contest. Every time I use Transpose Master it destroys most of my subtools, by inverting thier normals and / or deleting subdivision levels. This breaks the gloves, belt and belt rings on the model. Also, whilst zbrush says it is recording the transpose process, it isn't. I can get it to work at other points but I do not know what is breaking it here.

I have been unsuccessful in finding a workaround for these problems, so any helpful advice anyone might have will be greatly appreciated. I will try again in the morning to see if it can be fixed. If it cannot, I will be finishing the model over the next few weeks, but it is unlikely I will finish on time for this contest. Best of luck everyone.

[- FoOD -]

looking pretty cool :tu:like the face ..and its a bit crazy :lol:

look really freaked as a white ............hands look a little small,....

would be good to see it finished ...hope you give it a shot

[SolidSnakexxx]

Hi there...I think it's looking good so far..don't give up just yet.... I think the explosion thing could be from the topology itself? Have you try to retopologise the entire mesh?

[MrHappy]

Fallen at the last hurdle :lol:

Kill the thread Aurick, theres no way I can finish in time. Best of luck everybody! Btw, I will be posting the new and improved version of Mr Murder in the main forum at some point over the next couple of weeks. I had a lot of fun on this one, so I will not give up on it now.