Action Hero - Mantis Man

[pixolClay]

Hey SolidSnakexxx, great entry. The design is very powerful and really stands out. Might wanna look Masked Rider and that series for reference. Really good stuff man, cant wait to see it progress.

[SolidSnakexxx]

Lucky_1: Thank you. When I was in search for my inspiration, I was in my backyard and saw this small Mantis having only 1 Raptorial leg devouring a small garden spider (The other leg probably lost or eaten by other insect?) I spent a good half an hour looking at it and it was really cool looking. The face structure, the way its helping tiny legs grab its pray and eating, Especially the thorny Big Arm. So I went on and try to create a back story for a hero with the mix of this insect.


MGebhart: Thank you. I'll try to finalize his face first. I think this can be done tonight after work

pixolClay: I did check out the Mask Rider stuff, They look very cool but so very clean and in uniform like body suite. I want to make this Mantis Man a bit grotesque and have one large Raptorial arm (Like the one I saw in my backyard), it looks off balance but still very menacing.

[Y/Haüss]

Hey SolidSnakexxx... I've just started to check out the entries... and you're one of my favorities. Nice idea! Fantastic Sketch!
Congratulations!

[SolidSnakexxx]

Y/Haüss: Thank you so much for being one of your fav heroes here.

Frankly I'm now obsessed with Mantis Didn't know there are so many different types of Mantis in the world until I seriously started this project. I'm still at a very early stage. As much as I'd love to jump in and start sculpting, I'm in need to get the basic design lock down. So today I concentrate mainly on teh front view of the head, only the head. In reality the Mantis eyes are much larger but I tried out that large and it just look plain ridiculous so I reduced the size a bit but maintain much of the same Mantis facial structure. The rest just fall into places.

The parts that I kind of like on this hero character's head are its Compound eyes and, the 3 jewel like buttons atop its forehead.



As you know the design's not set in stone yet. Should you guys have any suggestions to make him better, please let me know. Again, thank you for looking.

[abe_Tamazir]

Really like this one!remind me of Guyver!
very nice shading and drawing...looking forward to see the zsculpt!
A

[gang]

this face remind me of buzz charater from heman
anyways nice face

[tuh3008]

Cool..!!!

[pixolClay]

Very nice design SolidSnakexxx, it would be very cool if the final was a mixture of hard surface and organic...would like to see how turns out. Cheers!

[KrakenCMT]

Nice head design. Insect like, but also a hint of tech in the design.

[Sliska]

awesome.. lots of thought going into this before the sculpt. No doubt the final result will be great.

My one comment I have about the head is to maybe watch for the stiff neck syndrom alot of super heros get with the costumes. Batman for example.

A mantis is known for having a head that is very articulate... right now those panels on the side of the head make it seem somewhat restricted to me. Hope this helps.

awesome work so far.

cheers!

[Ladysoul]

Hello,
Nice sketches and nice story background. Looking forward to see your zbrush work !
About the head sketch, and i know that it 's a WIP, you should try to keep an organic feel, and maybe his exoskeleton skin could be translucent for some part, seeing the blood vessel etc.

[Seavannah]

I like your backstory. He's good and revengeful at the same time, never know what this character might do especially once he finds the bad guys love that. I don't like most bugs but the mantis I have always found inteseting. they seem to have a intelligence most bugs don't. When you look at them they seem to be looking back at you out gauging your intentions and wondering what you are. they seem to be smart little bugs, your bad guys are in trouble lol. they are also very cool little boxers/fighters when they feel threatened or just playing or showing off. I liked your first pic alot. the second pic, even though I do think they are cute bugs, I would make him a bit more stronger looking. keep up the good work and happy zbrushing.

[gregoconn]

This project looks really promising. It looks like you've put a lot of thought into the character and the design. I can't wait to see WiP on this one and will stay tuned.

I like that you havn't gone for a greyish look.

[SolidSnakexxx]

abe_Tamazir:
Thank you Guyver...huh..that's interesting...I'll look into that.

gang,tuh3008:
Thank you

pixolClay:
I was planning him to be quite organic but with a touch of hard surface in certain area might be an interesting mix. Thank you for the suggestion

KrakenCMT:
Still thinking on the tech stuff, will see how it turns out.

Sliska:
Thank you for your kind encouragement. Yes, the neck is one of my huge concern as well. I might loose the neck plates all together to make him more "neck" flexible I'll try to work out as soon as possible as I would love to jump into ZBrush.

Ladysoul: Great suggestion on the organic thing. Yes, I'm planning for him to be very much organic in the end as he's after all a mutated human/mantis. Will need to adjust the sketch to reflect that as well.

Seavannah:
Don't you just love vengeful heroes...? It gives them the drive to eradicate baddies... BTW, starting this project, I began to amaze praying mantis as well. They do seem pretty smart...

gregoconn:
The color palette for the character is not set yet. I'm thinking among greenish/reddish/brownish as the mantis do come in those colors.

[SolidSnakexxx]

Last night I finally able to squeeze some time to work in ZBrush. In general, I do create my base mesh in ZBrush using ZSphere as it's the easiest way to form the basic shape I need. This time however, I leave out the head as I'm thinking about sculpting it as a separate subtool. (Also think out loud that many of the elements such as some spikes and stuff would also be separately modeled)

Here's what I have so far. I have yet to tweak the mesh as I'm not done with ZSphere just yet. Right now what I'm lookign for is just some rough proportion.