WIP - Tribute to Blizzard

[Captain Cartesian]

Great work! My only critique is that the large base makes the character seem tiny. If your going for a character that feels large and intimidating, you might consider scaling the base down.

Keep up the excellent work!

[hosch]

Captain Cartesian - that is a very valid critique, but I am not planning to use the base for most of my presentation - just for a composition test I am planning to make it look like it is sitting beside my actual character from when I played WoW. It is on my bookshelf in my studio currently and I plan to place a glass globe over this guy and make him look like the two are sitting beside one another. Sort of a test of my composition and lighting skills - which I am sure need to grow as well.

[hosch]

Ok, updated the previous images to reflect the new shell armor plate, additional edits to the ears, neck and chin.

Think I am just about ready to move to VRay, but will probably sleep on it and see what I think Friday morning.

C/C welcome as always.

[hosch]

caffeineandpixels - your suggestion was great.

Below is my progress so far in the VRay renderer.

NOTES:
1. I have worked primarily on the lighting and skin shader - everything else is just roughly set up and still needs to be tweaked
2. Fur, scrub vegetation, background sky will be added later
3. Rexxar is half orc and half ogre so I am going for a slightly greenish caucasian coloration of the skin

Still learning these shaders and I am definitely open to suggestions, critiques or comments, but unless it is a huge problem I am not planning to sculpt on this character any further at this time - really looking for thoughts on lighting and shader issues, but all critiques will be catalogued for future projects of course.

[hosch]

Well, I am going to have to call it temporarily quits on this project due to other commitments, but I will come back to it eventually.

Here is where I ended up and I am looking forward to finishing it out with further shader tweaking, nail down final camera angles, fur, vegetation, work on pushing contrasts further and maybe even reworking some of my maps now that I am learning the workflow better, etc.

[0bz]

Strong work man, and nice background .

The level you got it to in terms of lighting and shading, in the time allotted, is impressive. The character was already badass in Zbrush, it looks even better now. Had you more time to "look dev it" I'm sure it would have reached an even more insane level.

If I were to change one thing it would be the leather altogether ought to be darker, especially the boots. More contrast on the costume... Had I one thing to change. That aside, it looks sick!

[Morkiskrake]

Great work ^^

[hosch]

Obz - the background is awesome - a friend let me have a photo from his private stock that he took while abroad. Simply love the photo and I simply placed it in a standard shader with a desaturated version as the bump map at 100% to give it a slight stylized 3d look to the clouds, oh and made it about 50% self illuminated.

I agree about the contrast now that I have slept on it and will likely re-texture multiple areas of this guy now that I am understanding how shaders and maps interact and how I can use layering to my benefit. That is ... when I can get back on him.

Thanks for the comments as well - love your Skeletor.

Morkiskrake - thanks - I know you are new to digital sculpting and I encourage you to keep working on the bony parts of your model by going down in division level and really making the forms work there before getting into the details too much - keep plugging away.

[hosch]

Across the board, the most prevalent critique has been a call for more contrast so when I get a chance to get back on this project I will work on that at an object based level rather than just a photoshop level.

[taalart]

Hey Hosch, looking good. The skin especially, is that mr skin on max or are you using maya?

[hosch]

Sorry for the delay, taalart.

I have not worked on this for almost a year due to professional commitments. I hope to get back to it someday, but if I remember correct I was using Max / VRay for my set up.

I will likely be using Maya when I get back into it though since that is the direction I have been moving with my professional work.