Hey guys, so i don’t post in a very long time mostly cause i decided i needed to get better before posting again and also because i been busy with work. So i started doing this Character for the Escape Challenge at the polycount forums and after a brainstorm with the rest of my team mates and many themes later we arrived at a post alien invasion theme but unfortunately due to studio work we were not able to finish the challenge. So i decided i would continue and Finnish the characters i set out to do and i would like to share what i have done (keep in mind its still a work in progress)
i knew i had to create concepts as fast as i could since the timeline was tight and we had studio work to do, so i knew the best way to get ideas down for me was to go into zbrush and just start doodling with dynamesh allowing to change the concept direction at any time.
here i give an example how the ideas for the characters progressing and even changing into different ideas.
After we decided to cut the big monster from the project due to time constrains i focused on the Alien Soldier which i started developing further going into the armor which was a big challenge to due entirely on Zbrush ( i ended up using Trim Dynamic and Adaptative as well as Hpolish for almost the entire hard surfacing as i found them to be the most versatile tools for quick hard surface concepting)
Then i had to retopo the hard surface and body, The hard surface parts were extremely fun to do but now that i had to retopo it i also took my time to polish them with more precision in Maya where i had finer control over vertices and could make the armor more functional.
After finishing all the modeling i started thinking of how to use texturing to differentiate this Alien from others, and i decided that i would polypaint the Body since Zbrush starts has become my main texturing tool when i am working on organic models. i knew i wanted great detail but i also knew that my skills with polypaint were not at the level i wanted to so i decided the best way to approach it was to decide beforehand exactly how i wanted the texture to be and so i settled on the Horned Lizard as the the look for the texturing and started sculpting on top of the arms to get the scales and skin detail to later bake and also to help me getting polypaint details that would be really hard to get otherwise. Masking by cavity ended up being my go to trick to get that extra detail and make the texture pop (one of the best tricks i found for polypainting is to always use the spray in combination with the alpha with several dots that allows for a more realistic look to the texture in the end)
Finally i brought the model to marmoset and started messing around with materials and also started texturing the armor in Photoshop.
this is where i am at the moment but i plan on improving the textures and lighting further i am also in the process of animating it.
Hope you guys enjoyed it and sorry for the long read but i thought some people might find some of this usefull. and you guys are more than welcome to give me feedback and critics!
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