So for my first post on this blog, I figure I should show my latest project because let's face it, everything I've done before now is total crap. For this model I decided to create a goblin with crazy fantasy armor. My main inspiration comes from this piece
I don't necessarily want to copy his style but more his form and combine it with my own style. To start, I went to my go-to program, Zbrush. Using just a dynameshed sphere I roughed out the shapes of the head.
I like starting with just the head because a face will really define my character. I have a big image containing various references and inspirations but for the most part I don't really have a concept image painted out, so getting to know my character is really important because it well effect how I approach the rest of the designs. Once I had the head sculpted out, I went ahead and did some detailing. This part is sort of a double edged sword, because I really like having the ultra detail to get a really good feel for what the model will look like so I can prepare the rest for the same level of detail, but it's detached from the body which will create some nastiness when I go to bake the details for the game rez model.
If I left the detail out I could move on to the body and dynamesh it together without having to worry about the loss of detail, but that makes me a little blind to how I should handle the body and I won't know if I have the head the way I want until way far into the development process. I think the best course of action is to combine the body and create a really nice re-topologized mesh and basically blend shape it to this high poly model. That way I can have a really nice low poly model with super clean topology for another project in the future. I've never actually done this before but I know a few that have so I'm pretty confident in that technique.
So here is the same head with all the wrinkles and stuff. I still have a few more things to add such as pores and warts and things like that, but that will wait til the very end when I know what part of the mody is going to show after I add the armor.
Next step was to get the body sorted out. I decided this character should have some sort of hunch or lump or giant back. His face came out looking really old and warped and I wanted to continue that through the rest of the design.
Zbrush has an amazing tool called Zspheres which lets me block out basic forms and armatures in a matter of minutes. The only real problem is that Zspheres are always sphere shaped so it's hard to get a good volume. Usually I have to stretch things like the hips and shoulders out a bit which makes it look odd.
Once that is done, I convert the spheres into a mesh and start shaping out the form. I decide to go crazy with his back and make it less of a hump and more of an overdeveloped Trapezius (back/shoulder area) muscle similar to the hunchback from 300.
(oh ephialtes, how I love your creepy-ass form)
I then started sculpting in the muscles and more detailed forms. It might seem strange to work on details that won't show since they will be covered by armor but I like having the muscles for 2 reasons. For one thing, clothing doesn't just fuse to our flesh, it is defined by our bodies. It's almost impossible for me to design armor to fit this character if I have no idea what his body underneath it looks like. Second reason is because I may use this model again in the future. I big thing for 3d artists to do is to kit-bash projects together. So many characters and models are just reused assets for other work. It saves time and money for studios and is really unnoticeable if the artist is good.
This brings me to my current progress. Right now I'm working on the chest area and making sure it looks exactly what I want it to look like. I really want to not make him too muscular because that's overly done and doesn't actually show artistic skill for a character artist (imo). However I do want to show that he's pretty bad ass and will friggin kill you if you cross his path.
His muscles are still a little bit too defined and brawny, I wanna give him a little bit more fat and tone down his pecs and delts and just overall soften the lines of his muscles. you can't really see his posture but he is leaning over a bit so I want to make sure his abs are always folded over each other. Once I have this all set I'll probably move onto the arms next, so stay tuned :)
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