Work Week: Elderbeasts 07
September 19, 2011
by greg
Filed under Artwork, Greg Posts
Monday Night: Loose Pencils and Inks
I’ve always wanted to do this, but the time just never was there. So here goes…
….we get a lot of questions regarding process of developing characters for games. It’s a very subjective process and every artist handles it differently based on their experiences and the tools available to them. I’m going to attempt to bring a loose design all the way through to a final game ready model! Tomorrow night I will update this post with the current loose drawing/inks all nicely painted up ready for a proper 3D interpretation…but I need your help. I’m only gonna do one of these cronies, so I need some feedback on the Elderbeast you would like brought to the modelling stage!
The theme for this set of beasts was old school tough guys/ drapery/ craggy ugly old man toes! Pretty straight forward thought process.
The Big Plan
Tuesday Night: Final 2D rendering
****Alrighty….here’s the colors on these guys. I’m curious if it will sway any of you folks in different directions!
Wednesday night: ZBrush high-rez sculpt
****So I did a pass on the third concept “C” in Zbrush which I now call “Twinkle Toes” (That’s what my dad called me when I was a little kid….ugh). I had only few hours tonight to do the high-rez sculpt, so I rushed the base model in Maya a little which ended up giving me some trouble. My bad. But I think its a decent rendition anyway. I can make the tweaks I need in the low-rez while I bake the maps. Tomorrow night will just be casting and junk. I have life drawing tomorrow night, so I can’t get too much done. See you then!
Thursday night: Casting onto low-rez model in Maya
****Alrighty then, now we’re getting some where. I got the low-rez model made, UV’d, cast and a super basic color map set up. Displaying here are a color map, a normal map and an ambient-occlusion map. Tomorrow night I’ll do the final color map, the spec map, along with a few other maps to get the surface materials to sing. I have a super rough skeleton set up so I can hopefully pose him in a more pleasing personality pose for the final piece. We’ll see, it’s always a gamble with this junk. Stat tuned, my work week is almost over!
Friday night: Final texture maps and hopefully a final render of the model in all its glory!
****Well that does it! I painted up the final color map, spec map and rendered this bad boy out in Mental Ray. I had meant to use a real-time renderer I found, but I had rendered my normal maps in the wrong axis so everything was inverted. This worked fine. On a side note, I am a terrible rigger, so the jowles didn’t translate as nicely as I would have wanted among other things, but this is the best I can do in a 3 hour block. Hope everyone enjoyed this, thanks for all the input!
*I’m well aware I’ve bitten off more than I can chew…but heck, you only die once!
Woah sweet! They all look like they have something difficult about the. I vote for A. Looking forward to seeing what comes of this, dude. – No pressure haha
Sat/Sun: let me rig & animate (simple walk cycle?) for ya.
Ooops – I vote style “C”
thinking C – good luck! love your stuff!
I like… A
My first choice is C, but I like B as well. I’m looking forward to seeing the process and good luck!
C please!
Grtz,
Niels
I vote for “C” as well.
Looking forward to see it sculpted in Zbrush
“C ” – FTW
I’m stoked to see it finished
I created a 3D animation based on an Elderbeast a little while ago – http://goo.gl/YEurp -
I think all the design options are great but I would have to say its a close call between A and C
- Gerard
I vote for A
I vote for b, for me it fits perfect with the character’s descriptions,
and I really like b, It’s pretty cool the clothe, it’s like a hootie, : ) very nice,
all of them are very cool but do B.
Cheers : )
Please work on “A”…love the “rhino” beast…some great opportunity for skin textures in 3D!!!!
I love B, he’s the one who looks the most badass and fits the most your description.
the rhino’s inspired A is the best! then B and finally C (just as the alphabet) ;p
I’d say C, then A, then B.
Nice and ambitious. Can’t wait to see how it goes.
I vote for C. All three are cool, but i would like to see C in 3d.
C
All of em are AWESOME!! But “awesome” starts with “A”!!!
I LOVE the first design and would really like to see it fully developed!
I would have to say C as everyone else here. Its just different and classy too. lol
Will you go through the steps you used to render the character in 2d? I really would like to see how you color these mofos, and not just through a vid. The vid doesn’t really tell me where or what layers you are coloring on or filters etc. Pretty Pleeeeeeeeeeeease!
WooHoo! C’s in the leads for the win! Who knows, maybe color on these cronies will be a game-changer?! Ha! We’ll see.
As far as detailing out the 2D rendering process on this post, I won’t have time. I’ve got about 3-4 hours each night to work on this thing, and most of that will be on trying to figure out what the heck I’m doing. I know a lot of you want to lean the painting stuff, but it’s really nothing special…just a lot of experimentation, basic light logic (you’ll notice 90% of our work has only one main light source!! HAHHAHAH) and cursing at ourselves for being so incapable. You know, standard stuff. Once we nail it down to a process that isn’t ‘shooting from the hip’, we’ll shout it from the rooftops!
But check out the vids here on the site and if you still want more, there’s 6 more included on a DVD with our current sketchbook.
See you tonight!
Thanks dude! I didn’t know you had more vids on the dvd. If not I would have done this a long time ago. Just made the purchase. BTW how do you guys not worry about COPYRIGHT and IP stuff with your comics? Do you process all your stuff through the government office?
C for sure.
I gotta go with “c” too. I’ve been checking your stuff out for a long time and “c” looks a little different than most of your stuff. I love how you guys constantly push yourselves!
I like C, a nice thick to thin rhythm.
I have to go with B. The forearm stripes are really selling it for me. He looks like a total bruiser. C is a close runner-up. Love the red-fists and atypical body style. Great work.
Nice work! All three look cool, but I’d love to see C fully rendered.
C again =)
Awesome colors as usual. This time it’s harder for me, I’d stil pick “C” but “B” is sneaking up fast
definitely A again
It’s almost a tossup for me between B and C. But I’m sticking with C
So hard to choose, but for me, ‘C’ edges out the other 2.
I don’t get it….I just don’t get it. Its just wonderful how you color your illustrations. For one, your characters are very comical, simple, and stylized in a form that reminds me of classic cartoons….but the color, dear lord, the color makes these things pop! They look so real, as if existing in real dimensional form. I bought the DVD/sketchbook and hope I can decipher your methodology. But if what you say is true, than each coloring situation is totally different from the last. I bow to you oh great one!
BTW C definitely C has my vote.
Simply marvelous as tony horton would say. So I guess you make a model in maya take it over to zbrush and fiddle with it? Tried zbrush in the pasr but I couldnt get an understanding. I thought you guys just did concept work. Never knew you worked on the models too.
Super Awesome “A” has my vote but all are great!
Looking good! My offer still stands if you need it rigged (I use Anzovin’s TSM2 if interested)
-Steve
@stevetalkowski on Twitter (hint, hint)
Is there anything I can eat to be like you????
Simplely… wow. I can’t wait to see the results.
Nope. You are definitely not human. How can you be? You make great illustrations and can make the models required for the actual games you have worked on in the past? Nope nope nope. This is beyond physics and the very laws of nature…too school for cool.
You need to make a tutorial…charge for it I dont care…you make it look easy.
Your work never ceases to amaze and inspire. Fantastic delivery. Really enjoyed watching your process this week.
This whole article is great! Thank you so much for taking the time to share it with your followers, your work is always super and makes me want to do great things myself! It would be great to be able to see the texture maps you made along with that final version!
New wallpaper. I get a lot of animators over here saying, “Sick designs, where did ya get those?”
smile and wave boys… just smile and waaave
Very rad to see you do this man! Love it! Would have liked to have seen a little more poly love on the hump of his back though. Really breaks the silhouette at certain angles. Show some texture sheets yo! Did you bake with a cage on this guy? There’s a couple of areas that look like they might have required one, or at least a couple passes at different casting settings. Regardless, I absolutely love it! Do some more!!!