Cosmic Sugar concepts of girly hell
Hey guys! I'm new here, even though I made this account back during the first dota 2 polycount contest (that didn't go well for me ahh). But I'm here to try this cosmetics thing again!
Vestments of the Demon Rose
Here is a rough, rouggghhhh concept of a Mirana set I'm thinking of - still need to do the bow + quiver + mount! I wanted to incorporate a little bit of red into Mirana's palette, which somehow escalated into the concept of Mirana becoming corrupted because she sought to tame a demon cat.
Gameplay wise, I was thinking that she would start off as the first version, and as the match progressed and Mirana got more kills, her armour would start turning red like the second version. Alternatively you could just unlock the second version by achieving a certain amount of kills after buying the set etc. but I don't know if this fits in with her lore and bla bla
Long ass lore I wrote to justify this shit
Peaceful. It was a quiet night - only the echo of cicadas chirping and rippling in the Goddess's reserve could be heard. Everything was asleep - except for a particular Princess of the Moon. Mirana ran a silver comb through her long hair and eyed the moon as she always did in this hour. The last quarter moon - was it always so quiet during this phase? This thought crossed her mind for only a second, as her gaze fell to the sacred lotus she swore to protect. Sparkles, like the stars - she sighed. Despite being a fierce warrior, sometimes she longed for finer things - even a flower in her hair would suffice. Would Selemene punish me for such vanity?
Quiet. Mirana glimpsed a flash of red from the corner of her eye. She instinctively reached for her bow and drew back an arrow. She scanned the area with sharp eyes. Nothing? She squinted, and relaxed her stance. A ruby red petal fell from her hair. Damn you! She felt foolish for a second, until she noticed an unfamiliar clearing in the distance. What is this? In the clearing, she spied hundreds of roses in the same hue as the petal she found, and an enormous feline with spiraled horns. She believed this creature akin to a demon, and was weary at first, but she noticed its fondness for the roses as she was, and took a liking to the beast. She carefully plucked some of the roses and adorned her hair and armour and approached the beast carefully. Here, kitty-kitty-kitty.... She found it shy, but it warmed to her quickly.
Silence. After a lifetime of silver, red felt more beautiful. As they rode through the preserve, Mirana failed to notice the last quarter moon turn as red as her desires.
Sorry if my writing is totally average ahh.
I'm wondering if I'm pushing her lore too much? Not too sure if demon Mirana is too out there, but the first one is okay?
Also I'm a 2D artist, so I'm willing to collab with you awesome 3D people out there! I can do concepts, texuring and loading screens
Anyways, more Mirana sets to come
Vestments of the Demon Rose
Here is a rough, rouggghhhh concept of a Mirana set I'm thinking of - still need to do the bow + quiver + mount! I wanted to incorporate a little bit of red into Mirana's palette, which somehow escalated into the concept of Mirana becoming corrupted because she sought to tame a demon cat.
Gameplay wise, I was thinking that she would start off as the first version, and as the match progressed and Mirana got more kills, her armour would start turning red like the second version. Alternatively you could just unlock the second version by achieving a certain amount of kills after buying the set etc. but I don't know if this fits in with her lore and bla bla
Long ass lore I wrote to justify this shit
Peaceful. It was a quiet night - only the echo of cicadas chirping and rippling in the Goddess's reserve could be heard. Everything was asleep - except for a particular Princess of the Moon. Mirana ran a silver comb through her long hair and eyed the moon as she always did in this hour. The last quarter moon - was it always so quiet during this phase? This thought crossed her mind for only a second, as her gaze fell to the sacred lotus she swore to protect. Sparkles, like the stars - she sighed. Despite being a fierce warrior, sometimes she longed for finer things - even a flower in her hair would suffice. Would Selemene punish me for such vanity?
Quiet. Mirana glimpsed a flash of red from the corner of her eye. She instinctively reached for her bow and drew back an arrow. She scanned the area with sharp eyes. Nothing? She squinted, and relaxed her stance. A ruby red petal fell from her hair. Damn you! She felt foolish for a second, until she noticed an unfamiliar clearing in the distance. What is this? In the clearing, she spied hundreds of roses in the same hue as the petal she found, and an enormous feline with spiraled horns. She believed this creature akin to a demon, and was weary at first, but she noticed its fondness for the roses as she was, and took a liking to the beast. She carefully plucked some of the roses and adorned her hair and armour and approached the beast carefully. Here, kitty-kitty-kitty.... She found it shy, but it warmed to her quickly.
Silence. After a lifetime of silver, red felt more beautiful. As they rode through the preserve, Mirana failed to notice the last quarter moon turn as red as her desires.
Sorry if my writing is totally average ahh.
I'm wondering if I'm pushing her lore too much? Not too sure if demon Mirana is too out there, but the first one is okay?
Also I'm a 2D artist, so I'm willing to collab with you awesome 3D people out there! I can do concepts, texuring and loading screens
Anyways, more Mirana sets to come
Replies
1. If you are going to do concepts, i recommend you use the hero concept sheets here: http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?t=124501
2. The idea that you had of how the set will progress as mirana gets more kills in the game. DotaCinema had the same idea for a legion commander set a whilte ago, but valve told them it won't be possible.
OHHH of course, I will do my concepts on those bases from now on, although I did find Mirana's base model a little distracting because of her awkward legs lol but yeah it would be better
Oh wow that would be awesome for LC especially, too bad it's not possible! :< damn the limitations gah.
nuff said
Here are a few polycount threads with good examples of concept sheets (in terms of the artists' style and how they are presented):
Cottonwings, Pior, SlimeFace, BladeofEvilsBane, Sunshield (ok im biased on this one)
And when you're concepting, always refer to the technical requirements of that hero, as some heroes/slots have a smaller budget than others and won't be able to have as many shapes or as much detail as you may like.
I like the theme for your mirana set (we are fond of flowers at sunshield), both the hairstyles are really cute!! It would be nice to expand on a more interesting design for her skirt slot, as that's mostly what would be seen in-game as opposed to the front of the belt
hope that helps! happy hatting!!
Eek, Artypi you showoff ;D but thank you for sharing! Everyone around here has beautiful work, and I aspire to do the same!
Thanks for your advice Artypi! The skirt really needs work, I had trouble coming up with an idea but I'll work on it.
I think I found that the roses looked a bit too subtle? And might just look like red armour from afar so I did a version with increased size, which I like a lot more. What do you guys think so far?
Thanks man! I've always loved red + blue combos.
Err I'm gonna make the mount last, after the weapon + bracers + quiver. Not too good at designing animals, but I'm still gonna give it a shot
Bow and quiver done! Which one is your favourite?
Next up - bracers, alternate hairstyles (?!) and of course the mount!
I like the first bow and the second quiver
nice concept work
Mount design!!! I'm not the best at drawing / designing animals so it was quite difficult to come up with this. Pretty much wanted a fluffy kitty with roses in its fluff hahaa.
2 influence proportions and stance to make it express what you want
3 your detailings probably should be larger, the red flowers would read like red dots in game..
The bow idea is interesting but flowers need to be larger to be visible in game.. try sketching over a print screen of mirana with her bow.. the same with the cat, sketch over an existing mount.. that will help with proportions
Yes I should have done that Dx I mostly research fantasy animals, do you think it's anatomy is not very cat-like? I wanted to make the legs thick, but does it not look right?
Sorry but I don't understand what you mean by "influence proportions and stance to make it express what you want" Could you please elaborate?
Yes I definitely agree with making the roses bigger! I forgot to think about in-game application. Wow I got a lot of things to do for my next iteration. Tbh I did sketch over the in-game bow / mount, but I didn't want it to look similar, that I just traced over them and then added my own theme? (does that make sense I'm not sure if that's worded correctly). Although now that I look again I can see that I pushed the their silhouettes in a bad (boring?) direction. //rambling over
Anyways thank you for the advice! I love critique - I really want to push my designs!!!
1 face is deformed, muscle formations and bones give it shape, so knowing how they look will help you make a very cute cat.. also see eye size, eyebrows.. lips.. also as concept artist you should stylise the hairs a bit maybe show how they will be stylised to be visible in game
2 stance & proportion, your cat's belly is very thin compared to the legs and the neck and the face.. notice the proportion.. you can exagerate of course but think why you are exagerating and which areas should be exagerated
larger paws => strenght
smaller belly => more agile
larger butt => fat (but cuter)
large eyes => cute face
etc.
3 the main and hair details, hair flows in a distinctive way, for a lion (seems that your cat is based on lions..), check out how the hair flows around the ear
And under the head, he has like beard + neck hair
then expression (mirana mount is not visible in portrait view but it can be seen when zooming in)
you have big eyes.. so probably you want to make it cute.. ? again.. proportions.. eyes with mouth size, ears, hair, etc.
So.. know what you want.. think of why.. and select the characteristics that will result in whatever your concept is (cute, aggressive, strong, confident, etc), then match them toghether in sketches.. (1 is not enough.. 10 maybe..)
I'm determined to make the next version better!
because sagan has long neck
Gonna refine the armour / weapon a bit more before tacking the mount ahh.
Which one is your favourite?
(kudos to Nobiru who helped me with #2!)
IMHO the bows will look better if you stretch it vertically a bit, like the 2nd bow in your old concept. That bow looks slim vertically, and I think that makes the bow looks more refined and elegant. The 4 bows in your new concept look a bit 'fat', especially the 3rd one, if you know what I mean, but maybe that's just me
I'm doing a flower-themed set too
haha guess I was having a fat day with them bows. Can't wait to see your set man, I love flower themes ee! (tbh I have another flower-themed idea for Mirana - based on that sacred lotus she's protecting, but who knows. shhhh~~)
Might do a hybrid of 2 + 4 next for the bows, but here's my current progress.
Changed the skirt, it was very boring and I didn't like it. Added two bracer options and two extra hair styles *o* (sorry but I think Mirana looks awesome with a nose piercing aaaahahaha.)
Has anyone else noticed that Mirana's textures are mirrored strangely..? Like..her eyes go in different directions lol.
As I post this I think of ways I could make that skirt better...it never ends.......
The first alternate hair style looks nice
Red isn't used much on Mirana, and the combination of red and blue is interesting. I can't wait to see how this set will turn out.
I think the hair should be ok, some of the loose strands may need to be group up a bit more in the modeling phase, but I could see the first hair being easier to hit the limit, and you would just need to do some good alpha work for the hair strands. and +1 for hints of red on Mirana. When I made my desolator bows, the red got over double the votes to the blue one, so people seem to be ok as long as it works, that I think it will work well here
Her default armour covers her boobs up a bit
Dota has a good range of believable girls don't you think? What's realism without your flat chested girls like vengey and phantom assassin, the big racks of Mirana and CM and of course, the modest, no cleavages of LC, enchantress, DP, Luna, Medusa. Believability is variety! Not all covered and modest. Not all bare and revealing.
But I do agree with Vovosunt (I always read your name as volvosmut I'm sorry), she's a former princess. Despite choosing to be a warrior, I think she would still retain some of her princessly traits like love for fine jewelry, sparkly shit and looking pretty.
Anyways moving on.
Hmm yes I think it would be better to make the skirt longer! I don't think adding more petals would be good since I don't have petals by themselves in the rest of the design
Might save that second hairstyle for another hero hehe.
Not too sure about polycounts and all of that, I imagined that all the strands would be simplified during the modelling stage?
Anyways thanks for your feedback guys! I always loved the idea of adding red to Mirana, and I'm glad other people like this idea as well!
"games should be as believable as possible.."
No, they shouldn't.
If this was the case, more than half of the games on this planet wouldn't exist.
@cosmicsugar Keep up the good work! I always like it when I see people putting there own style into hero concepts!
Lore:
"Born to a royal family, a blood princess next in line for the Solar Throne, Mirana willingly surrendered any claim to mundane land or titles when she dedicated herself completely to the service of Selemene, Goddess of the Moon. Known ever since as Princess of the Moon, Mirana prowls the sacred Nightsilver Woods searching for any who would dare poach the sacred luminous lotus from the silvery pools of the Goddess's preserve. Riding on her enormous feline familiar, she is poised, proud and fearless, attuned to the phases of the moon and the wheeling of the greater constellations. Her bow, tipped with sharp shards of lunar ore, draws on the moon's power to charge its arrows of light."
So her lore is like "priestess" (maybe ritualistic stuff, see design elements that say "priest/priestess"), "moon" clearly moon symbols can be used.. " she dedicated herself completely to the service of Selemene" so like a religious fanatic.. also if she were a realistic archer.. she would need a hat/hood or something.. for the sun to not get in her eyes.. hair behind her back to not get in her face.. some light armor (from animal skin for example) because if tere was a cavalery charge archers needed to be able to move away fast..
That would be a believable mirana in my oppinion.. look how archers were dressing in the midle ages.. To be honest I don't really get the connection between "religious fanatic archer/priestess that praises the moon godess" and red roses...
LoL
P.S
Love the mount idea.
Really like Hair №2.
In game, Mirana is a squishy as fuck, and I guess it's her exposed cleavage that makes her die easily yeah? :P
Considering that she was a former 'princess' and that she's guarding a 'lotus', I just wanted to play with these themes a bit - I imagined, since she grew up as a princess, that she would still carry some princess traits at the back of her mind. Despite being an warrior, she is protecting a sacred flower, so that and her former royalty I imagined she would appreciate other flowers.
I imagined her as an excellent animal tamer, but I wanted to play with the idea of her taming a beast who corrupted her, little by little.
I did write a story at the beginning of the thread if you're interested in reading more. I did try and justify it - it's an odd theme - but I found parallels in her lore + in-game responses that I thought could make it work ^^
ps thanks Variant! Thinking of going with hair #1 though xD
Hopefully I can make that mount look even better in the coming weeks ^^
@cosmicsugar: Loving the design so far! Prefer bracer 1, the extra glove aspect might look a little odd. And I prefer the hair on the left, although maybe use the nose stud instead of the ring? She's a princess, not a punk! XD
For Miranas hairdo, I personally prefer the one you did for her front view. The one using a flower rose as her ribbon on top of her head, with only one ponytail since it fits her best in my opinion, it feels so elegant.
The extra glove feels a bit weird since she is already wearing another glove bottom. Either keeping the glove short like a gauntlet or just keeping the bracer would be a lot better.
Weapons 2nd one fits Mirana best. 1st option feels a bit odd because the roses are too big in my opinion.
@KungFuPanda
Errr video games are not meant to be very believable since the most important aspect of a video game is the gameplay, story comes later. Dota 2 is more of a competitive online game and lore being the extra features to it. Also in fantasy, most things work
Also, about your view of archers you are mainly looking at the stereotypical archers. There are many types of archer characters.
The famous ones being the one that uses bow and arrows to their full extend, using bow as their close combat weapons for parrying incoming attacks or just hit their enemies hard with it. Example; Legolas (Lord of the Rings), Green Arrow (DC), Hawkeye (Marvel)
Second famous types are the ones possessing more than just bow and arrows. These characters usually are very experienced in many forms of combat, and use their weapons depending on situations. Usually carries bow and arrows, swords or daggers and some utilities like smoke bombs or grapples. Example; Breton rogue (Elder Scrolls Online trailer), Talion (Shadow of Mordor, though his archery skills belongs to the wraith possessing him), Connor (Assassins Creed)
The least famous groups are the ones that are not trained as fighters or plays a more important role in other professions. These characters possess talents in archery but are not trained in combat. These characters usually still retain their usual attires such as robes or cotton clothes. Because of that, they are usually seen riding a mount or having a pet.
Example; Mirana (Dota 2), Tyrande (Warcraft), Merida (Brave)
I think you can definitely tone down the amount of roses to avoid making them just look like busy red soup from afar just due to how detailed/complicated each small rose is- the shapes get lost all being so close to each other and the exact same. At the same time you can take these flower themes and really push them into the armor and get some really nice flower-like silhouettes for the stuff as a whole
edit: theres a load of nice references for how you can integrate flowers to the cat (regarding size and sparseness, and perhaps integration with a few twigs and vines twisting into the fur)-
just having a big focus point like this i think can push your design hugely, rather than using lots of little specks of detail