The Cossack
polycounter lvl 14
Hey Folks, I just finished up the high poly for a character that I'm working on and I could do with a few sets of eyes on it just to get some feedback and maybe point out some dumb stuff that I might have missed 
He's loosely based on a Ukranian cossack, but it's not an exact historical representation so don't stress that aspect too much...
anyway pictures:
bigger shots here: Cossack High Res
and a close shot of the head, hair and droopy 'tashe will be dealt with via alpha in the textures.
Next up will be the low poly, I'm thinking about PS4 Xbone specs for the character just to have a play with some serious polycounts and texture res...yay!
thanks for looking
He's loosely based on a Ukranian cossack, but it's not an exact historical representation so don't stress that aspect too much...
anyway pictures:
bigger shots here: Cossack High Res
and a close shot of the head, hair and droopy 'tashe will be dealt with via alpha in the textures.
Next up will be the low poly, I'm thinking about PS4 Xbone specs for the character just to have a play with some serious polycounts and texture res...yay!
thanks for looking
Replies
I did a quick paintover of things you could try to get him a bit more natural looking (hope you dont mind). It might be completely the wrong direction though so take with a pinch of salt
The main things Ive done is widen the face, thicken the nostrils, lower/bring in the eyes and shrink his chin. You might want to look at the eye to brow relation aswell, clint eastwood might be a good reference for the overhang, generally it doesnt split like that in the middle, would be lower down. Otherwise stuff I like to do is emphasise forms and generally stay away from cuts, like the laughing lines for example, they usually only look cut in from 3/4s and not from front view where its quite smooth, and if they do cut then it fades out usually rather quickly due to where it meets mouth muscles.
Hes looking great though dude
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reply_of_the_Zaporozhian_Cossacks
Phil, thanks mister
/anty/ yup that ones in my ref folder for the project, its a little later in period than the guy that I'm going for, but its a fantastic painting none the less.
Pix, yeah, I have a Ukrainian friend that has been telling me all about the history of the Zaporozhian Cossacks...amazing stuff.
again thanks for looking
now get back to it !
Thanks for the kind words though....even though to type them must have cut you like razors
i'm back at it now I promise.
updated head shots... I think that I was too influenced by some shots I had of Willem Defoe, but not in a good way :d
again thanks for the paintover Tom, I think its pulled everything to a much better place.
thanks for looking
otherwise he looks awesome, might be an idea to push some Ukrainian/european features aswell, Klitschko brothers may be a good ref, I think they are Ukrainian.....cant remember,
http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_ma1xq9uOV31qbzyr6o1_500.jpg
http://www.saddoboxing.com/boxing_images2/wladimir.jpg
things like the downturned nose and outer eyelids, heavy brow, distinct lip shape and more shapely mouth. All depends on where you want to go though
great job though dude
Tom, thanks tons again mister, I don't mind you being picky at all....you cant ask for crit and then not accept it can you
I have changed up the nostrils and I think sorted the chin, its helping the jawline look a lot stronger I think...I toyed with the idea of a more Klitschko nose, but pulled it back in the end
progress:
thanks for looking
once the hair alphas are in then I think he will sit at about 23k...so nowhere near as next next gen as I wanted, but a good stepping stone for the next piece I think.
also getting featured in the recap was ace...if you read this than thanks very much for putting me in with so much amazing art Sean
thanks for looking
I really like the face and the detailing around the belt!
I know you said textures are in progress but I think some whitened frayed edges to the cloth and leather would be really nice. (especially on the glove)
Look forward to seeing more!
Hey Jon, thanks very much
can I pick your brain Jon....where you using height maps for the material details on the huntress? if so how were you combining them with your normal bakes cos if I remember right she had a 4k texture on her, and crazybump is hating that....I'm about to install Knald, I had a look at Ndo2 and it seems way complicated for what I want from it...your advices would be greatly appriciated.
thanks very much for looking guys
silly res shots and mora angles here for anyone that can be fussed
Knald is pretty ace btw, especially for cavity and convexity maps....very tidy, along with the tesselation viewer...no normal map mixer yet, but I stumbled upon a work around for that...you can mix a 2k height map with a 4k normal balke and they line up...the height may require a little sharpening before crazybump, but it will do for now
thanks for looking and stuff
I am really keen to see him with the facial hairings.
Muzz : thanks very much
Gav :Thanks Gav, funnily enough I just grabbed the first two Witcher titles on steam.. if he ends up looking half as good as some of the stuff that I have seen for the Witcher 3 then I will be a happy boy
duncan : cheers man....yeah I'm kind of itching to see what the hair is going to come out like too...I have an idea in my head of what I want, but it never works out quite the way that I expect with me and hair
ghost-d: thanks very much
rollin: thanks very much....still lots to do and refine yet but glad that I'm on the right track
ok tonight's work was focused pretty much on the lower half of him, the boots trousers and underskirt...I also made a start on the pouch texture....tomorrow I will get the dagger sorted and tweak some of the stuff in the upper texture before I do a final detail blitz and then shuffle onto the fleshy hairy bits
again silly res shots here: CLICKY CLICKY just cos I have 25 Gb of space on dropbox
again thanks very much for looking and taking the time to comment folks
afisher: Thanks Adam, me too...once I have him in the folio I can start applying for a jerb again
almighty_gir : Hey Lee, thanks man
Zoltus : he's currently sitting at about 23k...which will go up a ton now that I have seen the last of us character dump on ZBC...damn those hair alphas's are amazing Knowland is a beast!!...lots to study...here's a link to the wireframe rotations, they are a bit large I warn you
Hazardous: Thanks man, I will be back in the bliss stream tomorrow night, your tunes are ace to work to
JadeEyePanda: heheh I will find the time to get a breakdown done for you in the next day or two....its really quite simple but it will require pictures cos I'm really bad at explanations....here's a close up of the dagger though, so that you can have a better look its all I got done last night cos other stuff got in the way and the handle still needs work....it wants to be carved bone but its not yet
as always thanks very much for taking the time to look at my nonsense...hopefully I will have something worth updating next time
awesome details X.x I have to dig to this heigh map mixing normal map process
I'd expect to see a more muted spec on bone(unless highly polished) as well as a range of bleached yellows and tans with some hints of brown from dirt etc. As it stands now, it feels a little more metal than bone.
thanks tristan, it pleases me greatly that I have inspired someone else to create art....yeah agreed on the bone, my other half pointed out that it looked more like badly done bronze too....better fix that then.
been working the last couple of days on facial hair and face in general, still the eyeballs to do and the fur alphas but here's a silly size shot of the tash:
I did the stubble in alpha just to try it out...its pretty pointless at a distance of more than 12 virtual inches from the model but what the hell
ok I have pretty much finished the textures, just the hair alphas to go and I can move onto his shashka for the final pose.
marmoset renderage
further angles available here : CLICKY
comments crits etc.. much appriciated.
Right now the skin seems a bit flat, maybe a bit of a softer ambient light / skin ramp would help a bit along with a more blue-ish specular? Although I'm judging this off of the close up shot, it seems like you changed a bit in the next one which is cool.
The wool material (right?) on the cap, hood and wrist seems a bit noisy, I guess it depends on what you're going for but personally I think too much in the normals for that sort of stuff (especially when the diffuse is so bright) leaves it looking a bit coarse when the material should read as something more soft and cosy
http://www.texturevault.net/wool_surface_sjpg4414.jpg
http://i1269.photobucket.com/albums/jj592/honestfashion/Dolce%20Gabbana/shearling%20wool/100_4213.jpg
I really like it in these soft materials where cavities have a very warm pinkish-orangey hue to them, also perhaps adding a gradient will soften the material too:
Sorry, I missed your question from before! I didn't use height maps no, I dont really use crazy bump, it's great and all but I just dont like going out of Photoshop, maybe im a bit stubborn, heh. I just do that kind of stuff per layer with the nvidia normal map filter and adjust it a lot after.
Cool stuff though, looking forward to seeing the shashka and the pose!
thanks af3D, and yeah I agree with fletch's comments too
Jon great call on the shadows man...I wasn't even thinking about that...totally going to work more on the wool...its updated a bit from those shots but I see what you mean, my "interpretation " is way too harsh
seriously thanks man
took tonight off cos I'm a slacker, well I had a play with CAT in max but that was it...I should have something worth looking at tomorrow
again thanks for taking the time to give feedback guys
Heres a high poly Shashka in the meantime:
also if you check my folio I think that I've sorted out the lighting issues, nearly finished now....still got to adjust the wool more in line with jon's crit though.
Are you displaying him in Marmoset?
EDIT: never mind just saw it was in your portfolio.
I hope you dont mind man i made a scribble here with some thoughts!
I think these might be some things you could do to the actual mesh and some texture bits too.
1) rotate one of the eye sockets ever so slightly, and increase the size of both eyes just a little.
2) Changed eyes to green, just to add some pop because everything is is such a similar hue.
3) more grit / roughness to the skin
4) Lowered the cheeckbones a little.
5) touched up the blends between the stache and teh facem added more stubble etc etc.
6) Lowered entire eye socket area.
7) added the eye shadow layer under the top lid.
Haz: amazing paintover, thanks for taking the time to do that mister....I subscribe to everything that you have posted. I hope to get back to working on him this week, and I thought that he was nearly finished
Luke: agree completly man...lets hope that at the end of it all my crappy skinning does the rest of him justice huh? so much to learn so few braincells