Oh what the hell.....

"Compared to war, all other forms of human endeavor shrink to insignificance. God, how I love it."

-General George Patton

Sweetness! I don't know how Polycount is going to loose this one.

Good lord! Daz now too?
Ok, whereTF is SouL? With him our victory will be not only probable but certain.

-LD

Awesome to see you joining in this Daz! Can't wait to see what comes outta this.

Spark

You can do it Daz [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]
Make us proud! [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]

Very quick playaround in OC. Not sure where Im going with this yet. The obvious disadvantage of a mount is Im effectively halving my polys for the general. Still, 2,500 for each should be managable

wow nice quick start there
check your PM's [img]/images/graemlins/blush.gif[/img]

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Very quick playaround in OC. Not sure where Im going with this yet. The obvious disadvantage of a mount is Im effectively halving my polys for the general. Still, 2,500 for each should be managable

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Ah! But you see, it says you have unlimited specs for the platform [img]/images/graemlins/laugh.gif[/img]

Also you can have an optional vehicle in addition to the platform and general. But I suppose that makes the vehicle something that won't be voted on so I'd leave the mount as part of the general. Anyway, we can use normalmaps, 2.5k should be enough for a lot of detail then.

Or hey, you could even make the mount part of the general [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]

Er, wait, Rockstar already has a more awesome demon than I could ever do, I don't need centaur competition too >.<

Luke you must go to dagobah to complete your concept...

yeah the mount's going to make the pcount budget tighter, but it also helps make it easier to show that he's a big badass general. i'll be watching you Daz, heavyhitters like you aren't allowed to flake on this compo! [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

aight, the Luke comment made me go back to the drawing board, probably for the best. Scribbled this up this morning:

Soon after Commander Pterra lost his wings in the Great Battle Of The High Plains, he was promoted to General. He uses a custom modified version of the SkyWing II for extremely fast transportation around the Battlefield. It has a holographic HUD for total observation of the War. Any controversy surrounding his newly appointed rank was quickly dispelled when it became clear that his tremendous tactical instinct, speed and ferocity proved fatal for any adversaries.

Hmm, you could intergrate that flier with his head and upperbody placing the main parts on his back, engine thrust a bit back, while strengthening his wings to allow them to change directions.
The HUD doesn't really work when he has to look down on his flier, might place it on his head where is usally is placed (or on the windshield). However he could be a sneaky high-height assasin-bomber and the flier might be see-through. Or make him more feral, right now he looks a little like a mischievious uncle.

Having a hard time seeing where you want to take this right now, but I'll definatly constantly check your progress on this since I know what you have made in the past [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img].

I haven't really 'designed' anything in ages so any past work is a bit irrelevant as a point of comparison. I dunno about feral. Dog themes seem to be prevalent elsewhere in the contest, but the other stuff is good food for thought thanks. I'll have a re-think.

Meant feral as in ferocious, dirty and mangy, not the actual dogs.

ah ok.

?

Very honest oppinion up until now?
Team up with a great concept artist [img]/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img]

Whilst that would be the easy option, and of course get me a better result, thats not what this contest is about for me. In the job Ive had for a long time, Ive not had to do much in the way of conceptual design.
So entering this is about pushing myself, revitalising long lost ( or non existent ) skillsets and above all it's meant to feel like fun, not work. If I were to just make another model well duh, I can make models. That's a known quantity.
But thanks for your er 'critique'. Very useful. I'd look forward to seeing what you come up with, but you're probably too busy trolling the boards in an attempt to discourage people enough to give up.

hehe dude, just come up with something cool, i totally agree, thats why i love contests, theres no one here to tell you what to do and not to do, just make up your own thing

I think these are cool and I wouldn't get down on yourself yet. Just keep working the concept. I like the 2nd one you posted because it has some cool original ideas in it, and it is something other people aren't doing. What I think it needs is to be bigger and more badass. I think that the size of the character's head makes his body and vehicle look small.

Daz, i look forward to seeing what you can design, one thing you may want to try is getting straight up loose and messy with your initial drawings, it can help you find interesting shapes and such. I really wouldnt worry about making as refined of drawings as your previous two posts at first. Simply drawing silloutes with a thick brush in PS or painter can help with this process as well. Anything that will get your focus off of the small details and more on the overall feel and shapes of the character.

One thing that really helped me was to think of the characters motivation, and the universe she lived in. Maybe try to come up with an idea of an interesting setting or character archetype first, and then slowly start to refine the looks and rules that would apply, and let that guide your shapes and ideas.

I really want to see a Dazpants original, so don't listen to numbnuts, I mean Makowka. 8-)

OK good tips guys thanks. I used to have ideas and be able to draw once. You know, a long time ago, B.E.A

Will play around some more tommora. Going out to get drunk now. Perhaps that'll help and I'll do some scribbling later.

Being stuck in a production environment for too long does bad things to your traditional art skills, I can't even get close to my drawing skills from 10 years ago.

Lol, I just wrote this post on focusing on silhouettes and not fuction but I guess I should have read all the posts..

So, anyway lots of rough sketches first, I try to do atleast 10 thumbnails before I even pick a general direction(then I usually screw up and start modeling before I'm done, which is a bad idea). If you've done that please post it, doesn't matter if it's complete garbage doodles, we all know you can do the art.