thought i might try out for this competition, so im reserving my spot...

have a basic idea of what i want to do, it involves big and bulky, and his speciality is "secure an opening for my team's gathering fleets." [img]/images/graemlins/crazy.gif[/img]

Good to have you on board dude!
Good luck with the comp.

-caseyjones

thanks...

well... as for now i've got a 'concept' ready (well... its more a collection of 3 orthos as i suck at proper sketching of perspectives and stuff). Made it in photoshop using a mouse [no tablet]:

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[sorry for the big image size...]

NAME: General Bayne Yu-Dye Nau
SPECIALITY: Assault
WEAPONS: Ion Gun "Lux" ; Dark Matter Gun "Nox" ; Ax [or] cricket bat (dont think i should do cricket bat...)
BACKSTORY:
As a young boy, Bayne [a Brit adopted to a Japanese family] had suffered a head injury that had caused him to suffer mental retardation. Unable to lead a normal life, he was sent to a "special" institute after his parents were assured that everything would be safe. The institute was nice... that much couldn't be denied. But when word spread that the Enemy was preparing an attack and after the institute came under military control; all kinds of inhumane experiments took place.
Bayne is the only of his kind. Under the experimental codename "Enemy of Intelligence," his head had been drilled, and two wires were used to send electrical shocks into the Frontal Lobe of his cerebrum. The current had the desired effects: the neurons in charge of "Logic" and "Common Sense" were completely numbed. This massive hulk was now unable to fear and cower. He... "it" didn't stop the augments from being added to his body which allowed him to carry extreme weights. It didn't mind having his heart replaced by another, stronger one... it didn't mind having parts of his brain exanged by the brains of former Generals. It even didn't mind having parts of his body replaced my metal completely. And the painful 'reskinning' procedure was no problem for it. Living in complete isolation, Bayne was able to hone his skills as the skin slowly began to grow on his body. He became accustomed to wearing his heavy leg armour, and still being able to charge down a mile in less than a minute.
Then, only three years after the rumours... the war began. Though his skin wasn't completely healed, and some other procedures were still remaining, Bayne was released into the battlefield, to wreak havok on all that stood before him.

-----

i was a bit crazy wit the backstory... but is it any good?

hey there indian_boy--

first of all, it turns out that i'm probably going to come to India after all--so hopefully, if everything works out, we can sit down for a little drawing session one on one, and i can help you out with your entry or other projects in a more direct way.
but until that happens, and it'll definitely be a while (at least several weeks), let's talk about what you've got going on here.
your backstory is alright; i'm glad to see you thinking about history, about why the character is the way he is. that's great. what isn't so great is the ortho, which really doesn't have a whole lot of information to go on. i know you don't have a tablet, which makes things tough, but you should definitely be busting out the old pencil and paper and working out some interesting designs that way.
also, in terms of the character you have now and the backstory--be sure to visit dominancewar.com again and read the briefing more carefully. i don't think an assault-type guy is going to fit the criteria all that well; you'll probably need to make him into more of a surgical, precise sort of fighter. but he is powerful, which is an element that you'll want to retain.
so keep working at it--you've got a good start, but as i've been telling everyone else, quick sketches and thumbnails are a good way to keep your options open and find your best idea, not just your first.

yes sir general gauss sir!

honestly though, thanks for ur response. always helpful! i have, in fact, just done a few pencil doodles (none are too good yet) which i guess i should pay more attention to?
also, i've made 'suitable' changes to the guy to fit the sharp-shooter range *more on this below.*
once again: thanks... and i look forward to seeing u (plz don't come in march... i have finals and it would be unfortunate if i got 'so close, yet so far' from meeting ya).

---

okay, made a few changes to the orthos.. these will probably be the last ones for a while as i'll try pencilling out the character now.
[only front view]

how are the irrelevant glowy bits?

a few changes to the character to suit the specs.
- arm augments include small gears that become active whenever a gun is unholstered. these gears aid in reducing recoil (if he's "going in" or, if he's discovered, and he needs to use the afformentioned Ion/dark matter guns).
- Alternatively, when using his sniper rifle, these gears along with the microprocessor in the arm are able to calculate minutest of movements, and cancel them out. Breathing doesn't ruin THIS guys aim!
- i am designing a slide-over helmet with thermal + night vision
- leg augments help carry extreme weights while still being quiet. He's not too quiet though (that'd be unfair).

how is it turning out?
thanks in advance...

okay... i'm actually studying science at the moment, but an idea just struck me as i sit in front of my 'internet only' computer.
so i turned on MS Paint, and tried to represent this idea. ill do it later using Photoshop, but how is the 'silhouette' looking. it still needs some work, but im keepin' it simple for now...

[im aware that these aren't pencil sketches, and i guess i went too far again?]

okay, now i've done a few pen/cil sketches, and im gonna post them up before i go to bed. there were many ideas, and i've thrown away hundreds of pieces of paper (i think i can score 3-pointers now)... but these three (2 really) were my favorites so far...
first off is a modified version of the same character:

kinda' looks like the guy in the post just above... made him a bit sleeker, and changed his armour.

and then there is this one:

i think i'm starting to like this one more and i might move away from the bulky human. go for the sleek alien look instead? i might do this character if i don't get an even better idea... as i try to sleep tonight, i can bet ill come up with an 'interesting' story for this guy (its in progress at the mo'.)

so any suggestions, comments, crits would be awesome... hoping to wake up tomorrow to see a handful of responses that i can use to work off of.

thanks!
good night...

okay... that... wasn't... ummm... ahrgh, watever:

well, i was doing some more sketches and stuff this morning, none were really nice, and i just couldn't get my mind off of the alien above. So i started adding some rough details, and thinking out some stuff about him, and i think i'll be doing him for the contest. So, i took out my 'official' sketch-book, and began the planning... following below are the new sketches, and pointers about this character... if by 1900hrs {indian standard time} i do not get any complaints on this guy... i'll be submitting him as a thumbnail etc. etc...

-----------


NAME: Kanchchh Igliksk
GENDER:Unknown
AGE:Unknown
WEAPONS: Retractable blade, Ion Gun (lux) Dark Matter Gun (nox), Sniper Rifle (caedo)
BACKSTORY:
On returning to his home planet from a distant solar system (as a part of his initiation into adulthood) Kanchchh discovered that everything was destroyed. Using the psi ablities that are a part of his race, he communicated with the lost souls of the destroyed system. What he learned, angered him beyond the anger of even the gods! In a war over 50 years past, a certain "CGChat" had destroyed some "Polycount" planets in the system. The resulting explosions had wiped out the entire solar system, leaving it with a Half-Sun orbited by rocks.
In his rage, Kanchchh flew to the homeplanet of Polycount, the Emperors of the Stars, and swore an oath of fealty to them. He expressed his desire to aid in the destruction of CGChat (rumors spread that they were preparing for another war) but he was denied. The Emperors claimed that his body wasn't suited for the task, he was too weak, and he was incapable of helping. He would only be a burden in the war...
A determined Kanchchh, however, spent the next 50 years of his life in isolation, slowly modifying and improving his body using his knowledge of the "Life Sciences" and "The Energies."
The next time he presented himself to the Emperors, they were impressed by his determination and his new abilities, and allowed Kanchchh to become a Shadow in the new war that had started only days ago.
Kanchchh has only one objective now: to ensure that all enemies of Polycount (particularly CGChat) are destroyed. He will ensure that, for generations to come, enemies of Polycount will tremble in fear at the mention of his name... He will have his vengance... and more!

-----

particular information and major pointers/features of Kanchchh will come up in the next post... after i've planned them out better...

once again... any c&c is welcome... please... [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

used photoshop to ink the outlines... i realised that they weren't too easy to see... oh... and i bumped the thread [img]/images/graemlins/crazy.gif[/img]

---
no just kidding!
SALIENT FEATURES OF THE SHADOW:
- using knowledge of biology, and their extensive understanding of their own bodies, Kanchchh has been able to modify his bone growth. eg. he now has an external ribcage aswell, along with an external shin-guard. He has modified other parts into potential weapons (i will make knuckle bones jut out, and some parts will be spiky). Plus, his right lower arm bones have been modified into a weapon.
- he has made an internal link between his lungs, thoracic cavity and arms. The movement caused by his breathing is automatically countered by his muscles (steadiest aim ever for a sharp shooter).
- the small pipe entering his chest is connected to a Cell mounted on his back. it is linked to his heart, and his brain (i'll show the back view later) and it increases the rate and efficiency of the activities carried out.
- being a noctunal being, his eyes can see perfectly in darkness, however, if he is needed during daylight, then he has retractable 'day-vision' goggles. Attached to these are also thermal vision goggles.
- The back of his head has an extra organ (the second brain) which is covered in bone. This second brain is wat allows these creatures to talk, through telepathy. It also gives them slight telekinetic abilities.
- I'll add some metal on top of this bone. This metal piece will be used in case Kanchchh gets captured. He simply has to trigger the thought, and immedieately the bone and second brain will be crushed by the metal. This way, even extensive torturing couldn't extract information. Repairing this damage takes only a few months (after Kanchchh has already gained so much experience that is...)

that's all for now... more as they pop into my head!

good to see you nutting this out.....make sure to develop further the head etc, or when you come to actually build this guy, it will be a pain making up details that fit in well with the overall design...

thanks for the tip gavku...

well, since there have been no negative crits in so many hours, i've decided to take the plunge with this character... title = Kanchchh Igliksk

well, anyways... this is my base, then, and now i'll try to really figure out each part of him before i get to modelling...

as of now, i'll ask again:
how's the concept?
and add a new question:
how's the skin colour looking? :

hmm looks good so far i geuss.. I was actually liking the fat dude.
Blue is refreshing but try a daring color, a color no1 would try.. Yellow or something

u preferred the fat dude? hmm... i guess i'll be making him in the future... i liked him too, so i definately won't be getting rid of him entirely...
as for yellow... it seems slighly impractical for the purpose of a Shadow. I even need to darken the blue i think! or add a layer of gray on top of it...

well, apart from that, i've coloured in the bones and stuff, and im posting it up again as i try to figure out how to make glows like Rawkstar in his concept sketch...
also working on a head idea... i have it looking awesome in my head.. let's c if i can translate it with a pencil!

any c and c is awesome,
thanks

looks cool so far, good shapes, agreed with shady, try playing with different skin colors, never know what might look awesome. Then again, I'm sure you'll be painting more contrast and shadows into it, so we'll see. I like the ribcage vest kinda thing. It'll be easier to crit as you get further into the details, keep going!

thanks ogle...
i guess ill try out some other colours later on... but is there a way to replace a whole range of colours with another range easily?
ie. one click will make all dark blues into dark browns and light blues into light browns and everything in between

now, sorry to practically double post, and i know it seems like im just watching my thread, but i had to post up my 'head' idea: (perspective and stuff is kinda' screwy....)

this is the head when the mouth is closed. seeing that we have 6k polies to work with, i'm gonna make the inside of the mouth 'special.' he will have a second layer of all-canine upper teeth, and the lower jaw will split apart sideways to reveal them. Apart from this, he will also have 3 sucker-mouths dangling inside of his mouth. Trying to draw that is a real pain at the mo'... but if i can't draw it, i'll at least figure out how to model it.

so how's the head? looking for any c and c on it, and the previous posts too... thanks

I've been meaning to post in your thread, and now I'm going to [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]
I really like the second last concept (blue and off-white). I think there is some potential there to make an awesome character. I think at this stage it is looking a little generic in the silhouette. If you were to colour the whole thing in black, it would pretty much look like a human man with a strange shaped head.
I've done a really crap paintover (mainly using the the liquify filter to pull out shapes and move things around). I've even done 2 really quick and random silhouettes to show you even the smallest things could improve the shape. The one under the 2 is just the base silhouette, feel free to use that and paint over it a few times to come up with your own ideas.


Hope this helps you push your ideas a bit more, the key is to experiment as much as you can while still in the concept stage. Keep at it dude.

-caseyjones

thanks, caseyjones, for taking the time out to make a paint-over. and despite what u think, it ain't crappy.
funny thing is that, after reading the comment, i filled in the whole thing in black, and when my mom walked in and saw, she was like: "Head is waay wrong! looks like the man got smacked by a hammer"
so, u are right about that too! now i'm working on changing about the silhouette and adding more features... after working at it some, and bringing in the new head, here's what i've got:


keep the comments and crits coming... doesn't matter if they aren't 7 paragraphs long... cuz:
[ QUOTE ]
even the smallest things could improve the shape

[/ QUOTE ]
where things are comments, and shape is concept/model/tex etc.
[img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]
thanks!

hi i been meaning to post yesterday

design is looking nice i like the colour scheme you have going on the desing reminds me a little of lord z out of power rangers
i like the 'hammered' head it makes it more alien. you get the impression that its more violent I guess your shadow is humanoid but not a human

i had the same thoughts Dave... i think i _will_ use the hammered head. Just need to make some modifications on it to make it "nicer." thanks for the comment...

on another note, i had sketched up the gun this morning, but i didn't post it cuz i didn't want to ruin the flow of this thread, ie: all character concept first, then all weapon concept etc. etc.
then i realized that that is simply stupid! so i'm gonna post up the sketches i'd made, and i wanna know what u guys think:


[sniper rifle]
i'll post details about the gun tomorrow, cuz now my eyes are droopy and i'm not thinking right... as of now, the only thing i'm sure about the gun is that, if it could talk, it would say, "small bullet-holes are for wussies!" [img]/images/graemlins/crazy.gif[/img] and i'd like it to stay that way... so i'm definately not "small-ifying" the gun.

so: lookin' for c and c on the sniper rifle, and the previous posts aswell!
thanks guys.

bumping it for now... i'll post some updates later in the day... i wanna see some crits if i can... please... thanks u...
----

update on the drawing...
i think i only changed the head here...
more updates soon! (May even begin modelling the gun?)

any c and c is welcome!

hi there. let's get right to business, eh?
first off, stop using that fuzzy brush, in whatever package you're painting in. unless you want to show that your character is meant to be seen in soft focus all the time, or is covered in very short fur all over, use a hard-edged brush from now on. it might take a little getting used to, but you need to be more decisive in placing lines, more confident--even if it comes off sketchier.
and on the subject of sketching, what have i been saying about concepts and marriage? okay, so you realized your first girlfriend was ugly, but then you went out and bought the next girl a diamond engagement ring--what gives?
you need to stop indulging your tendency to do the zoom-ins and the call-outs and the special detailing; all that good stuff should come much later. once you started on this vaguely predator looking fellow, you've been honing details, when the larger, more fundamental aspects of the character are completely undecided--you should still be doing thumbnails. little doodles. not silhouettes, but little doodles of cool looking guys.
and another thing to restrain: write your stories later. now is not the time; we're artists, not writers, and ultimately the quality of our work will always be judged on its visual presentation, no matter how much we've thought it out and written out those clever little ideas for his spike-shooter or jetpack or alien mouth-parts. the backstory and the naming and all that, much like the visual detailing, can and should come later.
think of it like sculpture: what does a sculptor do? before he even gets carving or chiseling at his wood or stone or whatever, he first makes sure he's got decent materials. does it make any sense to grab a piece of wood and immediately start carving out a hand, only to look up and realize the wood's rotting at one end, and not nearly big enough for what you want to carve?
that's what i'm talking about. you need to set your priorities straight for how you go about conceptualizing the character. yeah, i know it seems like holding off the fun parts, and to some degree it is... but it isn't necessarily. forcing yourself to make sure the good stuff is there, very early on, before any detail shots or backstory or whatever, means the rest of the process won't be a headache. repeat after me: garbage in, garbage out [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img] don't start with garbage if you want to end up with gold! [img]/images/graemlins/laugh.gif[/img]

so here's your assignment, mr indian. do 12 thumbnails, each only a few centimenters tall--and only give yourself a minute per thumbnail drawing. i'm serious about that, get a watch or clock handy and make yourself draw one-minute character sketches. after you've done the 12 in 12 minutes, and think you dont have any other quick little character sketches left, do 12 more. then you'll start getting something good--you've got to mine for the gold. don't pick up whatever comes up first and then start refining it; it's lost effort.

so there you go.. hope that's martial enough advice for you [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

sir yes sir!
now i've got to rip that girl's finger off and get that ring back!

wait, i've got a few questions:
1)if i use a hard brush, how do i get colour blending to happen? (i use photoshop CS2)
2) @ gauss in particular: will u hurt me if i do less than 12?
3) if i were an alchemist, couldn't i change garbage to gold?
BUT, since i'm not an alchemist:
i am doing little doodles. unfortunately, only got time to do 7 (in 6 and something minutes) when my mom told me that i should study as i have a party to attend to"night" and won't have time bla bla bla...
anyways, thought i'd post up at least these... see wat types of comments i get...

NOTE: after a while (like right away really), i kinda' started doing only wolf legs, which might seem annoying to some.
NOTE2: i personallly don't like "4"...

so.... gun me down! be ruthless!

Gauss you're awesome in case no one has said thank you for being such a big part of this war effort, thank you. Your comments and your attitude are inspiring and helpful.

Indian_boy, it keeps getting better and better, Gauss is whippin' you into shape and its paying off.

3 looks like your best bet at this point but I would say if you have a few more thumbs left in you, your best one might be in that next bunch. Its the law of artists, your greatest piece is the one you do next. With as much as you keep improving I really think 1-2 more rounds of quickies would get something really solid, and you would say "yeah thats the one" instead of "I'm not too hot about 4".

Nothing wrong with wolf legs, they might be over used in bad guy characters but its a signature of evil. Polycount is evil so there ya go, one step closer.

Consider posture. Quite a few of your thumbs have the same proud, chest out posture not a bad thing at all. Evil henchmen and underlings often have bad posture (lack of a good health plan I guess). You might want to think about trying out a few thumbs who are hunched or more in a predatory mode.

I would try making #3 in a hunched pose with larger attack spikes that come around the front farther. Kind of like Manga Spawn, a carnifex or spider legs. Right now they aren't that imposing and would only be able to hit what he bear hugs.

I think you're close to nailing something down and I think by the end of the weekend you'll be ready to start modeling. Keep up the good work, its paying off =)

yes Gauss is awesome... i even awarded him with a prize here! hope u like it Gauss!

thank you, Vig, for ur pointers and the references... always helpful! i see what u'r saying about #3's shoulder spikes... will definately get something with those babies in a more threatening position!
as of now, i think i've become an anti-social element! i was at the party last night, and i hardly talked to anybody or stuff (they weren't my friends or anything... just my dad's colleagues and their kids... so i wasn't obliged :| ) and just thought about the competiton.... is that a good thing?
lol, anyways... got home around 2 this morning and churned out 3 or 4 more thumbs before sleeping... this is what i got:

now that i've seen you comment... i'll try to make some more with slightly hunched stances and stuff... but in this collection, i like number "9" (bottom middle)where i got the shoulder spikes bending under him and moving forward. I don't know if it looks a bit jumbled in the small sketch, but of all the thumbs so far, that's my fav. I'd just put in the lower legs from #3 of the first batch!
I'll c if i have any more shapes and forms that i could put on paper... but if i can't, i'm looking for comments and crits on these ones.

thanks to you all! and don't leave Gauss to all the whipping! don't u guys want a chance to whack me! bring in salt aswell! I don't mind...

he really.. really.. REALLY
reminds me of a generic halo soldier.. not good =/
Maybe the color scheme will change that
third thumb looks bad-ass btw