Final polished version:






(old first post)

Hey everyone! Starting my thread. Going to do a Crow Temple mace. I see that CT is the least used art theme so I figured I'd challenge myself a bit.

Starting off with a few concepts before I get into modeling. Here is one.

Great Color!!!

Thanks bra. After thinking about it, I believe I'm actually going to stick with a 3-sided mace. 4-sided creates a tighter poly budget and doesn't always look as cool as the silhouette a 3-sided mace can create.

Love it, it almost looks alive and awesome colors

uuuuuh, great entry! ;)

Went back to the drawing board. Though the colors may be there, the design wasn't striking me as "badass." It felt too calm. This one is a bit more lively. Made the crow skulls much more frightening and animated. I'll probably pursue this one.

Sick this has to be it. Very cool with that glow from Eyes and the mouth

This is too cool! The shapes are all really nice, can't wait to see it in 3D

Really like the screaming birds.

Update to dat concept.

Bobo: Is this okay for size? It extends a little bit out... I think it's okay but I'd like your feeback. Thanks!

Really nice Haiasi, Crow fits your style really well! Excited to see how you translate it to 3D man!

Holy hell that's awesome. Loving those repeating shapes

I believe the term "killer" directly applies to this! really nice.

Got my rough block in done in Maya. Going to up-rez it and start Zbrushing!

Did some modifications from my concept. Added a brace piece that goes around the joining part of the upper and lower jaw of the crow skull to make it feel less tacked-on. Also added some big ol' blade spike that juts out directly between each of the crow skulls to help break up the top silhouette.

Looking good. Just keep in mind the polycount with all those spikes.

Thanks, yeah I definitely have to watch it. This is my mid-poly right now prepping for zbrush and it's at about 6k tris. Going to definitely have to cut back in a lot of areas to get it to 1500.

If worst comes to worst, I just won't submit it to the competition if there is no way to get it to 1500. I'm very, very rusty in zBrush too so it might take me super long. I feel the concept is pretty decent so I just want to stay true to it.

Thanks again!

Yea man, that's how I'm looking at it; if I don't meet the deadline, at least I'll still have a new portfolio piece. Good luck though, there aren't that many crow pieces and yours is a pretty strong one so far, keep it up!

Here's some Zbrushin'. Haven't done Zbrush in almost 4 years, lots of relearning to do!

All done! Time to go home and sleep.

Like I said, it's way over budget. I tried to reduce as much detail as I possibly could but my concept had way too many pieces and detail in it, so whatevs. I expect to be disqualified from the competition.

All the best.Nice colors there.

Haha... damn... I thought the deadline was the 25th. I have a full day more! Any crits?

I feel the handle could use a little something else. It's kind of plain right now.

I wanted the detail to focus up top to draw the eye up there... but I do agree I could do at least a little something more. Thanks!

Tada! Here it is with lots of updates.

Patch notes v1.1:
-Saturated the skulls to be more yellow / tan
-Broke put a bit more blue in some pieces in the head piece to help differeniate shapes
-Painted it a bit more "AO" in a few places that needed it
-Put a bit o detail on the handle
-Small normal map / diff map tweaks to get some things a bit more angular
-Updated spec map and PROPERLY ENABLED SPEC THIS TME (it was off last time XD!!)
-Completely redid the presentation sheet