ART WAR | 3D | Watcher of Anubis | Snerret

[snerret]

My champion will be based on the Fantasy side! I wanted to capture Egyptian art and it's ancient history into my character! I'll be focusing specifically on the God Anubis for inspiration. I want my champion to be able to harness the mystical powers of the undead to bestow justice upon civilization.. woo! Bestowed the ancient powers of Anubis, she was gifted the powers of a God through a gauntlet and staff. Sworn under Anubis, she protects her people from the evils that escape the after-life who are deemed unworthy.

Hello everyone! Sorry for being super late ;O I've been working on my character since December but didn't know about forum posting ahhh! I lucked out, the community looks awesome!! I'll start uploading my early concept works tonight as well as model progression. I'm close to texturing but I'll be cutting it close. This will be my first full model woo! Hope to hear back from everyone the work on here looks amazing!

NOTE TO SELF: IF ATTEMPTING TO TRY FINISHING SOMETHING LIKE THIS AGAIN LAST MINUTE, PREPARE MORE COFFEE.

Marmoset Viewer:
Being my first time going through this program I definitely wasn't ready for how low my textures would need to be. Still need to learn about the retopology process. Hope you like it!
Anubis_warrior_Mackenzie.mview (19.4 MB)

Starting Concept:

Now I'll be getting back to schoolwork, oh boy.

[snerret]

Alright! Here is the earliest stage of my concept, a super quick sketch on paper along with a lot of my references in a mood board.

I wanted to make a graceful, yet powerful warrior. I wanted her to stand tall and straight like the Egyptians would sculpt their figures. I wasn't completely sure on backstory as of that moment, but I knew she would be a warrior/champion under Anubis. Anubis is the Egyptian god of embalming, mummification and the afterlife. Anubis was also associated with the process of "weighing the heart" where Anubis would weigh a man's heart against a feather to see if he was worthy to enter the realm of the dead. A lot of the god's ancient history was taken into account when creating this character.

[snerret]

Woo! Okay here are some of the first stages to my body sculpt and headgear! I knew I wanted to sculpt a classic Anubis-like head piece. I started work on a gauntlet for her left hand. Gauntlets are epic, so I was feeling a gauntlet. Wanted the gauntlet to be more claw-shaped to relate back to Anubis. I wanted the gauntlet to harness some sort of power given through the large crystal on the top. Dark energy from the afterlife? Maybe to capture the souls of the dead? Was tossing ideas around.

[snerret]

Update with my past progress! I'm uploading some of my earlier models. I extracted masked areas of the body to start creating the general shape for the clothing/armor. Wanted the armor to keep the "ancient Egyptian" vibe. I wanted lots of jewels and simplistic line patterns. Was feeling she needed a drape-like skirt of sorts. Discovered a lot of things while sculpting my first big model. Don't let your extracted shapes get too thin. Keep the back of things masked.. or hell will break loose.

[snerret]

The amount I am learning working on this model is insane. My biggest mistake was still making the extractions too thin or using the dynamic trim to chip away the insides. Either way.. not good for me. Took a lot of time to get around. For anyone who suffers from my mistakes in the future. The inflate brush will save your sad broken mesh like it did mine, but took a ton of extra time to smooth all my pieces again. Also my first rig in Zbrush! Very cool process! I'm not saying I needed to restart my rig four times ..but! We are here now

I also began sculpting ideas for like.. "mummy wraps" because of the Anubis embalming take I was going for. The cloth braid on the back I originally had wasn't working for the model and I found it too clunky. I love to mask random ideas, started thinking about tattoos for her body as well. Wanted to add a necklace of sorts.

[snerret]

The process for my first sculpt is a bit rickety. Smoothing and the trim brushes can be very time consuming. I find that my biggest issue. If anyone has brush recommendations on speeding up the process I'd love to hear them! I find that the Trim smooth borders brush gets the job done quicker for me than the trim dynamic. Figured out how to properly use the Zremesher, I love him. Bless be the Zremesher. I extracted my necklace mask as well as tested out a few ideas for the color or her armor. I am hoping for a black with blue tint and gold accents by finished product. Also started staff concepts. To fit the Anubis vibes I wanted the staff to symbolize the weighing of the heart and feather process. A "staff of Judgement". I wanted to include the heart and the feather.

[snerret]

WOO BOYS I HAVE DISCOVERED LIMITED SLEEP IS THE PATH TO SUCCESS. YES. We are now pretty caught up to where I am. Running real short on time but working on textures. Very painful process of Zremeshing, Maya, then Substance, but I'm super glad to learn it. Here I have mostly finished the staff. Smoothed about everything out. The hieroglyphs on the gauntlet stand for Anubis. She will use this to capture rampant escaped souls while the glyphs on the staff stand for "Judgement." Which is pretty much the same process of the weighing of the heart. Also added some basic braids, running real short on time so I glanced over them pretty quickly. Day was spent on textures! I'll upload later today.