FINAL | ARTWAR 2 | 3D | Mintaka (Prismatic Angel) | mewtheed

[mewtheed]

YOU THOUGHT ME DEAD ? YOU AND ME BOTH.

Name : Matthieu Dagmey
Email : mewtheed.gamyde@gmail.com / matthieu.dagmey@gmail.com
Website : https://www.artstation.com/mewtheed

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original post:

Well talk about being fashionably late to the party. I found out about this little challenge just two weeks ago, but now that I'm actually sorta serious about it I decided to share my work here.

With only 3 weeks left I'm on a super tight deadline but I'll try my best to have a piece that look somewhat finished even if it means cutting corners here and there... so wish me good luck! or not I guess... sorry it was rude to believe I could force you to wish me anything I'll crawl back into a hole now, -er I mean if that's OK with you...

It's kind of the middle of the night right now (or does it count as what people call the "early morning"...?) so I won't go too much into detail right away, but basically the whole concept behind my character came while brainstorming around the word "light" for a bit (oh yeah I should have mentioned I chose team Light. I'm sorry I'm so bad at this) I thought "Ok I want a character that can kinda control light or at least alter it in some way, but it won't be animated so it can't really be an action, it has to be a state. What in the world can alter light by just being there... Oh I know! Glass! Diamonds! Crystals! Water! all materials that does all sorts of crazy things when light pass through it, it refract it, reflect it, bend it in all kind of ways! Yeah let's do that! I started doodling and a week later I ended up with a character design I was satisfied enough with to start it in 3D. I'll post my designs tomorrow, once my brain is functional again.

And now here I am... My current goal is to finish the modeling before the end of the week, that shall leave me a week for the texturing and the rendering and another free week in case everything goes to hell. So wish me good luck! or not I guess...wait, Did I say that already? gosh I need to sleep.

TL;DR :
Late to the party
My character's vitreous
I'm going to sleep.

[mewtheed]

Hello again! Now that I'm here I can start sharing some of my early work and designs (which mostly consist in a few hasty doodles )

so here's how it all started:

This is some first draft to visualize some of the rough ideas I had. Something simple with a big emphasis on silhouette and shapes to get started, the two big ones are basically the winners and were reused for the second step below :

I call this one Prismatic Angel 1.0. At this point I knew what kind of character I wanted to do, some sort of angel/fairy-like being made out of crystalline materials. It's still very rough (and with many mistakes) because I never expected to get it right on the first try anyway. That said I love the pose, the expression and the overall feel of the character, but the biggest problem is it's still way too simplistic and a bit all over the place, it's a mismatch of shapes thrown around without any real cohesion behind it. I felt like I needed something more, crystals alones can only go so far... so I went back to brainstorming some other ideas around (by that I mean spending the afternoon browing pinterest) and decided I wanted something more "constructed" and "artificial".

after another try this came out :

That's Prismatic Angel 2.0! It looks much more interesting already, in the sense that it takes now more than 30 seconds to get it all. The character is much more fleshed out overall and there's the beginning of sort of a story behind it now. But I still wasn't quite content with it as I felt something was lost in the making... The previous version had a sort of whimsical charm that I missed and this version turned out to feel a bit too cold and robotic (I blame the straight lines for this). Then there's also the problem of the lack of cohesion in the style and the details that persisted still. So I went back at it with the goal of marrying the "feel" of 1.0 and the style of 2.0 and this happened :

This is actually version 4.0, but the differences between 3.0 and 4.0 are so slim I didn't feel the need to put it here (unless someone ask me I guess). Now I actually have a very good feeling about this version to the point I decided I was done and started working on the model (So you see it's totally not because I'm running out of time or anything). It's not perfect, it's still kinda blurry around the edges, but I figured I could iron out the smaller details during the modeling.

So that's it for the character concepts, I'll update on the ongoing modeling later, Sooo....
...
...yeah. Later.

TL;DR :
here are my sketches
too bland, too cold then just right.
look at the pictures

[seezhijie]

interesting concept
can't wait to see how you'll pull it off

[colorido-medio]

Okay I don´t want to rush you but I can´t wait to see the final picture!!!

[mewtheed]

A wild base mesh appeared ! well it's already more than a base mesh now, I was just fooling around with various techniques to find out what would be the most effective way to get around. Now I shall attack each of its body part one by one until the whole thing is done!

As you probably noticed I'm using Blender for the modeling. I know this soft has kind of a bad rap, I hope it won't hurt my chances, but that's the one I'm the most confortable with. I also have Zbrush Core and would have loved using it for this project but I feared my lack of practice would make me lose more time rather than anything else. Beside I've never really tried to model inorganic,"non-fleshy" characters with it, which means I would have to learn on the go with tutorials and stuff on the side and while it would probably be a great way to learn I feel too pressured by the time for that right now. So whatever, let's keep the sculpting for another time and do this the old fashion way like... moving vertices around and stuff..

Anyway, With each body part well placed I decided to work on each piece one by one from head to, er... lack of toes.

Starting with the head since it's the most important part of the character (or any character for that matter) It's probably the most difficult piece of the model (although that ring on their back looks pretty intimidating too) getting the face and the expression right quick would already be a huge step forward.

here's how the face is going so far :

Once the head is done the torso, arms and legs should be smooth sailing (except that giant ring, it scares me). I'm aiming to finish the high-poly before next week, that shall leave me one week for the retopo, texturing and rendering. plus an extra few days in case I'm running late on something (probably that ring... Why did I draw something so complicated...?).

well that's all for today, My brain feels like it's drowning in molasses right now so I'll take a quick break. See you tomorrow.

Also no Haiku; I'm way too tired right now; sorry about that.

[leoferlandlabbe]

lovely concept. Eager to see the final result!

[mewtheed]

The high-poly head is now (mostly) done! there are still a few rough edges here and there but since work is starting to slow down on it I'd rather start the next part now and come back later once I'd figure things out . I also did some viewport renders in Blender Cycles to test out some materials and stuff but nothing too fancy so far.

Also, that crown/lens/radio-thingie on top of their head was a nightmare. I'm glad it's behind me now.

Here are the renders :

so far I'm still struggling on figuring out what to do for the area under the jaw but while I think of a solution, time for level 2 : the torso!

see you tomorrow!... I believe... If everything goes okay...

[mewtheed]

It's been a while since I posted, things have kind of slowed down as of late and that's pretty unfortunate. Now I kinda burned through the entire "free week" I planned and that sucks I'm gonna have to shift into the next gear if I want to finish in time. So I changed my plans a little bit and decided to just do everything in Blender. That might not bring out the best results but that mean I can work on the modeling, texturing, and posing at the same time without having to switch software around everytime. Maybe I can still bake everything on a low poly model If I still have time for that but otherwise, I'll at least have some renders ready to be done for the deadline. I'd say the character is 50% finished overall, not nearly good enough to be called a day, I'll try to finish the modeling quickly (the hands, dress and ring are yet to be done) add the decals for further detailing, tweak the materials, posing the character (the easiest part) do the renders. then if I still have time start the low poly retopo maybe.

one of the reason of my slow down is that I was too unsure of where I was going with this characters. even with the artwork next to me, I kept wondering "Is that part ok? does this element make sense? Should I redo that part?" and I couldn't find a clear answer to all of this so I stepped back form all of this. just to find out what was going wrong with this character... or with me. The answer turned out to be pretty simple.

My character had no story.

All those elements, the details, the ornaments. They looked cool, but that was it, They had no substance. I needed context. So those last few days I decided to take a break and figure out an origin for this character. It took a bit too long for my taste but I managed to came up with a story I was happy about and It gave me a clearer idea of what I wanted to do exactly. So that each part of the character is here for a purpose and not "just because".

I will post my story later, It's really late(/early) right now and I'd rather go to sleep before sunrise.. so for now here are an update on the modeling + some few renders I did when testing out some materials.

[mrjar0]

Awesome design. She looks really unique and i love the way her face looks like.
Her upper body could probably be about 12% bigger. Some of the metals could be a bit shinier. Especially the gold parts feel a bit flat.
Other than that she looks really fun. Hope you can finish on time.
Good luck

[archsider]

Amazing , you did all of that in blender ?
Did you sculpt the face or modeled it ?

[mewtheed]

I'm back!

@mrjar0 Thank you! ^^ I've scale up the upper body a tiny bit like you suggested (but not too much because I still want to put emphasis on the long legs) As for the materials there are just placeholders so far. Ultimately I'd want them to have a kind of old, weathered look while keeping some of the shininess. I'm looking into Cycles's node system for material generations that suits what I want, but I'm kind of a newb at this so I'm not gonna start doing anything too complex right off the bat.

@archsider Yup that's 100% Blender so far. I'm pretty slow when it comes to transitioning between two software so I want to do as much as possible in blender alone. The face and all the other ceramic parts were sculpted then retopo'd. The rest was modeled.

Anyway lately I've been experimenting with lighting and procedural material for the metals. it's slowly getting somewhere.

For those who wonder the crystal shader was made with the help of an add-on material called "Prism Glass" I found online. I love the caustics and light dispersion in creates. It even seems to have some painterly qualities to it, I'm not sure how that happened lol. I intend to keep adding on it until the crystal gets a nice and most importantly consistent iridescent feel.

[archsider]

NICE , this makes me want to go back to Blender xD , esp for the rendering , for me Blender cycles gives better result than marmoset tbh

[seezhijie]

Didn't disappoint indeed. That posed shot you rendered looks lovely. Keep going. We might have a winner here.

[mewtheed]

I'm not dead yet! And neither is this project. But there were some stumbles on the way, hence why I haven't shown signs of life earlier. My attempt at creating decals to add further detailing and polish to the model turned out to be a failure, the process of making the patterns, baking the maps and placing the decals was too long and the results rather underwhelming in addition to look a bit out of place. I could make it work but not in the remaining time-frame, so I decided to scrap that idea and to do everything only with polygons and procedural materials. But that meant I have to redesign some elements, or else they will end up looking unfinished., With only one week left I can't screw around anymore, this is going to be hell... But at least the hoop skirt is done (kinda...as usual). so now I only have one last element to make, the back ring it looks like big work but I thought a lot about how I want it to look and how to make it so hopefully it won't take more than a couple days... after that the character could be considered finished and any time left will be used to reshape some elements and further polish the many loose ends hiding in the nooks and crannies.

Well, looks like I won't be having much sleepy time this week.

[mewtheed]

Am I understanding correctly that the deadline got extended or is it just yet another hallucination caused by sleep deprivation? If there's any truth to it then I'd like to thanks the kind souls that are responsible for it.

I'm done with the circle thingy on the back. and I finally managed to tweak the crystals colors so they give out random yet relatively consistent colors. That problem was very frustrating I'm glad I could find a solution to it. I also made a procedural background for presentation purposes. So that's where I am now. All the elements that compose the character are now here and that's a big milestone in my eyes.

Looking at the render now, there are several issue I'd like to address. mostly regarding contrast and silhouette. The character is starting to feel kind of cluttered to my taste which is not a very common problem for me to deal with. (the kind of models I'm used to make are early-PS2 style low-polys, I've never really worked in high-poly before...) Once I remake the few last lackluster elements, I'll have to think about making some cleanup and maybe streamline the design a little bit If I still got time for that.

Also I didn't feel like having to tell this before but if anyone have any advice or ideas to share you're welcome.

PS: I've changed the thread title to the character's new name : Mintaka. I'll post their story once I'm done with the modeling. mostly because if I post the story now and decide to change something about the design later I'l get the feeling of going against my own canon. But I'm fairly certain I won't change the name anymore as I got quite used to it. So it's just going to be Mintaka from now on. ^^

[mrjar0]

Hi, me again
Let me preface this by saying that i absolutely love the character you are creating. With that said there are a few thing i personally find a bit uncomfortable.
1. The background feels like it is swallowing the whole character. There are places where it is hard to say where the character ends and the background begins. Especially when you look at it from further away.
2. The thigh guard / skirt parts feel too thick/dense. Your character is thin and elegant yet those pieces appear big and sluggish.
3.The area around the chest and neck is really hard to read. I cant exactly tell which part starts where.

Those are my personal opinions so take them with a grain of salt. It would probably be rude of me to complain about things and not present any solutions to them. Those too are only my opinions so don't put that salt away just yet

1.Remove most of the colors from your background. At least those that coincide with the colors of your character. If you want to stick to the sky version of course.
2.Either make the skirt shorter and thinner or go full out and do an 1850s style skirt. You already have the ring around the stomach area to do that kind of skirt. Make it semi transparent perhaps.
3. You already said that you are aware of the cluttered parts so i think you know how you want to solve them.

Those are simply my suggestions and ultimately it is your character and you should feel free to do whatever you desire with it.

Since the deadline has apparently been extended you should probably be able to finish on time.
Good luck

[mewtheed]

@mrjar0 Hi thanks a lot for the suggestion! actually I agree about the background and I was already, I just forgot to mention it I guess since I was still working on it. I think it's on of those things that will keep getting more subtle with time.

I didn't really mind the skirt but you raise some good points, looking back at the art, the straight lines give it a more dynamic look compared to the "bubbly" style I did on the model. I might try to reshape it a bit, maybe even redo some parts if needed. It's not supposed to be a skirt though, I just call it like that because that's what it looks like. I also kinda wanted to make them look like wings, but I guess I didn't do a good job at it. ^^'
Still for the time being I tried to make them smaller

As for the neck I blame the circle on the back for that, but just in case I had the idea of redoing the neck piece to suggest more the idea of a neck rather than a single piece of jewlery awkwardly floating in the middle.

[archsider]

oh damn <3 the colors
The render looks absolutely fabulous. You know some advance stuff in Blender it seems

[mewtheed]

I LIVE.

Edit: My images got resized nooooooooooooooooooooo
Edit2 : Yassssssssss it's all good now

[mrjar0]

Re save them as jpeg maybe? You loose a bit of quality, but it should reduce the file size a lot. Png is somewhat big