Week 15: My what a splendid coat you have……

Howdy Folks,

This week on game art has been very busy and very hectic, yet I am glad to be texturing my character compared to the tediousness of unwrapping and baking. Nonetheless, despite my enjoyment, it has been a hard week and yet again I find myself working long hours to get the work done.

At the start of the week, I began blocking in the textures for some of the assets, this included the ropes, jewelry armour and of course the body.

I tried to work quickly here, simply blocking in the base colours before adding any more detail. This use of the broad strokes technique was very useful and time efficient.

Blocking out the human skin tone of my female character was quite a challenge. It was difficult to find correct reference for the character, hard to understand the colour zones of the reference and even harder to try to emulate it onto my 3d character.

I used references of Mayan women for the main source of inspiration, however, it was a challenge to find an image of a Mayan woman under neutral lighting, and so I had to find one which came close enough.

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Del pointed out that my first attempt did not have much colour variation, in fact it was very flat, and he suggested that I add more contrast in the body, particularly the facial region. He mentioned that there is a lot of contrast in colour in the face, especially as some areas are closer to bone, some have more blood vessel build-up and others do have none of the above. He recommended that I take a look at the image below for reference:

Furthermore, that I take a look at the models from Uncharted 3:

I took his advice and attempted to get the right skin tone for my character:

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I decided to do some more research on the matter, in the meantime, I began working on crocodile armour, as my first attempt was too creamy in tone, moreover it did not reflect true crocodile skin pigments.

My first attempt to correct this was to work in Photoshop as I believed that I would have more layer control.

However, I decided that it would be better to work in substance painter as the software would allow me to create more realistic effects.

I took the advice that Angel Diaz offered and began using the colour palette that I created last week. It was very helpful in allowed me to pick the right colour hues to paint onto the crocodile assets. He was even helpful to provide more advice on how he went about it.

I began by blocking in the base colour and working up the layers. Using Substance Painter’s ‘Skin Orc’ smart material was very helpful and allowed me to create a number of fascinating pigmentation effects.

I kept working up the layers adding more hues and finer details, after a while I was starting to get the hang of it and even learn more about crocodile skin as I was working. I noticed that there are 4 major hues in the crocodile head, leading up in a gradient.

The back pelt was very difficult to work on, especially as it is very noisy and there are a number of different regions with their own different hues. Furthermore, I needed to apply some variation in the textures in order to improve believability. As I was hand painting all the detail, I knew it was going to take a while, however I was able to provide this outcome.

Whilst working on the pelt I was also working on the tortoise shield; agreed with Del, I would use the design of the desert turtle as my main source of inspiration, because it would provide a fascinating contrast with the crocodile armour.

I also took inspiration from Jakob Falkenberg’s ‘Leonardo’ character, for inspiration on how he created the shell for the ninja turtle.

My attempt:

Furthermore, I was able to get some feedback on my peer Lewis, to add some war paint across the shell to really ground the character in the environment. A very useful suggestion.

After blocking out the tortoise shell texture I was even able to experiment with the translucency and sub-dermis slider effects.

In the meantime I was also blocking out the textures for the rest of the assets. By this time I was happy with my progress.

To my dismay, during the week, my file for the crocodile skin corrupted! ;(

I was distraught to lose all that work and have to start again, especially as I was behind on my work. The most painful thing was that I could open and see the work, however I would not be able to work on it.

With the help of peers I tried to recover some of the work, however, it would only let me save out the material- this was good enough, all was not lost.

I sucked it up and began working on the crocodile textures again, bearing in mind that this time I would do it better than the last.

During that Day, we were lucky to get a visit from Louisa Bremner, a 3D generalist working at AVR London, an architectural visualization studio. Throughout her seminar she gave some really interesting points about experience in the industry and her advice on job interviews and networking was very useful.

I spent the rest of the week polishing the crocodile skin to get it up to scratch with, however I realized that the skin was too brown for my liking, it might be more fascinating to add more green hues as Angel did for the Sobek Cultist pelt. This will be my aim to complete for next week.

Angel's Green:

In addition to working on the pelt, I also began working on the crab shoulder and arm guard. For this I took inspiration from the Mexican blue crab. It was fun to work on these assets, furthermore it was a quick process, however I will need to revisit it need week in order to polish.

At the end of the week, I revisited the skin tones of the body, I really wanted to get the hues of the face right. I looked back into the colour zones and I added a second layer of hue in order to further the contrast in the face.

I still need to work on it as I don’t feel like I've quite got it right, but I am glad with my progress. So by the end of the week I had the whole character blocked out and I am very satisfied with this.

Next week I will work on refining my textures and making sure that they read well and are cohesive.

I have good news! This week I was messaged by Character Rich Carey, mentioning that he has recommended me to the lead character artist Baj Singh. This is very helpful especially due to the upcoming internships in September. I was so happy to hear this that I was speechless (I did get teary). It’s such a relief to see your hard work paying off and people beginning to notice it.

However, this is only half the battle, from now till September, I will be giving it my all in order to get this internship.

So there you have it my very busy and hectic week folks, this week I did overwork myself, however I was able to reach my targets so there is a bonus. Next week I will aim to finish texturing the crocodile warrior, it is ambitious but if I give it my all I know I can do it.

Thanks for reading folks

Bye for now