So after this busy week, I was finally able to start texturing the character. I had references for most of my materials so I had a fairly good idea on what the materials are supposed to look like. At first, I tried getting the base properties of the materials right without worrying about wear at all. This is how I built the materials for my previous character too, which is a method that works really well for me because it forces me to make interesting materials (as brand new) without relying on the wear and tear.
This was the first material pass. Probably, the most challenging materials for this character were the fabrics, the ones on her dress and the lace material. The lace was actually a bit easier than I expected, I made the base fabric material first and then masked with a lace tiling alpha (and added height to it). It was much more challenging to get the dress material to look how I wanted to since I wanted to make it look quite elegant and have some highlights on it. Adding metalness to some of the areas did this trick quite well without making the material look like plastic (I mainly used references of the sorceresses' dresses from Witcher 3).
After a second pass, I started adding more details and adjusting the materials. I started thinking about the wear of the materials too, I don't want to make these characters very worn given the world context but some battle damage would make sense (I am trying to find a balance for now, if I have time, one of my stretch goals is to make different battle-worn levels for the characters).
I added a bit of opacity to the lace material, a mid-value to go over the entire mesh. I think that it works better now and it resembles more the material I was going for. I am still not sure about the thick edges of the material, I am thinking of adding some tears right near the edges to break the continuous lines.
Also, I started adding some height patterns to the metals and other areas, most of those have only decorative purposes and I think they contribute to the elegance that I wanted my character to have. Only the patterns on her rings are some demonic sigils that I found, I thought that adding those might help suggest her powers.
I wanted to make the shackles on her legs visibly older and more worn than all the other materials, since she was supposed to have been imprisoned for a long time and freed when she made a contract with my previous character ( I hope I cand find some names for them until I finish the project, but that's the hardest part). After being freed from imprisonment, I didn't want her to lose those chains completely as a way to suggest that she is still bound (with the contract) and not completely free to use her powers ( I added the glowing marking on the shackles to give them a more supernatural look, so it would be more visible that they are not regular chains which can be broken easily). This character's main motivation to collaborate with the biker dude (who is a demon hunter) is to find a way to be completely free and regain her powers (which the biker guy can channel through the contract and make him more op).
Something more challenging about both these characters is showing that some of the things they're wearing have different ages, so they would need to have different wear levels too (and on top of that comes the battle damage which is a different story). For this one, the shackles are visibly older, the dress is supposed to seem different from the other materials too (it should be something that she had before the imprisonment, that's why I was looking at references from the Witcher which is medieval) and all the other things should belong in the modern world. I think those aspects are quite difficult to illustrate and match together so things wouldn't seem completely out of place or unplanned (or just a mistake). I don't think I was that successful showing these aspects through my first character and this one still need a lot more work too, but hopefully, I can find a balance.
I tried to suggest the demonic look through her skin material too, that's why I added a lot of veins on it to kind of make it look translucent (being imprisoned for a long time it would make sense to for her to be very pale too). Making her eyes glowing contributes to that look too, also I think it would help for some dramatic lighting renders at the end. The horns were quite challenging, I looked at a lot of real-life references but I found it quite difficult to get the material properties right.
The main element which is missing is the tattoo on her back. That's a big part of her design so it's important for me to get it right. I tried out a few patterns but none were looking right so I am gathering more references. I am considering extending the tattoo over other parts of her body too ( which would make her look more demonic) but I would have to see how that works. Also, though about making the tattoo emissive, I think it would make some cool final renders but wouldn't make much sense otherwise. The third option would be to make a scar instead of a tattoo, something like hot iron branding, but I still have to look into how I could texture that convincingly (it's also important to make the scar look different from the one on my previous character since they would have different causes).
This is the progress that I managed to make in one week. I still have a lot to do before the textures will be finished but it's getting there. Until I decide on what to do with the tattoo/scar I will take a break from texturing and start working on the hair for both my characters, as this will be quite time consuming too.
No comments:
Post a Comment