I was presented the challenge by someone else and I was absolutely thrilled to take this one on. My concept will be the tale of the woodsman and the serpent, but with a lovecraft twist on it. Hope I’m starting the thread/entering correctly here!
I will be creating the woodsman and the serpent in the story, with emphasis on the woodsman. Aiming for something in the realm of diablo style/semi realism while following the rule of cool to some degree.
I was able to put together a reference board to get the elements I’m looking for in my concept. I hope to have the concept sketched out shortly and then on to blockout.
Started sculpting in more major forms and refining shapes starting with the shirt and upper torso. I really wanted to aim for the fact that this was an older/weary man, but wanted to make you believe he’d be fit enough to be out chopping wood and fighting lovecraftian creatures.
I was able to complete the head and hair this week as well as touch up on some of the clothing. Decided to change the concept a little bit after the initial was reading too much like a sea-faring/fisherman type. I felt I wasn’t conveying the weathered woodsman well enough. Hopefully this new change in concept will convey the point across better.
Definitely a scary change but it’s one in the positive direction the character feels a lot less like like a fisherman and a lot more like someone you’d run into tracking a bear near their cabin. Nice work.
I had taken some time and toyed around with the idea of hair cards for both the beard and hair at some point. While the hair came out looking good in a test run, I wasn’t happy with the beard and how it came out. I had switched back to the old curves hair from my prior post.
However…after quickly realizing the hair may have been too dense of curves for the topology budget, being a nightmare to retopologize, and not meshing well enough with the beard imo, I decided to recraft the hair to be a blend of curves and sculpted mesh to bring down the topology count by more than 75%. I’m much happier with this result being the blend of optimized and and still retaining a similar look and feel.
Woodsman high poly sculpt has been finished! I did a test pose/couple renders for fun and the thread. I’ll be swiftly moving onto the serpent while retopo-ing the woodsman this coming week.
Haven’t had much a chance to work on this one this past week, been a little chaotic with personal life and the holiday, but was able to finish the forms and start some micro details. Looking to finalize the sculpt and revisit the woodsman for some last minute ideas/touches before starting retopo within the next few days.
