I’m a sucker for celtic myths and legends so I’ve decided to create a cat sidhe. In general, a cat sidhe is a witch who could turn into a cat and steal people’s souls. I’ve been trying to think of something I can pull together in the time frame whilst working and other life stuff so this seemed like a good time to grab all the cyberpunk ideas I’ve had lying around.
This future cat sidhe is a kind of hacker who has a hard-light hologram cat that she can control and uses to steal people’s data. Going for a goth witch but cyberpunk so hoping I can sell that in the final image. I also want to try make this in a borderlands/telltale comic book style, probably rendering in Marmoset. I’ve been doing a lot of realistic stuff lately so it’ll be nice to try some stylised work.
Here are a couple of super rough sketches for some base ideas. My plan is to get a base body ready to bring into Marvelous Designer and block in some quick clothing.
Rough block in in ZBrush. I grabbed a base body from an old project and cut it up to work with some new proportions. The head with sculpted fresh from a sphere. I’m trying to keep things quite blocky at this stage, just aiming for big shapes and forms that keep it really stylised. I did put a little extra work into the face but it’s still just dynameshed at the mo. Will probs do a retopo of some kind and start sculpting in some details
Update on the sculpt so far. Did some polish on the face and swapped out the jacket as I didn’t like the silhouette - aiming for something with big shoulders now.
Now trying to think about how I’m going to tackle the clothes… I was thinking about a rough Marvelous Designer pass to get some nice folds and then a bunch of sculpting over top to stylise it, but maybe I should just do it all in ZBrush…?
Used the flipped normals tutorial - as I usually do - to retopo the flat patterns and wrap to the finished garment before bringing into ZBrush for some sculpting.
I also threw on some really rough polypaint and did a quick paintover of some other details I’d like to add. I like the red, but not sure if it’s quite sci-fi/cyberpunk?
Still not settled on the cat skeleton placement or the belt style but I’ll just keep picking at it for now.
Also had a look at how I want the hand to look. Going for cat claws that are fused to the end of her fingers and then some cyberpunk-y metal lines leading up to her shoulder.
Also made some rough spine pieces tonight. They’ll all be metal in the end so I think i’ll stylise the vertebrae a little more before I continue. I’ll also make some tail ones too that will blend into the wiring/tubing that runs through the spine.
Played more with placement on the arm and I kinda like the idea of her arm having slots built in that hold the cat in place. I think it would be nice to bring more hardsurface into her body and gives it something practical too
I really like this cat skull… even if it’s a shame about the cat
I have a question though: don’t you think the tail is too close to the elbow joint? It might get in the way when bending the arm and dig into the geo.
Thanks! There will be a cat attached to the skull eventually.
The tail is maybe a little close to the elbow joint - it’s still placeholder so it’ll move anyway - but I don’t mind it clipping in when the arm is fully bent as you wouldn’t really see it anyway at that point
Roughed in the cat today in ZBrush. The idea is the cat body will be a semi-transparent hologram and the skeleton will be solid metal ‘floating’ inside the hologram. Keeping the cat itself pretty simple as it’ll mostly just be covered by the shader.
Also played around with a hologram shader in Marmoset. Took a decimated version of the cat with auto UVs into toolbag and messed with textures/settings. I like where it’s going, just can’t decide what colour to eventually make it. Will keep it neutral just now and adjust the colour along with the character
Been a minute since I updated. I’ve spent a good while working away on the high poly and trying to refine the design a little. Calling it here for the high poly just now and will jump into low poly this week. I’m hoping to get a lot of material definition in the texturing so we’ll see how that goes. I also spent some time playing with colours and chatting to friends about what gives a witch-y vibe!
I also simplified the skull and vertebrae to help bring the design a bit closer together. Again, I’ll be adding ‘cyberware’ lines and stuff in the texturing stage but I feel a lot better about this now.
Finally, finished up the cat so that I can get it retopoed and do another hologram pass. It’s still quite simple and maybe a little odd looking like this but I think it’ll work well together with the finished character model
Low poly and bakes finally done! There are a few mirrored pieces like the eyes, eyebrows, eyelashes, the hip panels and the boots. I also doubled up on a couple of the finger tips and the cat vertebrae have 2 UV spaces so I’ll duplicate that over the five visible pieces.
There are a total of 7 texture sets each currently at 2k but I could probably lower a couple of them to 1k. But I’m under the 2 4k sets which is fine. Each colour on the first image is a texture set. My plan for the data pad on her hip is to also have a ‘floating screen’ in front of her hand when she’s using the cat - kinda like Sombra’s hacking in Overwatch.
With the cat skull and spine duplicated for both inside the cat mesh and for on the characters arm I’m doubling up on some tris, but I think we’re still good. I also checked that even with the duplicated meshes with reversed normals to give the comic book outline I’m sitting at about 140k tris - which is a lot! But it’s under 150k so we’re ok.
Everything was retopoed in maya and the bakes were done in Marmoset Toolbag 5
Started texturing. Right now it’s mostly generators in the layer stack with some hand painting on the face but this coming week I’ll really need to start painting in the textures
Colours are always subject to change which is why I’m leaning heavily on fill layers I also realise I never shared some colour ideas I was playing with the other week. Colour is definitely my weak spot so will be playing about with this a bit, no doubt
I think I like the third one in the first row the most.
It’s a shame, though, that no one confirmed the question about textures. I’ll stick with two, even though it wouldn’t normally make sense, but I hope you won’t have a problem with that.
What was your question about textures? I got confirmation in the discord that it was OK to split the 2 x 4k sets into smaller ones as long as the total did not exceed 2 x 4k
I am referring more to another person’s question in the rules. There is no answer there, and I am not on Discord
(good to know, although it’s too late now)
Needed a break from texturing so I threw in a quick rig and posed her up to have a bit more character. I also added in the 3D screen things on her arm and palm that would be how she hacks into stuff. The plan is to add the cat onto her shoulder but I haven’t got around to rigging/posing that yet
I also realise I never shared some colour ideas I was playing with the other week. Colour is definitely my weak spot so will be playing about with this a bit, no doubt
