Hello, everyone! This is my first go at a challenge so let’s see how it goes.
I’ll start off by putting down some bullet points of what kind of character I wanted to create:
Classic Warlock with patron (probably evil) relationship
The character should resemble or try to mimic the patron’s appearance
Human but appearing like a creature through clothing
Old Hermit – clothing and items are made by the character
Weak in combat but good at scheming and tactics
Relies on invoking fear to avoid direct confrontation
One problem I might run into is that it will look too much like a druid however I’ll try to covey a sense of twisting/abusing nature instead of harmony with nature. With that in mind, here is some lore about the character:
Lore
Barael is a higher rank member of a cult called The Flock. Members of this organization serve a being called Volucris a giant vulturelike entity that forms a pact with those who pledge themselves to it. Barael himself has formed such a pact and gained a couple of magical powers. He is able to use curses and bestows decay and misfortune on those that oppose The Flock. Also granted to him are minor necromantic powers that can resurrect and command small animals (preferably birds) that he uses as scouts. When it comes to actual combat, Barael is fairly weak and will most likely rely on instilling fear in the enemy and avoid direct confrontation or call upon other servants to secure his retreat (he is more of a tactician with the cult).
Here is my first blockout of the character. Like I mentioned before the character tries to mimic the appearance of his patron with his clothing. All of stuff that he carries should be scavenged and processed by himself. the branches that are tied to his torso should not only look like something like boney wings but also function as a way he can carry his undead birds around. To get the hunched over look that vultures have i put a fur collar under the cowl.
I am not sure if I should hang something like wicker birdcages from the branches in the back since it might mess with the silhouette too much. If somebody has some more ideas of accessories that can be put on him feel free to comment.
Comments and Critiques are highly appreciated!
For the cloth, I kept it a thin plane until I finished the larger wrinkles and holes. Then I used panel loops to give it thickness and get a free playgroup for the border. Then I create fiber mesh on that group and mask it so that it doesn’t spawn around the entire rim. The rest us just surface noise and some alphas. I hope to bake the normal and alpha from this in the end. The actual fabric pattern I will do later when texturing.
Created Fur Card Textures using xGen for the base textures and later tweaked them in Substance Painter. I added them scaled-down in one of the 4k sets.
Man your baking skills are just outstanding!!
Can you please elaborate a little about your process? Is it the classic high to low painter process or did you do anything differently because these results are damn impressive my friend!
Thanks!
Yes, it is baked in Substance Painter by making heavy use of the bake by mesh name feature. If I have anything that is really close to each other like the sleeves and his torso I separate them into 2 different poly shells so that they don’t bake onto each other.
I also did multiple bakes (1 far distance, 1 close distance, and a couple more specific ones based on the object) so that I can paint out any errors.
I hope that helps!
